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As far as rhyming scheme is concerned, Ode to the Medieval poets is written in Alcaic stanza which a Greek lyrical meter and together with Sapphic stanza is one of the two important forms of Classic poetry. It was also used by Horatio in his Odes and this there it was present in English in translationsfrom Renaissance and famously used by Alfred Tennysonin his Ode “Milton” commemorating the eponymous 18thcenturypoet, author of epic poem “Paradise Lost”. W.H. Auden in his praise for Medieval also usesthe stanza. Originally the stanza is not rhymed and consistsof a regular number of syllables 11, 11, 9, 10 and a mixture of dactylic and trochaic feetwith caesura between 5thand 6thsyllable in two first lines of each quatrain. Auden breaks that pattern, although, he conforms to the tendencyin a several ways.He uses caesura but it is not in a regular and fixed position. The number of syllables changes and it is so in every stanza.The reasons for that are twofold. First, it may seem an imitation of the stanza, as if Auden was not able to write it properly which would prove his final statement in the ode saying that the medieval poets “would have wrought them so much better”.The use of word “wrought”is quite significant. The somewhat old fashioned word which refers to the creative act of medieval poets, implies shaping, moulding. Therefore, it may point to the form, the shape of the poem which is imperfect here. Second, he makes some of the lines longer (never shorter) in order to strengthen some of the words, thus, adding to the meaning, significance and power of some words.Similarly, Auden also uses trochee and dactylic feet, like in the traditional Alcaic stanza, with occasional spondaic, pyrrhic and iambic substitutionswhich serve to emphasize some words. Speaking of the genre, “Ode to the Medieval Poets” is an ode, of course. It is addressed to Medieval Poets, as the title suggest. Some of them are enlisted in the first line. Untypically for the ode, it is not rhymed. This may add to the feeling of imperfection of the form, but, it may also stand as a deliberately awkward attempt to imitate the alliterative style of Anglo Saxon poetry but using modern language. Some suggest it is the influence of J.R.R. Tolkien who was Auden’s lecturer in Anglo Saxon poetry at Oxford and it is then that Auden’s interest in medieval poetry began. This interest is also is visible in his “The Age of Anxiety” in which he describes people of the modern society trying to comprehend the world around them. This interest and the fact that Auden read the medieval poetry is resembled in the lines of the ode “Without it heartless/engines, though, you could not tenant my book shelves/on hand to delect my ear and chuckle/ my sad flesh”. There is another link with “The Age of Anxiety”. He in the ode voices the common displeasure with the contemporary world “We all ask, but I doubt if anyone/ can really say why all age-groups should find our/Age quite so repulsive” So, the medieval poetry seems the best form of escapism for the speaker. So much better than writing, in fact . But if Auden, not the speaker of the poem, writes the ode, then his writing is also a form of escaping from the Age of Anxiety. The dominating device in the ode seems to be enjambment. It appears in every line. This gives the ode the appearance of being imperfect in form, slightly disjointed. It also allows the poet to give prominence to the words appearing at the beginning of the next line which are thus followed by a pause.

The poem starts with enlisting the names of some medieval poets. Geoffrey Chaucer (14thcentury) is the famous writer of Canterbury Tales, satire on the then society, known as the father of English literature. William Langland (14thcentury)is the author of Piers Ploughman, the dream visionabout the search for good Christina life. Gawain Douglas(15th/ 16thcentury)is the first translator of Aeneid into English.William Dunbar was 15thcentury Scottish writer of courtly and comic poetry. Chaucer andLangland are also famous for their use vernacular, English language instead of more popular Latin or French.The second line starts with words “brothers Anons” which pertains to other writersof the Middle Ages whichwere anonymous like the authors of the Pearl Poem and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, for instance. The word “brother” suggest that the speaker sees them as an unified group. The second line is then lengthened to express the speaker’s surprise. In fact, the whole first sentences which occupies 7 lines is a question addressed to the poets. The speaker asks how the poets managed to be cheerful in their poetry, that they did not complain, “grimace”. “Self-pathos” expresses the feeling of pity and compassion towards themselves which the poets avoided successfully. Here the speaker also expresses his admiration and the opinion that such wallowing is self-feeling would not be good for poetry. This may be dedicated by Auden’s preference not to speak in his own voice in poetry. The speaker’s surprise is at the poets’ achievement is the greater as he enumerates problems and obstacles, not present today, they had to overcome in order to write poetry without “grimaces”. In the third line the speaker expresses some comforts that modern man possess which ease their live like plumbing, or their pains like anaesthetics, which were not at the poets’ disposal and would be completely unknown then. Here, the speaker also establishes himself as a man of modern times, using modern words. This is contrasted with all that might have caused fright in the poets, dangers and the supernatural forces. Plosives and iambic substitution in words “In daily peril” strengthen the feeling of toil. The next line enumerates more tangible dangers from wars and sickness. Line 6 starts with very strongly accentuated beat after the pause at the end of line 5. The word “burning” is given prominence. It can point to burning rage of the attacker or men of war but also to wartime destruction. After this there is pyrrhic another strong word “came” which expresses the violence of the onslaught. What’s more the alliterating “burning” and “mercenaries” render the frightfulness of the situation. “Cheerfully” which stand at the end of the line is in the relation of opposition to “burning which has the same number of syllables. This expresses the contrast between the world of the poets and what they wrote. The next sentence continues from line8 until line 14.Here the speaker refutes any accusation one can have against the medieval poets and goes on to discredit the contemporary ones. He or she says their writing may seem long but is does not show any lack of taste, they are not common in style. Here the speaker also tells truth about the ode since it is quite long an uses very wordy, long sentences with some of the words which may seem simple and everyday use. Some of the sentences may seem ordinary, to be used every day “how on earth did you ever manage”, “we all ask, but I doubt if anyone can really say why all age-groups should find our/Age quite so repulsive.” In line 9 there continues the description of poets’ style. The speaker says the poets could write about their humorous writing being “bawdy” so balancing on the verge of indelicacy

and indecency but not “grubby” which means immoral and explicitly indecent. The same consonant used in “grubby” and “bawdy” and in the pair “long-winded” and “vulgar” shows the speaker balancing between the two just like the poets did. “Raucous flytings” refer to the contest of insults which was noisy and involved accusing the opponent of cowardice or a perversion often it was conducted in verse. This is why “flytings” and “bawdy” alliterate. After caesura in line 10 the speaker describes “our makers” which he or she does not call poets. They are makers, as if they just produced poetry. They are deemed by the speaker much lower than the medieval poets. He or she ironically says they are “beset by every creature comfort” which is in contrast to the perils that were besetting the medieval poets. Words “beset” and “immune” are an iambic substitution which give certain stress to them. Word “immune may refer either to the fact that the poets are immune to the comforts, they do no longer feel any pleasure. It may also refer to the fact that they are immune “to all superstitions” which may suggest that they face no real risks or threats which medieval poets faced. Yet, they believe, so they feel some fright, anxiety towards something which they know is “superstition”. It may refer to the anxiety of the modern or post-modern society. First half-line in Line 12 is characterised by change in meter into iambic which sets it off from the rest. The “makers” are morose, so very gloomy even when they are “at their best”. The end of line 13 and line 14 are like a stream of invectives .Very offensive word “kinky” opens line 14. Then the speaker calls them petrified, so deprived of every feeling, turned into stone by their egos which are compared to the mythic creatures Gorgons which had power to turn men into stone with her eyes. The consonance in words “gorgon egos” , the fact that they are followed by a pyrrhic substitution in meter and that they are the last word in the second sentence renders them very strong. Gorgon may also mean “ugly” or “repulsive”. In fact the second word is used by the speaker in reference to the “makers” later on. Also speaking of them in third person separates them from the speaker and the medieval poets he or she looks up to. This part of the ode seems like flyting with the “makers” being the opponent. Line 15 starts with strongly accentuated words. The speaker identifies here with other people contemporary to him or her. The lyrical I says that all of his or her contemporaries think of their age as repulsive but do not know why it is so. They do not know the reason for that. Voicing this common opinion the speaker uses plain, common words. There is a pause before “Age” since line 16 is unusually long. It renders a certain distance and the feeling of disdain towards the period. It is capitalised, it describes a historical period but this period is despised in comparison to the Middle Ages. The last sentence continues from line 17 to line 24. In these lines the speaker finally speaks in first person singular, voicing his admiration to the skill of medieval poets and his or her own reasons for reading their poetry. The speaker says it is for “heartless engines” of the age that on his or her shelves there is medieval poetry. So it is the world of machines, world without feeling that he or she seeks the escape from. The lyrical I praises the medieval poetry’s meter, which is not so perfect in the ode. He or she uses the very rare word “delect” to express that the poetry is pleasant to listen to. It has also the ability to make the speaker laugh “chuckle my flesh” it cheers him or her up.

Lines 21 and 22 are marked treat of the speaker’s inclination and readiness towards writing his own poetry. This is resembled in the regularity in metre and in the number of syllables. The lines are also characterised by many alliterations. The speaker is being very humble here, even, self-humiliating. When he speaks about his desire to write poetry he uses words “turning out” which describe the out of mechanical production which stands in contrast to the poets being able to “wrought” poetry which implies an artistic art of creation. He or she says that the topic of the writing would be “thundery jovial June” which may refer to the Middle Ages, period which was turbulent, as it was stated before, but the poetry was good-humoured. “Judas-tree in blossom” alliterating with “June” may suggest that such a poetry written by the speaker would be, nevertheless an act of treason to the medieval masters which are yet again, like at the beginning of the ode addressed. The ode ends with spondaic foot which highlights the fact that the medieval poets were better skilled than the speaker....