Katie PrestageHow far do you agree that Audens poems have love at their centre?

In the poem Miss Gee love is the most prominent facet. Auden presents love as a torturous experience through describing the heart wrenching havoc it invokes when love is not requited and how sexual repression can cause you to live a lonely painful life. When Miss Gee passed by the loving couples, she turned her head away inferring that she feels the need to reject love and its effects as if she is tormented by an emotion she has never experienced, and so, as a result, isolates and denies herself love. The way in which Miss Gee fantasises herself to be the queen of France and have the vicar of saint Aloysuis (ask) her majesty to dance suggests that while she rejects any type of connection and closeness with another person she still desires to be loved and to love. The relationship Auden depicts through that of Miss Gees and the Vicar is one of unrequited love, her fears and ambivalence towards being physically close to another person causes her to regress into herself. Through the use of religion and prayer Miss Gee tries to suppress her want of physical love, for example, when she prays to God that she will not be led into temptation but (be made) a good girl, please. Audens presentation of sexual subjugation suggests that love can be an emotion that people, in this case, Miss Gee, are frightened by. Miss Gee is to a considerable extent focused on the topic of love, yet not quite as much as Oh what is that sound and some of his other poems.Through the poem Oh what is that Sound Auden presents love at the centre of the poem similarly to Miss Gee, however, it illustrates a very different type of love to that in Miss Gee, it shows how the constraints of marriage and commitment can be tested and broken by war. Even a love strengthened and founded by vows and promises can be tested, for example, when the first voice asks Where are you going? Stay with me here! it depicts a type of desperation and dependency that occurs when a loss of love and care splits apart a marriage. Oh what is that Sound also depicts how relationships of love are unbalanced, that one half of the couple is far more invested in love than the other, for instance when the first voice asks the second voice were the vows you swore deceiving, deceiving? and the second voice responds No, I promised to love you, dear, but I must be leaving Auden suggests that marital love constrains and traps its members; love is no longer an emotion they feel but an obligation. The fact that the second voice insists their love and marriage is strong due to their vows they still decide to leave, almost as if war has given them the opportunity to escape without it being obvious that the love in their marriage has waned. From the poem Oh what is that sound you can infer that love is sometimes fragile and easily broken, even love bonded through marriage can be destroyed. Out of all of Audens poems this is the most focused on the factor of love, however, some of his other poems barely touch on love and are more focused on religion and suffering. The poem of Victor touches on certain aspect of love but focuses far more on the effects of religious indoctrination and mental illness. When Victor first meets Anna upon the stair he (falls) in love with her Auden presents the innocence of love and how simple and uneventful it can be, that meeting someone somewhere as mundane as a staircase can lead to such a strong emotion. However, due to Victors deep investment in religion and righteous behaviour their love quickly develops into a dark and twisted horror story. When Victor attempts to find the answers from God O father, I love her so, but the wind said she must die it becomes clear that his devotion and exploitation of religion affects his choices and behaviour far more than his love of Anna. The poem of Victor describes how love can be tainted and twisted by religion but it mostly focuses on how religion affects Victors behaviour rather than Victors love, for example, when Victor (stands) there holding the knife (as) the blood ran down the stairs it becomes clear that it is not about the obsession and irrational way of thinking love insights but rather how religion can infiltrate a persons mind and cause you to act horrendously in the name of God. When Victor read of what happened to Jezebel a story of a woman unfaithful in her marriage and as a result killed by her husband as penance, he takes this religious story and acts upon it in reality. This leads me to infer that some of Audens poems are not centred on love, but religion and suffering. This becomes obvious from Muse des Beaux Arts, the poem is not focused on love in any respect, rather it is centred on suffering and how personal tragedy is ignored. Audens description of a person walking dully along may highlight the monotonous, leisurely way in which people disregard suffering; people are only concerned with themselves. Through the way that the author delegates his description it is almost mocking the tragedies of life, or at least the way that people deal with them. As Jesus commits to his dreadful martyrdom dogs go on with their doggy lives, the idea that life continues in spite of suffering, perhaps that we are indifferent towards it. It seems almost leisurely the way that suffering is rejected and that people in need are so common within life that their suffering has collectively lost its importance. The lack of any reference to love in Muse des Beaux Arts suggests that not all of Audens poems are centred on it. This leads me to infer that to a considerable extent his poems are focused on love but the inclusion of poems such as Victor and Muse des Beaux Arts suggest that other influences such as religion and suffering are also key facets to his poetry.