Blue Mind and the Waters: Exploring the Human-water Connections in W. H. Auden’s Poem, “First Things First.” 

Arun Prasad R.

Assistant Professor, Post Graduate and Research Department of English, Sree Narayana College, Kollam. arunprasadsnc2011@gmail.com

Abstract

Mankind traces a deep-seated historical, cultural, and philosophical connection with water and water bodies. It is this interlaced and strengthened bondage shared between

mankind and waters, which is evident through the manifold facets as outlined in human progress and civilization, upon which waters have left an indelible mark. The recent

emergence of discourses such as Blue Humanities serves to highlight this rather interesting notion through its analytical lens seeped in an amalgam of divergent discourses

spanning across arts, science, humanities, and technology; to perceive, redefine, sharpen our perspectives and understanding of waters. This paper attempts to perceive, how

literary authors and poets share this deep-seated connection permeating the human psyche and waterscapes, and attempts to employ the above-mentioned notions in perceiving

the representations of water in W. H. Auden’s poem, “First Things First.” The paper also attempts to bring to attention the concept of blue mind, elaborately dealt in the book

authored by Wallace J Nichols, Blue Mind (2014). According to him, the blue mind refers to a mildly meditative state characterized by general happiness and satisfaction

experienced by the human mind, when it comes across water and water bodies. Many creative minds possess the blue mind while describing water and waterscapes. The paper

attempts to perceive the poem taken for study, through the conceptual framework of the blue mind.

Keywords:  Water, Poetry, Blue humanities, Consciousness.