The More Loving One

            I want to take this time to touch on a poem Abby and I covered during our poetry project. The poem is The More Loving One by W.H Auden. I really liked this poem, actually no, I loved this poem, because of the theme it presents. The first lines, “Looking up at the stars, I know quite well / That, for all they care, I can go to hell,” sets the tone of the poem as dark, pessimistic, and uninviting. I agree that The More Loving One has a tinge of sadness, but I feel it is more a disappointed tone: disappointment in society, and disappointment in people.

W.H. Auden wrote this poem to express the indifference he felt people showed towards others. He observed people did not care about other humans. They cared, but only superficially. In The More Loving One, he compares people to stars because of how distant stars and people are. The line, “Of stars that do not give a damn,” strengthens Auden’s metaphor. Metaphorically, Auden thinks people are as distant from others as we are from the stars. I really connected to this theme because it is something I also believe.

I believe people do not give a damn about others. We smile, act friendly, and put on a show for those who we do not know too well. We have no empathy. We have no emotion towards them: we could care less if they died, unless they were our friend. Our true human connection has been lost, and replaced with technology. We have Snapchat, texting, Instagram, Twitter, Skype, etc. to communicate: we don’t really communicate with others. This technology has allowed us to skip what past generations have been forced to do: communicate with others face-to-face. They did not have the luxury of shooting a text to their best friend to ask them how they are doing. People back then could not “get to know someone” over text. No. They got to know someone by interacting with them in real time. Although technology is amazing, we, as humans, have lost the skill of bonding with people face-to-face.

Come to find out, W.H. Auden wrote this poem in 1957, reflecting on the path society had been taking after World War II. Auden felt the growing disconnect between people. Even though it was written in 1957, I feel The More Loving One is more relevant to the present day, especially with the plethora of technology. W.H. Auden had it right back in 1957.