Contrasting Lives

This exhibit focuses on the significance of power and inequality that W.H. Auden was able to express in the poem Musée Des Beaux Arts the impact seen on humankind, to connect to the dark side of society. Seen in the way the writing expressed a need for reorder to the social and natural world, during the time of modernism as a response to the rapidly changing world affected by industrialization and urbanization. It is rooted in the late 19th century carrying on after World War I. The war had undermined humankind’s faith in the foundations of Western society on culture, the heritage of social norms, ethical values, tradition, belief systems, political systems, and postwar Modernist literature reflected a sense of oppression and fragmentation. As Auden was able to show enlightenment in the power of his words offering imagery to capture the time period of his writing to WW2, questioning the way power surrounds society seen with inequality that divides gender during the 19th century to continue today.