Auden summary and analysis Section 4.1.1 Introduction I will now analyse the poem based on the order that the stanzas come in because this will allow for a better insight into how the metaphors used within the poem … While personification would normally use a metaphor like “spoke” for an attribute of humanism on to a non-human entity, Auden still creates the impression that the clocks are speaking because he quotes the dialogue afterwards. This would therefore show how the “river jumps over the mountain” because the river erodes the mountain down over time, showing the power that time has within the poem. Clocks are usually seen as agents or representations of time because they show what time it is. The “t” in Time is capitalized which personifies it and gives it a place in society. It may also show that the loss of life gives time its power; life’s fluid spills in to time’s fluid, making it deeper and more powerful. The A LIFE IS A FLUID metaphor is used again in the eleventh stanza in the third line and partly in the fourth line. Here Auden is linking together the passing of his life to the mundane activity of walking down a street. This is a novel metaphor in relation to time and Fuller (Pg 108:1970) states how it is a combination of the literal and metaphorical worlds (see section 4.3). The first and second lines of the ninth stanza use the A LIFETIME IS A YEAR metaphor schema via indirect references to seasons which in turn leads to indirect references of the A LIFETIME IS A YEAR metaphor.
This is then further emphasised with the marker of speed, the verb metaphor “run” and the simile of “like rabbits”. Because of how in the story the giant was going to kill Jack if the giant caught him, if Jack finds the giant enchanting then that means that he won’t run away which in turn means he will be killed. The first line of the second stanza uses TIME IS FLUID as a metaphor with the phrase “brimming river” being the link between the target and source domain. The use of literal and metaphorical worlds and a comparison of the mundane versus the ultimate in these worlds. And down by the brimming river I heard a lover sing Under an arch of the railway: ‘Love has no ending. The ageing of the nursery rhyme characters is a symbol of the ageing of children within the literal world as well showing how they will be conquered by time as well. There is also an implied metaphor of TIME CONQUERS because if the years do go by quickly, this in turn means how quickly someone’s life is going towards death, in turn meaning how quickly they will be conquered by time. This effect may be rhetorical as in the deliberate arrangement of words to achieve something poetic, or imagery as in the use of language to suggest a visual picture or make an idea more vivid.
Stylistically, the powerful use of this metaphor is not the fact that “life leaks away” but how it leaks away: “In headaches and worry/ Vaguely”. The lovers’ “Flower of the Ages” will not be around forever because Time says “Into many a green valley rifts the appalling snow; Time breaks the threaded dances and the diver's brilliant bow.” The last narrator is the narrator of the poem whom I believe to be Auden himself. Auden. This helped me a lot! One other thing to notice here is how the metaphorical world intrudes upon the literal world. The first line, when taken into context with the rest of the stanza, can be seen as an attempt to reclaim life if “water” is the fluid in the conceptual mapping of the metaphor. Because of this it means in turn he will be conquered by time and thus realise the TIME CONQUERS megametaphor. “As I Walked Out One Evening” (1938) is a ballad by W. H. Auden. When breaking the evaluation down, the first thing I’ll comment on is the temporal marker “years”.