"The Hardships of Mankind"
             At first glance you might say that Bertolt Brecht's poem "The World's One Hope" is very similar to W.H. Auden's "Musee des Beaux Arts." Brecht's poem is about the oppression of mankind and Auden writes about mankind's suffering, both being hardships mankind may face. Each writer takes a different approach to the subject and writes in totally different ways about related issues.
             Auden, in his writing makes suffering out to be beautiful and musical. It flows like a song and because of that it downplays suffering. "Musee de Beaux Arts" is more of a protest poem. It comes across as being so beautiful and in doing that doesn't really allow its readers to feel anything. This is also more of a spectoral poem because Auden has written about suffering, but doesn't call on you to become involved. In the first lines of the poem, he talked about The Old Masters. He said that they were never wrong and they understood suffering. The poem suggests that you can't escape suffering in these first few lines, because if the Old Masters knew about suffering and its human condition, it has been around for a while and we all should just accept that and move on.
             Auden uses Brueghel's Icarus as an example of suffering, and how it is seen as worldwide. He uses the painting of Icarus falling from the sky and into the water as an example of suffering. When Icarus fell from the sky, no one noticed. The ploughman didn't turn his back from his work and everyone kept up with what they had been doing. He wanted to use this example to show how suffering is widespread and common. While doing so he made suffering look beautiful.
             Bertolt Brecht divided his poem up into three sections. Each section has a different focus on the subject of oppression. He chose to write his poem this way so that we would read each section separately and see tha...