1st September 1939 - W H Auden (Reading Journal)

• Not written in ballad form which is typical of Auden's poetry, links to Musee des Beaux Arts in this way. Free Verse, no rhyme scheme or rhythm.
• Like a monologue/inner voice, lots of enjambement ('All the conventions conspire // To make this fort assume) which exaggerates this idea. Stream of thoughts.
• Also stands out in Auden's poetry as there is not character, it is just Auden himself talking to the reader, rather than using a different narrative voice. 
• 1939 - Just before the start of the second world war lots of links to this throughout, e.g. 'Into this neutral air', Hitler slowly becoming a dictator, dictator's prefer neutrality. 'Blind Skyscrapers' lots of power but no vision?
• 'Where blind skyscrapers use // Their full height to proclaim // The strength of Collective Man' - Published world wide in Newspapers after 911 mainly because of this stanza.
• 'On Fifty Second Street' Sets the scene, Englishman in a dive in New York.
• 'What mad Nijinsky wrote // About Diaghilev' Lovers who worked for the Ballet Rous, had a stormy relationship.  Representation of the world at that time, countries had very stormy relationship, just before the outbreak of war. 
• 'I will be true to the wife, I'll concentrate more on my work'  Only time in the poem that other voices are used, and it is a chorus of voices, not one person.  Almost like a pledge.
• Repetition of 'Who' (lines 75-78) almost as if he is pleading with society 'all i have is a voice // To undo the folded lie' woeful.