Part one of term paper
The poem is about the death of hope. Auden is distraught over the deaths in WWII. The soldiers of WWII were teenagers. To have 55 million children dead is an act of pure genocide. To Auden the fact that people let this happen means that the world is an ugly place. Art is a thing of beauty and humans don't deserve it because of the ugly things ...

Part two of term paper
... many other poems. The subjects of many other poems -love, war, etc.- are recognized and commented on by the poets. This is not the case here, for Auden shows art's importance by his initial comment that "About suffering, they were never wrong, the old masters," then investigates how the Old Masters show that they were never wrong. The Old Masters don't exactly have to represent people but I believe Auden is referring to the chorus of Oedipus. The chorus knows all about suffering and they know it ...