...Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, p. 45. 4 The Plot of Suffering AIDS and Evil David B. Morris About suffering, they were never wrong. The old masters, how well they understood Its human position . . . WH Auden, "Musee des Beaux Arts" "Our continued existence as gay men upon the face of this earth...

...occurs casually, when "everything turns away/Quite leisurely from the disaster," how it happens when "someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along," how "dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse/Scratches its innocent behind on a tree."...

...Landscape with the Fall of Icarus (1SS8). Museum of Fine Arts, Brussels. Credit: Scala/Art Resource, NY About suffering they were never wrong, The Old Masters:...miraculous birth, there always must be Children who did not especially want it to happen, skating On a pond at the edge of the wood They never forgot That even...

...that in which it is published and without a similar condition To Kip, amore mio, for his understanding About suffering they were never wrong, The Old Masters:...eating or opening a window or just walking dully along. — WH Auden "Musee des Beaux Arts/' 1940 Any work of fiction about history or a historical person...

...victimization in his poem "Musee des Beaux Arts" when he wrote that the Old Masters understood that suffering takes place "While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along. . . ." In describing Brueghel's Icarus in the poem, Auden notes how everything turned away from the...

...Jarrell's vision of empathy among human beings is very different from Auden's, in which people suffer alone while "someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along" (Auden 6). The second stanza describes another "Old Master," Hugo van der Goes (d. 1482), and his triptych...

...Beaux Arts," WH Auden"' enriches our appreciation of this and a number of other Brueghel landscapes: About suffering they were never wrong, The Old Masters:...waiting For the miraculous birth, there always must he Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating On a pond at the edge ot the wood: They...

...refers to Auden's fictional variant of the museum in Brussels where Brueghel's painting is on display). About suffering they were never wrong, The Old Masters:...walking dully along; How when the aged are reverently, passionateK/ waiting For the miraculous birth, there must always be Children who did not specially...

...inspired WH Auden's poem "Musee des Beaux Arts," written in December 1938 when he was staying nearby: About suffering they were never wrong, The Old Masters:...eating or opening a window or just walking dully along; In Breughe1's Icarus, for instance; how everything turns away Quite leisurely from the disaster; the...

...don't see, or at least see only what we want to. WH Auden in his poem "Musee des Beaux Arts" writes: About suffering they were never wrong, the Old Masters:...is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along.11 "' Indeed, God's mission statement to Isaiah was: "Go and say to this people: 'Keep listening,...