WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.990 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.990 --> 00:00:02.150 align:middle line:90% Good evening. 00:00:02.150 --> 00:00:06.300 align:middle line:84% I thought I'd begin by reading some early poems 00:00:06.300 --> 00:00:12.750 align:middle line:84% and that I'd also read a couple of early poems by W. H. Auden. 00:00:12.750 --> 00:00:19.200 align:middle line:84% Because Auden and I were at University together and when 00:00:19.200 --> 00:00:22.230 align:middle line:84% I wrote my first poems, the poems 00:00:22.230 --> 00:00:27.060 align:middle line:84% that he was writing very much influenced me. 00:00:27.060 --> 00:00:32.759 align:middle line:84% I think Auden when he was an undergraduate already 00:00:32.759 --> 00:00:37.350 align:middle line:84% had a very strong, a very definite and clear theory 00:00:37.350 --> 00:00:39.750 align:middle line:90% about writing poetry. 00:00:39.750 --> 00:00:45.870 align:middle line:84% And this was that the subject of a poem didn't matter, 00:00:45.870 --> 00:00:49.620 align:middle line:84% and it didn't matter very much what the poem was about. 00:00:49.620 --> 00:00:58.100 align:middle line:84% The point was that you wrote a poetry which is about things 00:00:58.100 --> 00:01:02.670 align:middle line:84% and you made out of these things lines, 00:01:02.670 --> 00:01:07.860 align:middle line:84% lines which in his poetry were very memorable. 00:01:07.860 --> 00:01:09.900 align:middle line:84% But I think that when you listen to this poetry, 00:01:09.900 --> 00:01:13.560 align:middle line:84% you don't really want to know very much what it says, 00:01:13.560 --> 00:01:16.890 align:middle line:90% you really listen for the lines. 00:01:16.890 --> 00:01:20.130 align:middle line:84% So I'll read an early poem of Auden or two early poems 00:01:20.130 --> 00:01:24.480 align:middle line:84% are Auden which he wrote when he was an undergraduate. 00:01:24.480 --> 00:01:29.490 align:middle line:84% He also thought that poems ought to be very detached, that they 00:01:29.490 --> 00:01:33.150 align:middle line:84% ought to be written as it were from an almost 00:01:33.150 --> 00:01:35.400 align:middle line:90% scientific point of view. 00:01:35.400 --> 00:01:38.670 align:middle line:84% And that for instance, if you wrote a love poem, 00:01:38.670 --> 00:01:41.040 align:middle line:84% it shouldn't be a poem about your feelings, 00:01:41.040 --> 00:01:50.430 align:middle line:84% it should be more like a kind of analysis of a situation 00:01:50.430 --> 00:01:53.490 align:middle line:84% like almost like a chemical analysis. 00:01:53.490 --> 00:01:57.810 align:middle line:84% One of his favorite words was clinical, 00:01:57.810 --> 00:02:01.770 align:middle line:84% and another favorite word was symptomatic. 00:02:01.770 --> 00:02:06.000 align:middle line:84% So if you listen to this poem, you'll 00:02:06.000 --> 00:02:10.289 align:middle line:84% see it's a very clinical kind of love poem written by a very 00:02:10.289 --> 00:02:13.890 align:middle line:90% young man aged about 19. 00:02:13.890 --> 00:02:18.570 align:middle line:84% Consider if you will how lovers stand 00:02:18.570 --> 00:02:24.390 align:middle line:84% in brief adherence straining to preserve too 00:02:24.390 --> 00:02:28.530 align:middle line:90% long the suction of goodbye. 00:02:28.530 --> 00:02:32.250 align:middle line:84% Others less clinically minded will 00:02:32.250 --> 00:02:36.900 align:middle line:84% admire an evening like a colored photograph, 00:02:36.900 --> 00:02:41.010 align:middle line:84% a music stultified across the water. 00:02:41.010 --> 00:02:44.640 align:middle line:84% The desert opens here, and if though we 00:02:44.640 --> 00:02:50.100 align:middle line:84% have ligature the ends of a farewell, sporadic heartburn 00:02:50.100 --> 00:02:54.630 align:middle line:84% showing evidence of love and economically slain, 00:02:54.630 --> 00:02:59.640 align:middle line:84% it is for the last time the last look back, 00:02:59.640 --> 00:03:03.420 align:middle line:84% the heel upon the finishing blade of grass 00:03:03.420 --> 00:03:06.570 align:middle line:84% to dazzling cities of the plain where 00:03:06.570 --> 00:03:10.290 align:middle line:90% lust threatened a sinister rod. 00:03:10.290 --> 00:03:15.570 align:middle line:84% And we shall form in us to a study of stones. 00:03:15.570 --> 00:03:19.320 align:middle line:84% Sorry--and we shall turn to our study of stones 00:03:19.320 --> 00:03:26.280 align:middle line:84% to split Eve's apple absorbed content if we can say because. 00:03:26.280 --> 00:03:29.250 align:middle line:84% I'm answerable like any other patent, 00:03:29.250 --> 00:03:34.350 align:middle line:84% like Solomon and Sheeba wrong for years. 00:03:34.350 --> 00:03:35.640 align:middle line:90% I found difficulty in read. 00:03:35.640 --> 00:03:39.480 align:middle line:84% I couldn't read one or two words because I printed this book 00:03:39.480 --> 00:03:43.650 align:middle line:84% on a hand press, this book of Auden's poems 00:03:43.650 --> 00:03:47.820 align:middle line:84% on a hand press which I had when we were students. 00:03:47.820 --> 00:03:51.480 align:middle line:84% And about half the tape broke in the case, 00:03:51.480 --> 00:03:53.640 align:middle line:90% in this of course bringing. 00:03:53.640 --> 00:03:56.160 align:middle line:84% But what was memorable about poems 00:03:56.160 --> 00:04:00.540 align:middle line:84% like this were just lines, an evening like a colored 00:04:00.540 --> 00:04:05.780 align:middle line:84% photograph, a music stultified across the waters.