Under which lyre poem

Thursday, August 22, W. Thou shalt not answer questionnaires Or quizzes upon World-Affairs, Nor with compliance Take any test.

Thou shalt not sit With statisticians nor commit A social science. Or one might have taken part in some revolutionary or underground movement against the enemy. That sort of thing does not belong in a well-ordered Tory, Apollonian world. The professor, during the War, did not always have command over bodies of men; but they did exert power and they cannot forget it.

So the scions of Apollo must avail themselves of the inventions of the followers of Hermes. But they also recognize that there is a power beyond them:. This is much more than the strife between Conservative and Liberal; or between Tory politicians and Laborites. It is a conflict between two ways of life. The book was attacked by the scientists who are followers of Hermes and today, actual, general Semantics, theoretically pioneered by Korzybski, is actually in the hands of the followers of Apollo.

Stanzas 8 and 9 bring out what Auden calls the sophomoric type. The suggestion is that when we approach the forties in our lives, there is a danger of becoming fat, prosperous and superficial— though it is then we hold the reins of power perhaps more than at any other age. In contrast Stanza 10 :.

So we have the stuffed shirt, the civil servant, the professional classes. In Stanza 12 Shaw is mentioned as a Hermes man and here Auden includes the Phi-Beta-Kappas, the cream of the intellectuals, which would suggest the type winning Noble prizes, etc. Yet Auden is quite aware of the fallacies and weaknesses of the scions of Hermes, for. One is reminded here of the quasi-political life of some of our physicists.

Adventurous people do not adhere to law, order, stability. Official art. Stanza This theme is then further developed where we see the Extrovert in power, offering us all the orthodoxies. Zeus willing, we, the unpolitical, Shall beat him yet. Lone scholars, sniping from the walls Of learned periodicals, Our facts defend, Our intellectual marines, Landing in little magazines Capture a trend. By night our student Underground At cocktail parties whisper round From ear to ear; Fat figures in the public eye Collapse next morning, ambushed by Some witty sneer.

In our morale must lie our strength: So, that we may behold at length Routed Apollo's Battalions melt away like fog, Keep well the Hermetic Decalogue, Which runs as follows:— Thou shalt not do as the dean pleases, Thou shalt not write thy doctor's thesis On education, Thou shalt not worship projects nor Shalt thou or thine bow down before Administration.

Thou shalt not answer questionnaires Or quizzes upon World-Affairs, Nor with compliance Take any test. Thou shalt not sit With statisticians nor commit A social science. Thou shalt not be on friendly terms With guys in advertising firms, Nor speak with such As read the Bible for its prose, Nor, above all, make love to those Who wash too much. Thou shalt not live within thy means Nor on plain water and raw greens.

Like 3 0 Thank you! Great Amazing Like 3. A college doesn't want to be told what to do by the students it graduated. There's an Auden stave to describe this phenomenon as well:. And always the loud angry crowd, Very angry and very loud, Law is We, And always the soft idiot softly Me.

Michael is an editor of Nextbook and a contributing editor of Jewcy. His blog is Snarksmith.