The use of juxtapositions in “Musée des Beaux Arts”
‘Musée des Beaux Arts’ is a poem with many juxtapositions, which is used by Auden as a narrative technique. The first juxtaposition is ‘suffering’ alongside the mundane activities carried out by any regular person: ‘eating’, ‘opening a window’, and ‘walking dully along’. This particular contrast is significant as it reflects how suffering is inevitable and often it occurs amid terrestrial routines which take place without much thought emphasising one possible message Auden is trying to give to his readers which is that humans are selfish but unwillingly. Nevertheless, a mocking and humourous tone is created via Auden placing the ridiculous: ‘walking dully along’ and the tragic: ‘suffering’ alongside one another evoking an understanding that suggests it is morbid for us to live our lives in such a selfish manner. Just as Everett has pointed out in her book, Auden, it is difficult to pinpoint Auden’s actual thoughts in his poetry as “Auden can argue, reflect, joke, gossip, sing, analyze, lecture, hector, and simply talk”.
A second juxtaposition is the indifference between the old ‘waiting for the miraculous birth’ and ‘the children who did not specially want it to happen’. ‘The miraculous birth’ is used to draw a parallelism in the poem with the Christian account of Christ’s birth and Auden notes that the birth was anticipated ‘passionately’ and eagerly as a miracle, which could offer permanent redemption from the oppression of torment. Furthermore, Auden offers hints that only a miracle could offer an inducement from the egotistical lifestyle to a selfless one.
Auden’s juxtapositions infer that individual burdens are individual tragedies as humans are uninvolved with one another. It is unclear if Auden is trying to satirise humans’ indifferences to one another, as apposing the tragic with the ridiculous can be polysemic since Auden wrote that ‘the ulterior purpose [of poetry]...is telling the truth, to disenchant and disintoxicate. ‘Musée des Beaux Arts’ seeks to deromanticise death, the ‘dreadful martyrdom’ and ‘suffering’ achieves this through the juxtaposition of ordinary events: ‘dogs going on it’s doggy life’ and the extraordinary events: a ‘martyrdom’. Auden’s imagery of martyrdom is used to evidence the fact that major cases of human affliction have been overcome by events that have marked loss.
The final juxtaposition is of the fall of Icarus and the dismissive passersby. Although the merchants witness the fall of Icarus, none accords attention his way. This is important as in a similar manner, many individuals have identified suffering on a daily basis yet they have ultimately walked away unconcerned to the situations. The application of juxtapositions aids Auden in dealing with delicate, grave issues within the society in a manner that does not create abhorrence to the readers. Additionally, this juxtaposition is used to amplify the irony that exists between the current situation and what it ought to be. To conclude, I believe that in ‘Musée des Beaux Arts’ Auden claims that Breughel captures an important juxtaposition. It is a comparison not of showing which is more important, but rather how suffering occurs in our universe – in concert with other boring episodes.
