W.H. Auden's August 1968

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…August 1968. From eight lines of poetry, two completely different interpretations could be reached, and more interpretations are certainly possible. Although both used the image of an ogre as its source domain, the target domain could either be the United States, or those who were against the civil rights movement, depending upon the social event being looked at. In the poem, W.H. Auden effectively used metaphor to create a scathing social commentary, without being didactic.