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READ THIS
The poem, which was written about six months before the outbreak of the Second World War, deals with
a German Jewish couple struggling to get a passport. They have lost their home and country, and are
filled with helpless despair.
The poem contains repetition and is written like a sad blues song which was made popular by African
Americans at about the same time. The refrain at the end of each stanza echoes the melancholy tone.
ABOUT THE POET
Wystan Hugh Auden is regarded by many as the most influential poet of the 20th century, a man who
inspired other giants of the poetic world such as C. Day-Lewis, Louis MacNeice and Stephen Spender.
He was born in 1907 in York, the son of a medical practitioner and a university-educated mother. He
attended Oxford University where he graduated in 1928 with a lowly 3rd class degree in Literature.
While at Oxford, he became known for his poetry and his eccentricities and, most notably, for his series
of homosexual relationships.
Auden became a schoolmaster, which later allowed T.S. Eliot to criticise him for allowing his pedantic
teaching style to influence his poetry.
In 1935 he married Erika Mann, a German lesbian who needed to escape from Germany. The marriage
was one of convenience, designed purely to provide her with British citizenship.
During the 1930s Auden became enamoured with left-wing politics and social causes, although he would
later tire of the contradictions inherent in this. Eventually he would claim that politics and art could never
be combined.
In January 1939, shortly before the outbreak of war, he sailed for New York. Because this was seen as
desertion from his homeland which was about to be embroiled in conflict, he lost much of his reputation
in England. As a result, he settled in the United States and eventually took out citizenship there.
While in the United States, he established a permanent relationship with the 18 year old poet, Chester
Kallman, who would become his lifelong companion.
Auden would lecture literature at several universities, including Oxford where his tenure demanded that
he give only three lectures per year. He would die in Vienna in 1973, shortly after delivering a guest
lecture.
Have you looked at the questions
in the right column?
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TEST YOURSELF!
Read the left column and then answer
the following questions:
The title of the poem is "Refugee Blues".
- Discuss the significance of this title. (5)
[Need help?]
A refugee is someone who has been forced to leave his home and country. The "Blues" are sad
songs made popular by African Americans.
The poet emphasises the couple's plight with the use of this title. They are destitute, faced with the grim
reality of being unable to return their own country and unable to travel to find a home somewhere else
because they cannot secure passports.
The melancholy song conveys their misery and depressed state of mind. The title and poem are clear
indictments of man's inhumanity to man.
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"Once we had a country and we thought it fair,
Look in the atlas and you'll find it there:
We cannot go there now, my dear, we cannot go their now."
- Which two points are highlighted in this stanza? (6)
[Need help?]
The country where they were born and which nurtured them has turned its back on them. They are made
to feel that they do not belong there.
They have been exiled and as refugees can only look at their country in an atlas. They are not able to
return because of their religion.
It is very sad when you are no longer welcome in the country where your roots are; where you spent most
of your life and where your memories lie.
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"In the village churchyard there grows an old yew,
Every spring it blossoms anew:
Old passports can't do that, my dear, old passports can't do that."
[Need help?]
A yew tree is a dark-leaved evergreen deciduous tree which is traditionally planted in graveyards.
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- What is the connection between the yew tree and passports? (3)
[Need help?]
A yew tree never dies in winter. It rejuvenates itself each spring when it produces flowers which can
perpetuate the cycle of life.
A passport does not have the power of rejuvenation. One needs bureaucracy and administrative officials
with all their paper work to secure a new passport. Once a passport has expired, there is no hope of
natural renewal.
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- What is the implication of the word "anew"? (3)
[Need help?]
The word implies that nature is able to rejuvenate itself, time and time again. Unfortunately the same does
not apply to their passports which are man-made.
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"If you've no passport you're officially dead."
- What is the purpose of this line in the context of the poem? (4)
[Need help?]
It emphasises the ridiculousness of bureaucracy. How can they be dead when they are standing right
there in front of the official?
It also emphasises the hopelessness of their situation. How can they fight such single-minded officials
who only trust what they see on paper?
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"If we let them in, they will steal our daily bread."
- To whom does "them" refer? (2)
[Need help?]
It refers to the Jews. It introduces the idea of stereotyping: all Jews are evil and need to be avoided.
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"Saw a poodle in a jacket fastened with a pin,
Saw a door opened and a cat let in:
But they weren't German Jews, my dear, but they weren't German Jews."
- What is the "pin" the poet refers to and why does he make specific mention of
it? (4)
[Need help?]
It is important to note that a pin here does not refer to the common item you would use to replace a button.
It actually refers to a brooch.
The significance of the "pin" is that it is incongruous: it just does not belong on an animal!
The Germans treat their pets far better than they treat their fellow human beings, the German Jews. They
dress their pets in clothes and decorate them with jewellery while the Jews are relegated to living in
"holes".
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"Went down to the harbour and stood upon the quay."
- For what reason would the couple have gone to the harbour? (3)
[Need help?]
They would be looking at the possibility of boarding a ship to get out of the country -- something they
cannot do without a passport.
The ships are so close. If they could just get on board a ship, they could escape to freedom.
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"Walked through the wood, saw the birds in the trees;
They had no politicians and sang at their ease."
- Explain why the poet refers to "woods", "birds" and "politicians". (6)
[Need help?]
The birds and the woods signify peacefulness and freedom of movement: a lack of restriction. This
freedom contrasts with the need for a passport to be able to travel: birds do not need a piece of paper
to give them permission to fly.
The reference to "politicians" focuses our attention on how much easier life would be without
bureaucracy. It is through the intervention of politicians that life becomes complicated and restricted.
Politicians were responsible for the introduction of discriminatory racial laws which led to the exile and
persecution of the Jews.
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