Chronology Entry
Year
1939
Text
Auden, W.H. Macao. In : Auden, W.H. ; Isherwood, Christopher. Journey to a war [ID D3432].
A weed from Catholic Europe, it took root
Between some yellow mountains and a sea,
Its gay stone houses an exotic fruit
A Portugal-cum-China oddity
Rococo images of saint and Saviour
Promise its gamblers fortunes when they die,
Churches alongside brothels testify
That faith can pardon natural behaviour.
A town of such indulgence need not fear
Those mortal sins by which the strong are killed
And limbs and governments are torn to pieces.
Religious clocks will strike, the childish vices
Will safeguard the low virtues of the child
And nothing serious can happen here.
Sekundärliteratur
George Monteiro : W.H. Auden's moral picture of Macao, now presented unobtrusively against a background of major wars, is one of greater destruction. The "men" who are torn to pieces become metonymically (and more graphically) "limbs"" and death--the sins that were major--have become "mortal." Other alterations affect tone, making it more colloquial. Moreover, his early modernist tendency to universalize gives way to greater particularity, to specifying and naming things. Macao ceases to be a "city" and becomes--rather off-handedly--a "town." While the original fourth line--"And grew on China imperceptibly"--turns into an accusation. The poet now makes Portugal directly responsible for introducing the European Catholicism that has given Macao its peculiar moral character.
Macao is now "a Portugal-cum-China oddity." Why make this quasi-observation into an accusation? In the context of Auden's personal moral landscape, Macao in 1938 embodies cultural oppositions and moral contradictions. Churches and brothels stand side by side, and (transvalued) vice has become, as in William Blake, the protector of virtue. The "town" is a place of sin and indulgence (recalling, perhaps, the sale of indulgences in an earlier time) for which there appears to be no punishment. Portugal has coupled with China to give birth to Macao. Given this context, it is appropriate that the Latin term cum, which gives Auden's phrase an ecclesiastical tinge, evokes as well its near-homonym in English, carrying with its connotative hint of the philoprogenerative.
A weed from Catholic Europe, it took root
Between some yellow mountains and a sea,
Its gay stone houses an exotic fruit
A Portugal-cum-China oddity
Rococo images of saint and Saviour
Promise its gamblers fortunes when they die,
Churches alongside brothels testify
That faith can pardon natural behaviour.
A town of such indulgence need not fear
Those mortal sins by which the strong are killed
And limbs and governments are torn to pieces.
Religious clocks will strike, the childish vices
Will safeguard the low virtues of the child
And nothing serious can happen here.
Sekundärliteratur
George Monteiro : W.H. Auden's moral picture of Macao, now presented unobtrusively against a background of major wars, is one of greater destruction. The "men" who are torn to pieces become metonymically (and more graphically) "limbs"" and death--the sins that were major--have become "mortal." Other alterations affect tone, making it more colloquial. Moreover, his early modernist tendency to universalize gives way to greater particularity, to specifying and naming things. Macao ceases to be a "city" and becomes--rather off-handedly--a "town." While the original fourth line--"And grew on China imperceptibly"--turns into an accusation. The poet now makes Portugal directly responsible for introducing the European Catholicism that has given Macao its peculiar moral character.
Macao is now "a Portugal-cum-China oddity." Why make this quasi-observation into an accusation? In the context of Auden's personal moral landscape, Macao in 1938 embodies cultural oppositions and moral contradictions. Churches and brothels stand side by side, and (transvalued) vice has become, as in William Blake, the protector of virtue. The "town" is a place of sin and indulgence (recalling, perhaps, the sale of indulgences in an earlier time) for which there appears to be no punishment. Portugal has coupled with China to give birth to Macao. Given this context, it is appropriate that the Latin term cum, which gives Auden's phrase an ecclesiastical tinge, evokes as well its near-homonym in English, carrying with its connotative hint of the philoprogenerative.
Mentioned People (1)
Auden, W.H.
(York 1907-1973 Wien) : Dichter, Schriftsteller, Professor of Poetry, Oxford University ; amerikanische Staatsbürgerschaft
Subjects
Literature : Occident : Great Britain
Documents (2)
| # | Year | Bibliographical Data | Type / Abbreviation | Linked Data |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1939 | Auden, W.H. ; Isherwood, Christopher. Journey to a war. (New York, N.Y. : Random House ; London : Faber & Faber, 1939). = Auden, W.H. Journey to a war. (New York, N.Y. : Octagon Books, 1972).= Rev. ed. (London : Faber and Faber, 1973). [Enthält : Sonnets from China].[Bericht über die Jahre 1937-1945]. | Publication / Aud5 | |
| 2 | 2007 |
Monteiro, George. Auden on Macao. In : Notes on Contemporary Literature, Vol. 37, No. 3 (2007) http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Auden+on+Macao.-a0185166824 |
Publication / Aud9 |