Epitaph on a Tyrant 4 Aug 2009 Perfection, of a kind, was what he was after, And the poetry he invented was easy to understand; He knew human folly like the back of his hand, And was greatly interested in armies and fleets; When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter, And when he cried the little children died in the streets. W. H. Auden Philosophy Quotes Quotes
Biology A nineteenth century view on classification 18 Oct 201420 Oct 2014 The principle upon which I understand the Natural System of Botany to be founded is, that the affinities of plants may be determined by a consideration of all the points of resemblance between their various parts, properties, and qualities; that thence an arrangement may be deduced in which those species… Read More
Biology A leading philosopher blogs… about cuttlefish! 4 Jul 20124 Jul 2012 Peter Godfrey-Smith is one of the leading philosophers of biology and science, and he is presently Distinguished Professor of philosophy at CUNY’s Graduate Centre. He also blogs! It’s nice to see that employed academics are catching up with the rest of us. What’s really interesting is that Peter is focussing… Read More
Epistemology What warrant is there for belief in God? 22 Mar 201222 Mar 2012 Every morning on the way to the campus of the University of Melbourne I pass by the United Faculty of Theology, and I often wish that someone would come out and engage me in a debate. Partly because I am an ornery fellow who loves a good stoush, but also… Read More
Does any Auden specialist out there know this one? My two cents (from memory of unsystematic reading): “Poetry he invented” – Mao was a poet, while Hitler and Stalin were not. Auden visited China with Isherwood in the 30s, well before Mao was in power; but otherwise Auden didn’t pay too much attention to Asia. Auden flirted with authoritarianism at times – the poem in the late 30s mentioning “necessary murder” reflected leftish influence, though Auden was never much of a political animal. I gather Auden eventually disowned that poem, having been heavily attacked about it, by Orwell inter alia. I suspect that in the poem above, Auden was covering his tracks and not referring directly to any tyrant. Neither Mao, Stalin not Hitler had many “senators” to worry about – the poem might just as easily refer to Tiberius (though he too was no poet).
That’s way more than I knew. I just thought it was a metonymous tyrant. But if pushed I would have gone for Julius Caesar. I merely thought it worth bringing up now, for obvious reasons.