SEPTEMBER 1, 1939

W.H AUDEN:
W.H. Auden was a poet, author and playwright. Auden was a leading literary influencer in the
20th century. Known for his chameleon-like ability to write poems in almost every verse form,
Auden's travels in countries torn by political strife influenced his early works. He won the
Pulitzer Prize in 1948, with his health waning, Auden left America in 1972 and moved back to
Oxford. He spent his last days in Austria, where he owned a house. Auden died in Vienna,
Austria, on September 29, 1973.

INTRODUCTION:
W.H. Auden's "September 1, 1939" was first published in the October 18, 1939, edition of The
New Republic, before being included in the poet's collection Another Time. "September 1, 1939"
is a poem about war and the futility of war. The title refers to the date that Germany crossed the
border to invade Poland, an act of aggression that escalated in the following days to draw many
countries allied with one side or the other into the fighting, quickly leading to the start of the
Second World War.

The poem captures feelings of fear and uncertainty in the face of fascism and war—as well as
glimmers of hope that people might come together to counter authoritarianism. It is one of
Auden's most well-known poems, and widely considered one of the greatest poems of the 20th
century

HISTORICAL CONTEXT:
THE INVASION OF POLAND:
The events that occurred on September 1, 1939, were long in coming. They had their roots in the
world order established by the Treaty of Versailles at the end of World War I. Maps were
reconfigured at that time to allow Poland access to the Baltic Sea, so that it could be
economically independent from Germany. For years, the German people resented the fact that a
"Polish Corridor" had been designed, dividing Germany from East Prussia, and the fact that the
port city of Danzig, which had a predominantly German population, had been ceded to Poland.
When Adolf Hitler rose to power in Germany in 1933, he actively pursued German claims to the
disputed territories.

With the German-Polish Non-Aggression Treaty, signed on January 26, 1934, both sides agreed
to keep the current borders intact for ten years. In 1938, however, Hitler's Nazi Party pursued a
policy of expansion, and claims for the territory that had been given up after World War I
intensified. Poland rejected plans that would run a road through the Polish Corridor, connecting
Germany with East Prussia, because the plans seemed designed to divide and weaken Poland.
Germany withdrew from the 1934 treaty, but signed new agreements with Poland and other
European countries to avoid war.

At the same time that it was promising to avoid war, Germany was meeting with Russia to form
an alliance. The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, signed on August 23, 1939, contained provisions for
a realignment Of Europe that were not made public until after the war. The basic division of the
continent would give Germany control over the western third of the continent and Russia control
over the eastern two thirds. With Soviet cooperation assured, Germany invaded Poland a week
after the pact was signed. On September 17th, Russia invaded Poland from the east.

THE RESULTING OF WAR:

Two days after the invasion began, before Auden actually wrote this poem, the United Kingdom,
New Zealand, and Australia declared war on Germany, in accordance with mutual defense pacts
that they had signed with Poland. Within hours, France had declared war too. South Africa
joined the fight on September 6th, and Canada joined on September 10th. The fact that the
invasion had escalated quickly into a global conflict did little to help Poland, though. Poland was
defeated on October 6th and entirely occupied by Germany and the Soviet Union.

After that, Germany expanded across Europe, defeating Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, and
France in 1940. In June of 1941, Germany turned against the Soviet Union, which, along with
Italy and Japan, was a member of the Axis Powers after signing a treaty of alliance the previous
year. Despite the spread of war, American citizens chose to stay uninvolved: the country
provided weapons and money to the United Kingdom and France, but diplomatically, the United
States remained neutral. Indeed, the United States did not commit to fighting until Japan attacked
the naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941, in an attempt to cripple American
military capacity in the Pacific. Because Japan was allied with Germany, the U.S. declaration of
war against Japan drew America into the European arm of the war as well.

SUMMARY:
I'm sitting in one of the cheap dive bars on 52nd Street in New York City feeling uncertain and
afraid, as my hopes of a better time fade in the face of this decade's true nature: degraded and
untruthful. Rushes of anger and fear are sweeping across countries all around the world and
consuming the inner thoughts of everyday people. The terrible implication of death and war
hangs over this September night like a bad smell. History and scholarship can help explain the
origins of this horror to the 15th century with Martin Luther, the leader of the Protestant
Reformation—which has right up until today twisted and rotted Germany's entire culture.

Look to what happened at Linz (i.e., the birth of Adolf Hitler) and how his youthful influences
made him into a psychopathic, power-hungry dictator. For I and everybody else knows what all
children learn at school: people who are harmed and bullied harm and bully others in return. The
exiled Greek general Thucydides understood what rhetoric can reveal about the state of
democracy, and about what dictators are like—all the garbage they spew until their indifferent
deaths. Thucydides analyzed it all in his book—how dictatorships edge out knowledge and
reason, how the societies that dictators rule over become used to suffering, how poor governance
and sorrow leave their mark. And now we must suffer all those same societal ills all over again.

Here, in this supposedly neutral country, the towering skyscrapers use all their might to present a
facade of unity and democracy, but this high-minded rhetoric is just a cover-up. How long can
people live under this pretense of a beautiful but false ideal? Eventually they look at themselves
in the mirror and see their government's actions—imperialism and war—staring right back at
them. Other people sitting at the bar would rather hold on tight to the normality of their everyday
lives—for the lights to stay on, the music to keep playing, as though nothing's wrong.

All around us, the conventions of daily life work together to make this fortress we're living in
feel like a home, preventing us from seeing where we really are—lost in haunted forest—and
who we really are—vulnerable people afraid of the world's evils, who are neither as happy nor as
innocent as we'd like to believe. The meaningless propaganda championed by so-called
Important People is not nearly as indecent as our own desires. What the ballet dancer Nijinsky
wrote about his lover Diaghilev is true for everyone. The fundamental human flaw is that we all
want what we cannot have: love for ourselves and ourselves only, rather than universal love that
benefits everyone.

Out of the repressed muddle of their feelings and into moral life come everyday people,
repeating their daily promises as they head off to work in the morning: "I will not cheat on my
wife. I will apply myself harder at work." And above them, the so-called people in charge
continue playing at governance, as their roles dictate they must. Who can free all these people?
Who can be heard by those who don't want to listen, or speak on behalf on those who won't
express themselves? The only thing I have to offer is my own voice, but with that voice I can
pierce through the lie embedded in society—the alluring lie that everyday people have
absorbed, the lie that the government holds all the power.

The truth is that "the State" as people think of it doesn't exist, and that none of us are powerless
individuals. Don't all of us—citizens and authorities—experience hunger the same way? We
must care for one another, or die divided. Helplessly ignorant, most of our world sits in a
vulnerable daze. Even so, all around, pinpricks of unexpected hope shine wherever those
committed to justice connect with one another. Oh, may I, though I am just another human made
of desire and dust, and stricken by the same cynicism and worry, do the same, and support their
hope with my own voice.

SYMBOLS:
SKYSCRAPERS:
In the poem skyscrapers and other towers represent the modern world and its vertical hierarchies.
The towers are both symbols of commerce and authority and, as radio towers, engines of
government propaganda and mass culture. Auden uses the towers to suggest that people live in
the shadow of their governments and cultures as much as city dwellers live in the shadows of
skyscrapers. That the poem is set in New York City is also important. At the time the city was
unique for its impressive skyline.

THE AFFIRMING FLAME:

The "affirming flame" that Auden writes about in the poem's final line is representative of human
connection, hope, connection and empathy. It also represents the poem's own purpose: to offer
hope in a time of fear. Auden writes that "ironic points of light / Flash out wherever the Just /
Exchange their messages." In the final lines he hopes to spite the "negation and despair" he feels
by writing a message that will "show an affirming flame."

ANALYSIS:
STANZA 1:
The opening lines of "September 1, 1939" place the poem's speaker in a bar in New York City.
Auden, who had recently immigrated to the United States after living in Europe all his life, wrote
this poem to record his response to the news that on the date mentioned in the title, the German
army had invaded Poland, an act of aggression that was to grow, in a matter of days, into the
Second World War.

In line 5, "a low dishonest decade" refers to the slow buildup to this event, which was precluded
by negotiations and treatises meant to prevent just such an attack, which seemed, in retrospect,
inevitable. The reference to "Waves of anger and fear" that "Circulate over the bright / And
darkened lands" is an acknowledgement that this invasion was happening in a new age of mass
media, when radio could relay news across the globe more instantaneously than had ever been
possible before

STANZA 2:
Line 14 mentions Martin Luther, a 16th century German monk and theologian who is widely
considered one of the most important thinkers in history. Luther's writings, coming just as the
printing press made it possible to reproduce and distribute written materials, challenged basic
tenants of Christianity, leading to the Protestant Reformation: nearly four hundred million
Protestant Christians follow some form of religious practice that is directly related to Luther's
theories. This poem indicates that Luther was the start of an "offence," one which "has driven a
culture mad" because of the anti-Semitism that Luther came to espouse later in life.

Luther's idea that the Jewish faith could be obliterated by converting all Jews to Christianity later
turned angry and dark, as he advocated violence against Jews and the destruction or confiscation
of their property. His ideas were adapted by the Nazi party in the twentieth century as intellectual
support for their own virulent anti-Semitism. Linz, mentioned in line 16, is the area in Austria
where Adolf Hitler, the Chancellor who drove the Germans to war on September 1, was born. He
considered it his home town, and wanted it to be a major cultural center of the Third Reich.
Hitler traveled to Linz to make the formal announcement of his plans to annex Austria into the
German empire on March 13, 1938. One of the Nazis' major concentration camps, Mauthausen,
was built just fifteen miles from Linz in August of 1938. It began as a place to incarcerate
thieves and prostitutes, but starting in May of 1939, it began taking in political prisoners almost
exclusively. "Imago," used in line 17, is a term from biology, referring to the final stage of
development for an insect, its adult form. In psychology, the word is used to describe an image
developed in childhood of an idealized person; that image, carried over into adulthood, causes
conflicts when it bumps up against reality. Auden uses "imago" to imply that humans' need to
worship someone or something has created an image that allows, or even encourages, the type of
violence that will only stir up more violence in retaliation.

STANZA 3:
Thucydides was a general of ancient Athens who was sent into exile after a military defeat in 411
BCE. In the book that he wrote in exile, History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides
reproduces several famous speeches, including Pericles's funeral oration, which praises
democracy and the people who have died in the defense of it. In this stanza, Auden faults
centuries of humanity for not seeing beyond the "rubbish" of Thucydides’ noble words,
continuing to make the same mistakes as people made back then because pain and grief are
"habit-forming."

STANZA 4:
Starting around the turn of the century, buildings began to reach new heights, using steel beams
to hold them together instead of just concrete walls. The word "skyscraper" was coined in the
late nineteenth century, but over the decade’s newer construction designs allowed for taller and
taller buildings: New York City's Empire State Building, built in 1931, held the record as the
world's tallest building for 40 years. Manhattan is an island, with limited space to expand except
up, and has therefore always attracted skyscraper development.

In this poem, Auden inverts the conventional view of skyscrapers, seeing them, not as
achievements, but as signs of failure, an "excuse." To him, they represent the drive of
imperialism, a policy of powerful countries exerting control over smaller ones. As he wrote in
New York City, he drew comparisons between the conspicuous signs of capitalism around him
and the military aggression of Germany.

STANZA 5:
The poem returns to the setting established in the first stanza, describing the people sitting at the
bar. In this stanza, Auden examines the reaction of ordinary Americans to the world-changing
events in Europe on that day. He records their apathy and their desperation that things must
continue as they always have, that "The music must always play." The bar that he is in, described
as a "dive" in the poem's first line, is referred to here as a "fort" because of the common person's
desperation to hold out uncomfortable news. In the second half of the stanza he refers to people
living in the delusion of comfort as children, living in fear and deluded into thinking that they are
shielded from harm because they have been happy and good, when in fact the opposite is true:
this truth is hidden by tradition, custom, and "conventions."

STANZA 6:
In this stanza, Auden compares the rants of "windiest" militants and famous politicians to the
deepest desires of the common people. What they have in common is that the desire for love is
not a wish for everyone to love everyone else, but for oneself to be loved by everyone. Vaslav
Nijinsky (1890-1950) was a famous Russian ballet dancer, considered by many to be one of the
greatest dancers of all time. At the height of his career, in 1909, he became romantically
involved with Russian businessman and philanthropist Serge Diaghilev, whose financial support
helped make the Ballets Russes one of the most important and successful companies of its time.
In 1919, Nijinsky suffered a nervous breakdown, and spent the rest of his life in a series of
mental institutions.

According to Sam Diener in an annotated commentary of "September 1, 1939" in Educators for

Social Responsibility, Nijinsky wrote in his diary that "Some politicians are hypocrites like
Diaghilev, who does not want universal love, but to be loved alone." Auden uses some of these
same words, and certainly the same sentiment, in this stanza of the poem. The phrase "bred in the
bone," in line 62, is a shortened version of the proverb "What's bred in the bone will come out in
the flesh," which means that habits that are rooted deep within the essence of human beings will
always show themselves in human behavior.

STANZA 7:
The common people are held up to comparison with their political rulers in this stanza. In the
first few lines, members of the working class are characterized as "commuters" who travel to
work in the city. Their journey from the darkness to "the ethical life" indicates an attempt to
become morally better than they are, but their morals are characterized by hollow platitudes that
only serve to support the traditional understanding of social order. The politicians, who might be
thought of as being in charge, are in fact "helpless." Their actions are not the exertion of their
will, but some sort of "compulsory game" from which they cannot gain "release." Citizens and
politicians alike are presented in the last lines of the stanza as being deaf and mute (dumb).

STANZA 8:
After a long stretch of observation, the poet returns to self-reflection, thinking about where his
own role is in this complex social order. As in previous stanzas, he recognizes the social order
that is followed by both citizens and political rulers alike, to be a lie that is balanced on the
competing ideas that “there is no such thing as the State “but that” no one exists alone The poem
recognizes the fact that there needs to be social order, but that the prevailing social order is one
of mutual agreement and is not necessarily the way that things have to be. He does not blame
either side of the political equation, recognizing that both citizens and those who hold political
power are driven by the basic concern for their own survival, but still, he knows that the answer
to life's mystery is not one of fighting against one another in fear of going hungry, but to love
one another. In line 88, Auden presents love for each other as being unequivocally necessary for
life.

STANZA 9:
The poem's final stanza restates its claims of fear and helplessness. After talking about the world
in general, though, it starts to recognize the exceptions to the rule, the individuals who can see
through the mistaken assumptions that lead the rest of the population toward hate and apathy.
There are people, characterized here as "points of light," who recognize the human situation but
are still willing to be positive. Auden acknowledges his own connection to them, stating that, like
them, he is made "Of Eros and of dust": "Eros" is a god of the ancient Greeks who is associated
with love and sexuality, which are usually considered basic ingredients of human personality,
while "dust" is a reference to the fact that humans are connected to the physical world as mortal
objects. The "affirming flame" of the poem's last line is an echo of the author's claim, in line 78,
that "All I have is a voice." In both cases, there is no specific course of action offered to combat
the situation described here. The poem does not advocate any one political stance, but instead
presents speaking out against fear and complacency as the best that one can do in the modern
world.

THEMES:
1. THERE IS NO STATE, ONLY PEOPLE:
Central to the poem's political message is a rejection of populism and governmental dominance.
This is more than just a denunciation of fascism. The poem implicitly rejects the idea that
governments are responsible for the actions of nations. Rather, the poem, with its argument that
the human heart is selfish, would contend that individuals are responsible for the evils that
governments carry out. In Stanza 2 the speaker outlines the progression of modern German
history from Martin Luther to the rise of Hitler. That German history is bookended by two
individuals is key, because it frames the political present as a product of individual decisions
rather than impersonal historical processes.

Stanza 4 attacks propaganda and populism, mocking the radio broadcasts that "proclaim / the
strength of Collective Man." Toward the end of the stanza, the speaker remarks that when people
look into a mirror, they see "imperialism's face" staring back, suggesting that forces such as
imperialism and fascism are not collective forces but the sums of individual prejudice and
callousness. This idea is elaborated on in Stanza 6, where the speaker says that the worst
propaganda is not as bad as the selfishness of "the normal heart."

In Stanza 8 this line of thought comes to its conclusion as Auden proclaims "the lie of Authority"
and that "there is no such thing as the State." These lines directly reject any idea of separation
between people and their governments. While Auden didn't realize it at the time, these lines
would become particularly damning after the war, when the German people were confronted
with the collective guilt of the Holocaust.
 2. REPITION OF THE HISTORY:
In the poem's third stanza Auden makes an important point by invoking the Athenian historian
Thucydides (c. 460–c. 404 BCE). Through the poem Auden is trying to warn the world of the
hardship and horror to come, using a historical parallel as an example. Thucydides died some
2,500 years ago, but his narrative about the war between the democracy of Athens and the
military oligarchy of Sparta is still relevant in a 20th-century context. When Auden claims that
the political dangers his world now faces were "analyzed all in [Thucydides’] book," he is
arguing that throughout history people have repeated the same mistakes, and they likely always
will.

As the poem puts it, "We must suffer them all again." This theme is further elaborated on in
Stanzas 5 and 7. In Stanza 5 Auden writes that people are "children afraid of the night / who
have never been happy or good." This suggests that throughout history, people have always had
the same fears and shortcomings. Stanza 7, meanwhile, examines the inner lives of ordinary
people who repeat daily "their morning vow" to work harder and be more honest and faithful.
The suggestion is that this would not be a morning vow if the people could stick to it in the first
place. In much the same way, the lessons of history become less important if humanity refuses to
learn from them

3. POWER:
One of Auden's central concerns in this poem is the way that power has traditionally been
exerted over masses of people. One clear manifestation of that is when governments use force
against each other with no better justification than that they have the power to do it, as was the
case with Hitler's invasion of Poland. The treaties and social conventions that could have kept
Germany at bay did little to stop Germany from annexing Poland: what mattered was that
Germany had the power to do so. The poem goes on to bring up Martin Luther's assertions that
force should be used to convert Jewish people to Christianity. The idea of using power to compel
religious thought seems self-contradictory, but Auden presents it as a theme that remained
constant from the sixteenth century to the twentieth.

Though he shows that there have always been backlashes and repercussions, just as there was
inevitable opposition to the annexation of Poland, his point is that those in power continue to
disregard the inevitable results and to assert their power. The brazen use of power is shown in
this poem to exist across the centuries, across all types of governments. Stanza 3 openly draws an
historical link between democracy and dictatorship in the ways that governments take advantage
of people's pain and grief to secure their loyalty. In stanza 4, the poem uses skyscrapers, which
are symbolic of the power of technology and capitalism, to be signs of imperialism, which is the
spread of government by force over unwilling populations. Throughout the poem, Auden gives
one example after another of ways in which those who have power force their will on those who
are weaker.

4. FEAR:
According to this poem, the fact that governments and other social institutions are able to impose
their power over ordinary people is less serious than the fact that many people give up their own
judgment and allow themselves to be ruled by fear. The poem mentions fear early, in line 3, and
the concept expands from there throughout the rest of its length. Stanzas 5 through 7, in
particular, focus on ways that average citizens give in to their own fears of what unknown,
unforeseeable things would happen to them if they tried to stand up against familiar traditions.
Line 50, for example, refers to a bar as a "fort" and presents New York City, and cities like it, as
"a haunted wood."

Even though cities are usually considered the opposite of unpopulated wooded areas, Auden
makes the connection by implying that both are ruled by unseen forces that people cannot
understand, and so they become fearful. In stanza 7, Auden quotes the common citizens as they
try to make bargains to protect themselves from the things that they fear. Their words are
phrased as vows that they will do things they assume will please those who hold power over
them, even though there is no real evidence that the ones they fear actually have control over
them or care what they do. In the following stanza, Auden refers to the thing they fear as,
respectively, "the folded lie," "The romantic lie," and "the lie of Authority."

5. HOPE:
Much of this poem is dedicated to documenting the frightening state of the modern world. In the
end, though, the poem comes around to examining what can be done to oppose the dark forces
that make life so frightening. Stanza 8 starts with the poet affirming that his one weapon against
all that is wrong is his "voice," implying that speaking out against injustice is a step that may be
small but is still significant. Auden advises his reader that the power of the government is just an
illusion with the claim that "there is no such thing as the State."

He goes on to note that the people in charge of the government are really just people, and not that
different than ordinary citizens, when he points out that hunger affects all the same way. By
breaking down the overwhelming power of government and tradition like this, he makes the task
of opposing it seem at least approachable. The last stanza, the poem even recognizes a certain
category of good people, identified as "the Just," with a capital "J." These are people who
exchange messages of hope with each other, who tend to hope in the same way that one would
tend "an affirming flame" against the negative forces that are trying to extinguish it.

6. STATE AUTHORITY VS. INDICVIDUAL

RESPONSIBILTY:
Throughout “September 1, 1939” the speaker denounces the fascism taking hold abroad, which
“darken[s] the lands of the earth” and has “the unmentionable odor of death.” The poem’s
condemnation goes beyond fascist government, however, as the speaker also lays the blame at
the feet of individual people for the “evil” that their governments carry out. In fact, the speaker
insists, because governments are made up of imperfect individuals, it is necessary for everyday
citizens to question their governments’ motives and authority. In the poem’s view, the idea of a
unified, benevolent state working on behalf of its people is an illusion—and it is vital that people
learn to see through this illusion to avoid become complicit in the state’s wrongdoings.

The poem immediately links the outbreak of war in Europe to individual people whose decisions,
past or present, have shaped the fate of nations (in particular, Germany). It starts with implicit
references to the rise of fascist Germany, which has the speaker feeling “uncertain and afraid.”
And though the poem is firmly rooted in this moment, it traces the origins of “the whole offence”
all the way back to Martin Luther, the 15th-century leader of the Protestant Reformation, before
connecting it to another individual, a “psychopathic” man born in “Linz”—Adolf Hitler. These
references show how individual people have played an outsize, damaging role in influencing
societal behavior.

In doing so, the poem undermines the idea of the state as some sort of infallible, intangible
entity that exists separately from people themselves. From there, the poem sets about
deconstructing the notion of a state or nation dedicated to the common good. The speaker pokes
holes in the idea of “the strength of Collective Man,” or a government that exists to serve its
citizens, even in a supposedly safe, comfortable, or “neutral” country like the United States (in
which the poem is set). The notion of a government working on behalf of its people, the speaker
argues, is but a “euphoric dream.” In other words, language of strength and unity is an “excuse”
covering up the fact that every government exploits its citizens’ trust and ignorance in order to
do harm. In reality, the speaker insists, every individual must confront “Imperialism’s face”—or
the actions of their government—in the mirror. Thus, though people are inclined bury their heads
in the sand and “cling to their average day,” the speaker exhorts readers to look instead at who
they really are: “children afraid of the night / who have never been happy or good.” Once people
have reckoned with their true role in current events and the shaping of history, the speaker
argues, they will be able to see through “the lie of Authority,” or the mistaken belief that
somebody else, somebody higher up, is the one really pulling the strings.

The poem therefore ends by arguing, somewhat paradoxically, that people must identify as
individuals even as they recognize their power as a group. “There is no such thing as the State,”
the speaker declares, and, at the same time, “no one exists alone.” It is up to each person, in other
words, to contribute to the common good. Otherwise, each individual is guilty of being a mere
“face along the bar,” distracted into ignoring or even colluding with governmental “evil[s]” like
those going on in Europe. Put more poetically, in the poem’s most famous line: “We must love
one another or die.”

7. LOVE, CONNNECTION AND JUSTICE:

In the poem's most famous line, the speaker declares, “We must love one another or die.” The
speaker consistently argues for the benefits of human connection, rejecting the all-too-human
impulse to desire “not universal love / but to be loved alone.” It’s far better for society, the
speaker argues, for people to acknowledge that “no one exists alone,” and with that knowledge,
to connect with others who are “Just.” Only by overcoming selfishness and working together, the
speaker insists, can people keep the “affirming flame” of hope and love burning bright. To put it
bluntly, human survival itself depends on love.
The first half of the poem is largely concerned with “evil” and all the ways in which society
enables bad actors and wrongdoing to flourish. Dictators spew worthless "rubbish," for example,
that drives away rational, enlightened thinking. Evil also begets evil, the speaker argues,
implying that some "huge imago"—or early influence—shaped Hitler into a cruel, power-hungry
dictator. There is also the more subtle but no less damaging “blind[ness]” of people in places like
the United States, who “cling to their average day”—that is, go about their regular lives—while
avoiding the harsh reality of war overseas.

Through these examples, the speaker identifies and condemns people’s selfishness and seeming
indifference to brutality. Human beings are all guilty of the same sin of self-absorption, the
speaker says, which allows evil to go unchecked. At first, the speaker seems at a loss for how to
combat this problem. He laments that most people are self-centered, indifferent, or
disempowered by society—metaphorically "deaf" and "dumb." But in the following stanza, the
speaker identifies a solution: “All I have is a voice.”

Despite describing this solution as meager, the speaker also admits that this “voice” can help “to
undo the folded lie” of fascism, complicity, and “Authority.” What’s more, that voice is not
alone: “dotted everywhere” are “points of light,” which “flash out wherever the Just / Exchange
their messages.” In other words, the speaker’s voice, though singular, is one of many such
singular voices, lighting up the darkness. When these voices are able to connect, they “show an
affirming flame” that helps combat the “negation and despair” described earlier in the poem. In
sum, poems like this one, and other messages of love and hope, serve as a way to “love one
another,” and thus keep justice alive in the face of evil.

LITERARY DEVICES:
ALLITERATION:
Alliteration is the repetition of the same consonant sounds at the beginning of
words that are in close proximity to each other.
• Line 2: second, sheet
• Line 5: dishonest, decades
• Line 40: live, long
• Line 48: music, must
• Line 49: conventions, conspire
• Line 62: bred, bone
• Line 64: craves, cannot
• Line 69: commuters, come
• Line 81: sensual, state
• Line 84: such, state
CONSONENCE:
Consonance is a literary device in which a consonant sound is repeated in words
that are in close proximity.
• Line 3: and, afraid
• Line 6: anger, fear
• Line 8: and, darkened
• Line 93: out, just
• Line 99: affirming

ENJAMBMENT:
Enjambment is a term used in poetry to refer to lines that end without punctuation
and without completing a sentence or clause.

 Line 1-5: I sit in one of the dives, on fifty second street, uncertain and afraid, as the clever
hope expires, of a low dishonest decade

ALLUSION:
An allusion is a literary device used to reference another object outside of the work
of literature. The object can be a real or fictional person, event, quote, or other
work of artistic expression.
• Line 2: on fifty second street
• Line 11: offends the September night
• Line 14: from Luther until now
• Line 16: find what occurred at Linz
• Line 23: exiled Thucydides knew
• Line 96: of Eros and of dust
• Line 59-60: what mad Nijinsky wrote-about Diaghilev

METAPHOR:
A metaphor is a rhetorical figure of speech that compares two subjects without the
use of “like” or “as.”
• Line 5: of a low dishonest decade
• Line 18: a psychopathic god
• Line 27-28: the elderly rubbish they talk, to an apathetic grave
• Line 51: the furniture of home
 • Line 53-54: lost in a haunted wood, children afraid of the night
• Line 83: whose buildings grope the sky
• Line 92: ironic points of light

ASSONANCE:
Assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds across a line of text or poetry. The
words have to be near enough to each other that the similar vowel sounds are
noticeable.
• Line 1: sit, in, dives
• Line 3: and, afraid
• Line 5: of, low
• Line 6: anger, and
• Line 15: that, has, mad
• Line 29: analyzed, all
• Line 85: and, alone

ANAPHORICS/RHEOTORIC:
An anaphora is a rhetorical device in which a word or expression is repeated at the
beginning of a number of sentences, clauses, or phrases.
 Line 75-77: who can release them now, who can reach the deaf, who can speak for the dumb?

PERSONIFICATION:
As a literary device, personification is the projection of characteristics that
normally belong only to humans onto inanimate objects, animals, deities, or forces
of nature.
• Line 35: where blind skyscrapers use
• Line 43: imperialism’s face
• Line 86: hunger allows no choice