W.H. Auden's 1939 poem 'In Memory of W.B. Yeats' is a landmark modern elegy that broke traditional conventions primarily by doing what?

Correct answer: Refusing to idealize Yeats, showing his flaws and shifting meter across three sections

Auden's modern elegy strips away the comforting myths and idealized pastoral scenery of classical elegies. It presents Yeats as an imperfect mortal man whose physical body failed him on a cold winter day. The poem's three distinct movements transition from a loose, conversational free verse into a highly controlled, formal trochaic meter, demonstrating how an artist's personal life fades while their poetry becomes a living part of the culture.