I majored in English literature at Wayne State University in the late 1960’s and early ’70s. As part of the curriculum, I had to read a fair amount of poetry.
But none of it came to life like W. H. Auden’s poem “Musee des Beax Arts” did when Elisa Gabbert explored it in her New York Times article “A Poem (and a Painting) About the Suffering That Hides in Plain Sight.” If you want to understand a poem in depth, I highly recommend Gabbert’s essay, which starts with the poem’s opening lines:
“About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window
or just walking dully along…”
Reading this article is like taking a short course in poetry appreciation. Well done!
