As I Walked Out One Evening by W H Auden - Poetry Reading
- 12 years ago
As I Walked Out One Evening - A poem by W H Auden.
The poem is relayed to the reader by an unidentified persona witnessing the events as they take place, without personally being involved in them, which places the poem in the narrative genre. From a structural point of view, the rhyme scheme applied in the poem is fairly simple. Through the use of a masculine end rhyme following the pattern of abcb, Auden conforms to the standard criteria used in ballads of the 12th century. The meter of the different quatrains is both varied and complex, but the dominant one can be said to be iambic trimeter, interspersed with elements of both trochaic and anapaestic feet. Auden also uses a frequent repetition of certain phrases, which add extra emphasis and stress. This is called spondaic feet and can be found both in the 13th and 14th quatrains. An interesting note is that the author himself stated that ""As I Walked Out One Evening"" was originally intended to be a song, which might very well have played a quintessential role in regards to choice of genre. In its original form, ballads were often performed by a single bard, using simplistic language and imagery, as the sole means of passing the poem on to succeeding generations was through word of mouth, which made simplicity a dire necessity.
About the poet - Wystan Hugh Auden (1907 -- 1973) was an Anglo-American poet born in England, later an American citizen. He was born in York, England. His work mostly centered around moral and political issues. The central themes of his poetry are love, politics, religion, morals, relationship between unique human beings and the anonymous and impersonal world of nature. He is regarded by many as one of the greatest writers of the 20th century.
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The poem is relayed to the reader by an unidentified persona witnessing the events as they take place, without personally being involved in them, which places the poem in the narrative genre. From a structural point of view, the rhyme scheme applied in the poem is fairly simple. Through the use of a masculine end rhyme following the pattern of abcb, Auden conforms to the standard criteria used in ballads of the 12th century. The meter of the different quatrains is both varied and complex, but the dominant one can be said to be iambic trimeter, interspersed with elements of both trochaic and anapaestic feet. Auden also uses a frequent repetition of certain phrases, which add extra emphasis and stress. This is called spondaic feet and can be found both in the 13th and 14th quatrains. An interesting note is that the author himself stated that ""As I Walked Out One Evening"" was originally intended to be a song, which might very well have played a quintessential role in regards to choice of genre. In its original form, ballads were often performed by a single bard, using simplistic language and imagery, as the sole means of passing the poem on to succeeding generations was through word of mouth, which made simplicity a dire necessity.
About the poet - Wystan Hugh Auden (1907 -- 1973) was an Anglo-American poet born in England, later an American citizen. He was born in York, England. His work mostly centered around moral and political issues. The central themes of his poetry are love, politics, religion, morals, relationship between unique human beings and the anonymous and impersonal world of nature. He is regarded by many as one of the greatest writers of the 20th century.
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