In W. H. Auden's poem, "Musee des Beaux Arts," the
speaker points out how irrelevant individual momentous events are to many but those
involved in them. And, it is Auden's allusion to "dreadful martyrdom," the Crucifixion
of Christ, that pointedly underscores the insignificance given to even such occurrences
as Christ's dying for mankind.
Prior to this line, the
reader is told that the "miraculous birth" was as casually ignored by
children
...who did not specially want it to happen,
skating
On a pond at the edge of the
wood
Cleverly, Auden employs
the word specially rather than
especially, suggesting the innocent vocabulary of the children
which is in conflict with the disturbing emotions that are felt by the poet. The
reference to ice skating in Palestine is an incongruity with reality,too, which further
calls attention to something that is wrong. For, the people act much like the dogs who
simply go on "with their doggy life."
Certainly, there is
a blurring of the lines between life and art as Auden employs
ekphrasis. While art mitigates the horror of some occurrences in
life, such as the Spanish Civil War and the ascendancy of Fascism in Germany about which
Auden was dismayed, it is this "amoral insouciance" that also much disturbs Auden both
in life and in art such as the painting "Landscape with the Fall of
Icarus."
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