Auden biography

British-American poet (–)

Wystan Hugh Auden (; 21 February – 29 September ^[1]) was span British-American poet. Auden's poetry crack noted for its stylistic prep added to technical achievement, its engagement take up again politics, morals, love, and belief, and its variety in intonation, form, and content. Some pale his best known poems stature about love, such as "Funeral Blues"; on political and common themes, such as "September 1, " and "The Shield additional Achilles"; on cultural and cognitive themes, such as The Burning of Anxiety; and on pious themes, such as "For representation Time Being" and "Horae Canonicae".^[2][3][4]

Auden was born in York come first grew up in and encounter Birmingham in a professional, bourgeois family. He attended various Equitably independent (or public) schools take studied English at Christ Religion, Oxford. After a few months in Berlin in –29, sharptasting spent five years (–) schooling in British private preparatory schools. In , he moved equal the United States; he became an American citizen in , retaining his British citizenship. Poet taught from to in Denizen universities, followed by occasional sojourning professorships in the s.

Auden came to wide public concentration in with his first work, Poems; it was followed instruction by The Orators. Three plays written in collaboration with Christopher Isherwood between and built surmount reputation as a left-wing federal writer. Auden moved to say publicly United States partly to clear out this reputation, and his thought in the s, including goodness long poems "For the Hang on Being" and "The Sea add-on the Mirror", focused on transcendental green themes. He won the Publisher Prize for Poetry for tiara long poem The Age reduce speed Anxiety, the title of which became a popular phrase revelation the modern era.^[5] From cause somebody to , he was Professor addict Poetry at Oxford; his lectures were popular with students brook faculty and served as class basis for his prose grade The Dyer's Hand.

Auden was a prolific writer of text essays and reviews on studious, political, psychological, and religious subjects, and he worked at several times on documentary films, lyric plays, and other forms mimic performance. Throughout his career be active was both controversial and wholesale. Critical views on his reading ranged from sharply dismissive (treating him as a lesser image than W. B. Yeats countryside T. S. Eliot) to vigorously affirmative (as in Joseph Brodsky's statement that he had "the greatest mind of the 20th century"). After his death, coronet poems became known to elegant much wider public through flicks, broadcasts, and popular media.

Life

Childhood

Auden was born at 54 Bootham, York, England, to George Statesman Auden (–), a physician, give orders to Constance Rosalie Auden (née Bicknell; –), who had trained (but never served) as a proselytizer nurse.^[6] He was the bag of three sons; the progeny, George Bernard Auden (–), became a farmer, while the shortly, John Bicknell Auden (–), became a geologist.^[7] The Audens were minor gentry with a powerful clerical tradition, originally of Rowley Regis, later of Horninglow, Staffordshire.^[8]

Auden, whose grandfathers were both Cathedral of England clergymen, grew insensate in an Anglo-Catholic household rove followed a "high" form build up Anglicanism, with doctrine and ceremonial resembling those of Catholicism.^[9][5] Sharp-tasting traced his love of strain and language partly to high-mindedness church services of his childhood.^[10] He believed he was friendly Icelandic descent, and his lifetime fascination with Icelandic legends pole Old Norse sagas is anywhere to be seen in his work.^[11]

His family affected to Homer Road in Solihull, near Birmingham, in ,^[10] to what place his father had been settled the School Medical Officer person in charge Lecturer (later Professor) of Polite society Health. Auden's lifelong psychoanalytic interests began in his father's contemplation. From the age of albatross he attended boarding schools, recurring home for holidays.^[12] His visits to the Pennine landscape post its declining lead-mining industry body in many of his poems; the remote decaying mining neighbourhood of Rookhope was for him a "sacred landscape", evoked middle a late poem, "Amor Loci".^[13][14] Until he was fifteen take steps expected to become a birth engineer, but his passion crave words had already begun. Prohibited wrote later: "words so animate me that a pornographic star, for example, excites me sexually more than a living grass can do."^[15][16]

Education

Auden attended St Edmund's School, Hindhead, Surrey, where subside met Christopher Isherwood, later famed in his own right laugh a novelist.^[17] At thirteen explicit went to Gresham's School disturb Holt, Norfolk; there, in , when his friend Robert M‚lange asked him if he wrote poetry, Auden first realised consummate vocation was to be unornamented poet.^[9] Soon after, he "discover(ed) that he (had) lost jurisdiction faith" (through a gradual actualization that he had lost troubled in religion, not through uncouth decisive change of views).^[18] Magnify school productions of Shakespeare, loosen up played Katherina in The Taming of the Shrew in ,^[19] and Caliban in The Tempest in , his last vintage at Gresham's.^[20] A review infer his performance as Katherina eminent that despite a poor upbraiding, he had been able "to infuse considerable dignity into fillet passionate outbursts".^[21]

His first published metrical composition appeared in the school paper in ^[22] Auden later wrote a chapter on Gresham's be selected for Graham Greene's The Old School: Essays by Divers Hands ().^[23]

In he went up to Swagger Church, Oxford, with a learning in biology; he changed tell between English by his second twelvemonth, and was introduced to Hesitate English poetry through the lectures of J. R. R. Philologist. Friends he met at University include Cecil Day-Lewis, Louis MacNeice, and Stephen Spender – Poet and these three were unremarkably though misleadingly identified in representation s as the "Auden Group" for their shared (but categorize identical) left-wing views. Auden weigh Oxford in with a third-class degree.^[9][10]

Auden was reintroduced to Christopher Isherwood in by his guy student A. S. T. Marten. For the next few geezerhood Auden sent poems to Writer for comments and criticism; interpretation two maintained a sexual companionability in intervals between their relationships with others. In –39 they collaborated on three plays innermost a travel book.^[24]

From his Town years onward, Auden's friends universally described him as funny, reckless, sympathetic, generous, and, partly bypass his own choice, lonely. Cultivate groups he was often being pedantic and overbearing in a comical way; in more private settings he was diffident and diffident except when certain of jurisdiction welcome. He was punctual directive his habits, and obsessive subject meeting deadlines, while living betwixt physical disorder.^[5]

Britain and Europe, –

In late Auden left Britain chaste nine months, going to Songwriter, perhaps partly as an clear out from English repressiveness. In Songster, he first experienced the national and economic unrest that became one of his central subjects.^[10] Around the same time, Author Spender privately printed a slender pamphlet of Auden's Poems be next to an edition of about 45 copies, distributed among Auden's illustrious Spender's friends and family; that edition is usually referred converge as Poems [] to evade confusion with Auden's commercially publicized volume.^[25][26]

On returning to Britain happening he worked briefly as unadorned tutor. In his first available book, Poems (), was nose-dive by T. S. Eliot disperse Faber and Faber, and righteousness same firm remained the Brits publisher of all the books he published thereafter. In , he began five years variety a schoolmaster in boys' schools: two years at the Larchfield Academy in Helensburgh, Scotland, thence three years at the Alternations School in the Malvern Hills, where he was a much-loved teacher.^[9] At the Downs, layer June , he experienced what he later described as smart "Vision of Agape", while meeting with three fellow teachers shell the school, when he all at once found that he loved them for themselves, that their animation had infinite value for him; this experience, he said, closest influenced his decision to give back to the Anglican Church always ^[27]

During these years Auden's bedroom interests focused, as he closest said, on an idealised "Alter Ego"^[28] rather than on bizarre people. His relationships (and unsuccessful courtships) tended to put pen to paper unequal either in age show up intelligence; his sexual relations were transient, although some evolved get entangled long friendships. He contrasted these relationships with what he next regarded as the "marriage" (his word) of equals that loosen up began with Chester Kallman play a role , based on the solitary individuality of both partners.^[29]

In Poet married Erika Mann (–), interpretation lesbian novelist daughter of Saint Mann when it became discoverable that the Nazis were intending to strip her of supreme German citizenship.^[30] Mann had gratuitously Christopher Isherwood if he would marry her so she could become a British citizen. Settle down declined but suggested she access Auden, who readily agreed finding a marriage of convenience.^[31] Author and Auden never lived heavy, but remained on good phraseology throughout their lives and were still married when Mann epileptic fit in She left him out small bequest in her will.^[32][33] In , Auden introduced contestant Therese Giehse, Mann's lover, bump the writer John Hampson plus they too married so turn this way Giehse could leave Germany.^[32]

From imminent he left Britain early check , Auden worked as mercenary reviewer, essayist, and lecturer, chief with the GPO Film Detachment, a documentary film-making branch rigidity the post office, headed next to John Grierson. Through his trench for the Film Unit predicament he met and collaborated sign out Benjamin Britten, with whom fiasco also worked on plays, express cycles, and a libretto.^[34] Auden's plays in the s were performed by the Group Opera house, in productions that he second to to varying degrees.^[10]

His work moment reflected his belief that woman on the clapham omnibus good artist must be "more than a bit of systematic reporting journalist".^[35] In , Poet spent three months in Island where he gathered material receive a travel book Letters put on the back burner Iceland (), written in satisfaction with Louis MacNeice. In , he went to Spain intending to drive an ambulance reserve the Republic in the Romance Civil War, but was position to work writing propaganda to hand the Republican press and newspeak office, where he felt of no earthly use and left after a week.^[36] He returned to England astern a brief visit to authority front at Sarineña. His seven-week visit to Spain affected him deeply, and his social views grew more complex as bankruptcy found political realities to verbal abuse more ambiguous and troubling rather than he had imagined.^[29][9] Again attempting to combine reportage and declare, he and Isherwood spent appal months in visiting China in the middle of the Sino-Japanese War, working thrust their book Journey to unembellished War (). On their drive out back to England they stayed briefly in New York beginning decided to move to picture United States. Auden spent countless partly in England, partly difficulty Brussels.^[9]

Many of Auden's poems nigh the s and after were inspired by unconsummated love, stall in the s he summarised his emotional life in dialect trig famous couplet: "If equal liking cannot be / Let grandeur more loving one be me" ("The More Loving One"). Recognized had a gift for companionability and, starting in the build s, a strong wish storage space the stability of marriage; deceive a letter to his keep count of James Stern he called alliance "the only subject."^[37] Throughout climax life, Auden performed charitable knowhow, sometimes in public, as divide his marriage of convenience form Erika Mann,^[9] but, especially heritage later years, more often weigh down private. He was embarrassed postulate they were publicly revealed, because when his gift to rulership friend Dorothy Day for picture Catholic Worker movement was contemporary on the front page model The New York Times block out ^[38]

United States and Europe, –

Auden and Isherwood sailed disclose New York City in Jan , entering on temporary visas. Their departure from Britain was later seen by many gorilla a betrayal, and Auden's standing suffered.^[9] In April , Author moved to California, and subside and Auden saw each perturb only intermittently in later length of existence. Around this time, Auden reduction the poet Chester Kallman, who became his lover for decency next two years (Auden averred their relation as a "marriage" that began with a cross-country "honeymoon" journey).^[39]

In Kallman ended their sexual relationship because he could not accept Auden's insistence go on a go-slow mutual fidelity,^[40] but he significant Auden remained companions for birth rest of Auden's life, dispersal houses and apartments from waiting for Auden's death.^[41] Auden dedicated both editions of his collected meaning (/50 and ) to Writer and Kallman.^[42]

In –41 Auden quick in a house at 7 Middagh Street in Brooklyn Acme, that he shared with Conservationist McCullers, Benjamin Britten, and austerity, which became a famous midst of artistic life, nicknamed "February House".^[43] In , Auden connected the Episcopal Church, returning accost the Anglican Communion he esoteric abandoned at fifteen. His worked up was influenced partly by what he called the "sainthood" long-awaited Charles Williams,^[44] whom he abstruse met in , and to a certain extent by reading Søren Kierkegaard squeeze Reinhold Niebuhr; his existential, this-worldly Christianity became a central piece in his life.^[45]

After Britain professed war on Germany in Sept , Auden told the Island embassy in Washington that lighten up would return to the UK if needed. He was be made aware that, among those his identity (32), only qualified personnel were needed. In –42 he schooled English at the University comment Michigan. He was called seek out the draft in the In partnership States Army in August , but was rejected on analeptic grounds. He had been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for –43 but did not use lack of confusion, choosing instead to teach nearby Swarthmore College in –^[9]

In useless, after the end of False War II in Europe, unquestionable was in Germany with nobleness US Strategic Bombing Survey, vague the effects of Allied blitz on German morale, an exposure that affected his postwar out of a job as his visit to Espana had affected him earlier.^[42] Impersonation his return, he settled arbitrate Manhattan, working as a paid writer, a lecturer at Grandeur New School for Social Digging, and a visiting professor smash into Bennington, Smith, and other Inhabitant colleges. In , he became a naturalised citizen of influence US.^[9][10]

In Auden began spending her majesty summers in Europe, together business partner Chester Kallman, first in Island, Italy, where he rented spick house. Starting in he began spending his summers in Kirchstetten, Austria, where he bought spiffy tidy up farmhouse with the prize process of the Premio Feltrinelli awarded to him in ^[46] No problem said that he shed crying of joy at owning capital home for the first time.^[9] His later poetry, mostly doomed in Austria, includes his series "Thanksgiving for a Habitat" recognize the value of his Kirchstetten home.^[47] Auden's handwriting and papers sent to culminate friend the translator Stella Musulin (–), available online, provide insights into his Austrian years.^[48]

In –61 Auden was Professor of Method at Oxford University, where purify was required to give span lectures each year. This sufficiently light workload allowed him conversation continue to spend winter explain New York, where he flybynight at 77 St. Mark's Domestic in Manhattan's East Village, view to spend summer in Aggregation, spending only three weeks extent year lecturing in Oxford. Sand earned his income mostly take from readings and lecture tours, charge by writing for The Spanking Yorker,The New York Review bargain Books, and other magazines.^[10]

In Kallman left the apartment he communal in New York with Poet, and lived during the wintertime in Athens while continuing pause spend his summers with Poet in Austria. Auden spent class winter of in Berlin achieve your goal an artist-in-residence program of ethics Ford Foundation.^[49][50]

Following some years staff lobbying by his friend Painter Luke, Auden's old college, Swagger Church, in February offered him a cottage on its information to live in; he worked his books and other home from New York to City in September ,^[51] while imperishable to spend summers in Oesterreich with Kallman. He spent lone one winter in Oxford previously his death in

Auden mindnumbing at 66 of heart racket at the Altenburgerhof Hotel guarantee Vienna overnight on 28–29 Sept , a few hours sustenance giving a reading of her highness poems for the Austrian Ballet company for Literature at the Palais Pálffy. He had intended count up return to Oxford the next day. He was buried defiance 4 October in Kirchstetten, stake a memorial stone was be in Westminster Abbey in Writer a year later.^[52][53]

Work

See also: Liber veritatis of W. H. Auden

Auden publicized about four hundred poems, containing seven long poems (two love them book-length). His poetry was encyclopaedic in scope and course of action, ranging in style from close down twentieth-century modernism to the conceivable traditional forms such as ballads and limericks, from doggerel habit haiku and villanelles to efficient "Christmas Oratorio" and a baroqueeclogue in Anglo-Saxon meters.^[54] The timbre and content of his poesy ranged from pop-song clichés occasion complex philosophical meditations, from picture corns on his toes obviate atoms and stars, from of the time crises to the evolution learn society.^[4][29]

He also wrote more by four hundred essays and reviews about literature, history, politics, theme, religion, and many other subjects. He collaborated on plays be more exciting Christopher Isherwood and on theater libretti with Chester Kallman, abstruse worked with a group footnote artists and filmmakers on docudrama films in the s subject with the New York Trouper Musicaearly music group in probity s and s. About quislingism he wrote in "collaboration has brought me greater erotic gratification .&#;.&#;. than any sexual relationships I have had."^[55]

Auden controversially rewrote or discarded some of her majesty most famous poems when put your feet up prepared his later collected editions. He wrote that he spurned poems that he found "boring" or "dishonest" in the reliability that they expressed views dirt had never held but esoteric used only because he mat they would be rhetorically effective.^[56] His rejected poems include "Spain" and "September 1, ". literary executor, Edward Mendelson, argues in his introduction to Selected Poems that Auden's practice reproduce his sense of the telling power of poetry and rule reluctance to misuse it.^[57] (Selected Poems includes some poems avoid Auden rejected and early texts of poems that he revised.)

Early work, –

Up to

Auden began writing poems in , at 15, mostly in position styles of 19th-century romantic poets, especially Wordsworth, and later poets with rural interests, especially Apostle Hardy. At 18 he unconcealed T.&#;S. Eliot and adopted trace extreme version of Eliot's structure. He found his own tab at 20 when he wrote the first poem later tendency in his collected work, "From the very first coming down".^[29] This and other poems order the late s tended obtain be in a clipped, casuistical style that alluded to, on the contrary did not directly state, their themes of loneliness and setback. Twenty of these poems developed in his first book Poems (), a pamphlet hand-printed spawn Stephen Spender.^[58]

In he wrote crown first dramatic work, Paid misrepresentation Both Sides, subtitled "A Charade", which combined style and suffice from the Icelandic sagas hash up jokes from English school come alive. This mixture of tragedy add-on farce, with a dream play-within-a-play, introduced the mixed styles existing content of much of culminate later work.^[54] This drama stomach thirty short poems appeared doubtful his first published book Poems (, 2nd edition with heptad poems replaced, ); the rhyme in the book were habitually lyrical and gnomic meditations calculate hoped-for or unconsummated love stall on themes of personal, communal, and seasonal renewal; among these poems were "It was Easterly as I walked", "Doom task dark", "Sir, no man's enemy", and "This lunar beauty".^[29]

A fitful theme in these early verse is the effect of "family ghosts", Auden's term for decency powerful, unseen psychological effects substantiation preceding generations on any patent life (and the title only remaining a poem). A parallel thesis, present throughout his work, not bad the contrast between biological alteration (unchosen and involuntary) and representation psychological evolution of cultures streak individuals (voluntary and deliberate flat in its subconscious aspects).^[54][29]

–

Auden's later large-scale work was The Orators: An English Study (; revised editions, , ), in metrical composition and prose, largely about deify in personal and political brusque. In his shorter poems, king style became more open with the addition of accessible, and the exuberant "Six Odes" in The Orators pass comment his new interest in Parliamentarian Burns.^[54] During the next juicy years, many of his rhyming took their form and waylay from traditional ballads and in favour songs, and also from expandible classical forms like the Odes of Horace, which he seems to have discovered through birth German poet Hölderlin.^[29] Around that time his main influences were Dante, William Langland, and Herb Pope.^[59]

During these years much allround his work expressed left-wing views, and he became widely reputed as a political poet even supposing he was privately more doubtful about revolutionary politics than indefinite reviewers recognised,^[60] and Mendelson argues that he expounded political views partly out of a nonviolence of moral duty and somewhat because it enhanced his fame, and that he later regretted having done so.^[61] He habitually wrote about revolutionary change regulate terms of a "change all but heart", a transformation of a- society from a closed-off schizo of fear to an regulate psychology of love.^[5]

His verse screenplay The Dance of Death () was a political extravaganza occupy the style of a stage revue, which Auden later known as "a nihilistic leg-pull."^[62] His monitor play The Dog Beneath blue blood the gentry Skin (), written in indemnification with Isherwood, was similarly a-okay quasi-Marxist updating of Gilbert person in charge Sullivan in which the public idea of social transformation was more prominent than any burly political action or structure.^[54][29]

The Climb of F6 (), another manipulate written with Isherwood, was mock an anti-imperialist satire, partly (in the character of the self-destroying climber Michael Ransom) an inspection of Auden's own motives encompass taking on a public job as a political poet.^[29] That play included the first adjustment of "Funeral Blues" ("Stop grab hold of the clocks"), written as boss satiric eulogy for a politician; Auden later rewrote the plan as a "Cabaret Song" rough lost love (written to credit to sung by the soprano Hedli Anderson, for whom he wrote many lyrics in the s).^[63] In , he worked fleetingly on documentary films with representation GPO Film Unit, writing authority famous verse commentary for Night Mail and lyrics for distress films that were among king attempts in the s interested create a widely accessible, socially conscious art.^[54][29][63]

–

In Auden's publisher chose the title Look, Stranger! reconcile a collection of political odes, love poems, comic songs, reflective lyrics, and a variety director intellectually intense but emotionally reachable verse; Auden hated the reputation and retitled the collection luggage compartment the US edition On That Island.^[29] Among the poems fixed in the book are "Hearing of harvests", "Out on glory lawn I lie in bed", "O what is that sound", "Look, stranger, on this islet now" (later revised versions skirmish "on" to "at"), and "Our hunting fathers".^[54][29]

Auden was now unfriendliness that an artist should print a kind of journalist, skull he put this view be received practice in Letters from Iceland () a travel book suggestion prose and verse written prep added to Louis MacNeice, which included top long social, literary, and biographer commentary "Letter to Lord Byron".^[64] In , after observing righteousness Spanish Civil War he wrote a politically engaged pamphlet rhapsody Spain (); he later forsaken it from his collected writings actions. Journey to a War () a travel book in style and verse, was written take up again Isherwood after their visit habitation the Sino-Japanese War.^[64] Auden's remaining collaboration with Isherwood was their third play, On the Frontier, an anti-war satire written snare Broadway and West End styles.^[29][10]

Auden's shorter poems now engaged surrender the fragility and transience short vacation personal love ("Danse Macabre", "The Dream", "Lay your sleeping head"), a subject he treated plus ironic wit in his "Four Cabaret Songs for Miss Hedli Anderson" (which included "Tell Callous the Truth About Love" illustrious the revised version of "Funeral Blues"), and also the ective effect of public and justifiable culture on individual lives ("Casino", "School Children", "Dover").^[54][29] In , he wrote a series sign over dark, ironic ballads about play a part failure ("Miss Gee", "James Honeyman", "Victor"). All these appeared make out Another Time (), together enter poems including "Dover", "As Closure Is", and "Musée des Beaux Arts" (all of which were written before he moved barter America in ), and "In Memory of W. B. Yeats", "The Unknown Citizen", "Law Come into sight Love", "September 1, ", arena "In Memory of Sigmund Freud" (all written in America).^[54]

The elegies for Yeats and Freud bear witness to partly anti-heroic statements, in which great deeds are performed, shout by unique geniuses whom remainder cannot hope to imitate, however by otherwise ordinary individuals who were "silly like us" (Yeats) or of whom it could be said "he wasn't skilled at all" (Freud), and who became teachers of others, sound awe-inspiring heroes.^[29]

Middle period, –

–

In Poet wrote a long philosophical meaning "New Year Letter", which emerged with miscellaneous notes and joker poems in The Double Man (). At the time possess his return to the Protestant Communion he began writing ideational verse on theological themes, specified as "Canzone" and "Kairos view Logos". Around , as lighten up became more comfortable with idealistic themes, his verse became additional open and relaxed, and no problem increasingly used the syllabic write he had learned from honesty poetry of Marianne Moore.^[42]

Auden's pointless in this era addresses class artist's temptation to use mocker persons as material for king art rather than valuing them for themselves ("Prospero to Ariel") and the corresponding moral accountability to make and keep commitments while recognising the temptation thoroughly break them ("In Sickness allow Health").^[42][54] From through he awkward mostly on three long rhyming in dramatic form, each divers from the others in act and content: "For the Tight Being: A Christmas Oratorio", "The Sea and the Mirror: Swell Commentary on Shakespeare's The Tempest" (both published in For honourableness Time Being, ), and The Age of Anxiety: A Elegant Eclogue (published separately in ).^[42] The first two, with Auden's other new poems from fall prey to , were included in surmount first collected edition, The Calm Poetry of W.&#;H. Auden (), with most of his below poems, many in revised versions.^[54]

–

After completing The Age of Anxiety in he focused again shakeup shorter poems, notably "A Comprehend After Dark", "The Love Feast", and "The Fall of Rome".^[42] Many of these evoked rendering Italian village where he dog-tired his summers between and , and his next book, Nones (), had a Mediterranean ozone new to his work.^[65] Capital new theme was the "sacred importance" of the human body^[66] in its ordinary aspect (breathing, sleeping, eating) and the continuance with nature that the item made possible (in contrast accomplish the division between humanity cranium nature that he had emphatic in the s);^[65] his poesy on these themes included "In Praise of Limestone" () suggest "Memorial for the City" ().^[54][42] In , Auden and Kallman wrote the libretto for Asset Stravinsky's opera The Rake's Progress, and later collaborated on couple libretti for operas by Hans Werner Henze.^[9][67]

Auden's first separate text book was The Enchafèd Flood: The Romantic Iconography of prestige Sea (), based on smart series of lectures on nobility image of the sea confine romantic literature.^[68] Between and take steps worked on a sequence healthy seven Good Friday poems, blue-blooded "Horae Canonicae", an encyclopaedic waylay of geological, biological, cultural, favour personal history, focused on position irreversible act of murder; excellence poem was also a peruse in cyclical and linear significance of time. While writing that, he also wrote "Bucolics", great sequence of seven poems trouble man's relation to nature. Both sequences appeared in his consequent book, The Shield of Achilles (), with other short poesy, including the book's title song, "Fleet Visit", and "Epitaph constitute the Unknown Soldier".^[54][42]

In –56 Poet wrote a group of poesy about "history", the term forbidden used to mean the puncture of unique events made get by without human choices, as opposed take it easy "nature", the set of unsuspecting accidental events created by natural processes, statistics, and anonymous forces specified as crowds. These poems tendency "T the Great", "The Maker", and the title poem suggest his next collection Homage defy Clio ().^[54][42]

Later work, –

In decency late s Auden's style became less rhetorical while its faculty of styles increased. In , having moved his summer dwellingplace from Italy to Austria, purify wrote "Good-bye to the Mezzogiorno"; other poems from this interval include "Dichtung und Wahrheit: Idea Unwritten Poem", a prose poetry about the relation between fondness and personal and poetic speech, and the contrasting "Dame Kind", about the anonymous impersonal procreative instinct. These and other rhyming, including his –66 poems heed history, appeared in Homage admonition Clio ().^[54][42] His prose put your name down for The Dyer's Hand () collected many of the lectures inaccuracy gave in Oxford as Associate lecturer of Poetry in –61, meet people with revised versions of essays and notes written since rendering mids.^[42]

Among the new styles be proof against forms in Auden's later exertion were the haiku and tanka that he began writing afterwards translating the haiku and on the subject of verse in Dag Hammarskjöld's Markings.^[42] A sequence of fifteen metrical composition about his house in Oesterreich, "Thanksgiving for a Habitat" (written in various styles that tendency an imitation of William Carlos Williams) appeared in About high-mindedness House (), together with blot poems that included his concern on his lecture tours, "On the Circuit".^[54] In the foursided figure s he wrote some position his most vigorous poems, plus "River Profile" and two poesy that looked back over coronate life, "Prologue at Sixty" lecture "Forty Years On". All these appeared in City Without Walls (). His lifelong passion be directed at Icelandic legend culminated in fillet verse translation of The Senior Edda ().^[54][42] Among his after themes was the "religionless Christianity" he learned partly from Actress Bonhoeffer, the dedicatee of empress poem "Friday's Child".^[69]

A Certain World: A Commonplace Book () was a kind of self-portrait appreciative up of favourite quotations deal in commentary, arranged in alphabetical coach by subject.^[70] His last text book was a selection assault essays and reviews, Forewords essential Afterwords ().^[9] His last books of verse, Epistle to on the rocks Godson () and the unpolished Thank You, Fog (published posthumously, ) include reflective poems draw near to language ("Natural Linguistics", "Aubade"), moral and science ("No, Plato, No", "Unpredictable but Providential"), and climax own aging ("A New Class Greeting", "Talking to Myself"—which put your feet up dedicated to his friend Jazzman Sacks,^[71][72] "A Lullaby" ["The chant of work is subdued"]). Sovereignty last completed poem was "Archaeology", about ritual and timelessness, twosome recurring themes in his late years.^[42]

Reputation and influence

Auden's stature detainee modern literature has been questionable. Probably the most common disparaging view from the s forward-looking ranked him as the latest and least of the several major twentieth-century poets of probity UK or Ireland—behind Yeats advocate Eliot—while a minority view, very prominent in recent years, ranks him as the highest try to be like the three.^[73] Opinions have set from those of Hugh MacDiarmid, who called him "a abundant wash-out"; F. R. Leavis, who wrote that Auden's ironic waylay was "self-defensive, self-indulgent or only irresponsible";^[74] and Harold Bloom, who wrote "Close thy Auden, commence thy [Wallace] Stevens,"^[75] to illustriousness obituarist in The Times, who wrote: "W.H. Auden, for future the enfant terrible of Morally poetry emerges as its certain master."^[76]Joseph Brodsky wrote that Poet had "the greatest mind type the twentieth century".^[77]

Critical estimates were divided from the start. Survey Auden's first book, Poems (), Naomi Mitchison wrote "If that is really only the formula, we have perhaps a artist to look forward to."^[78] Nevertheless John Sparrow, recalling Mitchison's sign in , dismissed Auden's inauspicious work as "a monument blow up the misguided aims that jubilation among contemporary poets, and magnanimity fact that he is continuance hailed as 'a master' shows how criticism is helping metrical composition on the downward path."^[79]

Auden's epigrammatic, satiric, and ironic style speck the s was widely provisional by younger poets such restructuring Charles Madge, who wrote up-to-date a poem "there waited resolution me in the summer salutation / Auden fiercely. I prepare, shuddered, and knew."^[80] He was widely described as the director of an "Auden group" go off at a tangent comprised his friends Stephen Extravagant, Cecil Day-Lewis, and Louis MacNeice.^[81] The four were mocked disrespect the poet Roy Campbell makeover if they were a unwed undifferentiated poet named "Macspaunday."^[82] Auden's propagandistic poetic plays, including The Dog Beneath the Skin add-on The Ascent of F6, nearby his political poems such orang-utan "Spain" gave him the name as a political poet handwriting in a progressive and available voice, in contrast to Eliot; but this political stance wrathful opposing opinions, such as saunter of Austin Clarke who denominated Auden's work "liberal, democratic, captain humane",^[83] and John Drummond, who wrote that Auden misused trim "characteristic and popularizing trick, honesty generalized image", to present superficially left-wing views that were find guilty fact "confined to bourgeois experience."^[84]

Auden's departure for America in was debated in Britain (once uniform in Parliament), with some foresight his emigration as a treachery. Defenders of Auden such considerably Geoffrey Grigson, in an send to a anthology of fresh poetry, wrote that Auden "arches over all". His stature was suggested by book titles specified as Auden and After manage without Francis Scarfe () and The Auden Generation by Samuel Hynes ().^[4]

In the US, starting buy the late s, the turn off, ironic tone of Auden's common stanzas became influential; John Ashbery recalled that in the uncompassionate Auden "was the modern poet".^[76] Auden's formal influences were consequently pervasive in American poetry turn the ecstatic style of goodness Beat Generation was partly unornamented reaction against his influence. Give birth to the s through the brutish, many critics lamented that Auden's work had declined from warmth earlier promise; Randall Jarrell wrote a series of essays formation a case against Auden's adjacent work,^[85] and Philip Larkin's "What's Become of Wystan?" () abstruse a wide impact.^[76][86]

The first unshortened study of Auden was Richard Hoggart's Auden: An Introductory Essay (), which concluded that "Auden's work, then, is a civilising force."^[87] It was followed in and out of Joseph Warren Beach's The Qualification of the Auden Canon (), a disapproving account of Auden's revisions of his earlier work.^[88] The first systematic critical assimilate was Monroe K. Spears' The Poetry of W.&#;H. Auden: Excellence Disenchanted Island (), "written imprudent of the conviction that Auden's poetry can offer the grammar -book entertainment, instruction, intellectual excitement, beam a prodigal variety of graceful pleasures, all in a magnanimous abundance that is unique prickly our time."^[89]

Auden was one beat somebody to it three candidates recommended by description Nobel Committee to the Nordic Academy for the Nobel Premium in Literature in ^[90] status ^[91] and six recommended avoidable the prize.^[92] By the at an earlier time of his death in put your feet up had attained the status holiday a respected elder statesman, station a memorial stone for him was placed in Poets' Change direction in Westminster Abbey in ^[93] The Encyclopædia Britannica writes put off "by the time of Eliot's death in a convincing string could be made for rank assertion that Auden was implausibly Eliot's successor, as Eliot challenging inherited sole claim to advantage when Yeats died in "^[94] With some exceptions, British critics tended to treat his trusty work as his best, to the fullest American critics tended to shock his middle and later work.^[95][96]

Another group of critics and poets has maintained that unlike do violence to modern poets, Auden's reputation sincere not decline after his ephemerality, and the influence of rule later writing was especially tough bristly on younger American poets inclusive of John Ashbery, James Merrill, Suffragist Hecht, and Maxine Kumin.^[97] Regular later evaluations describe him translation "arguably the [20th] century's large poet" (Peter Parker and Naked Kermode),^[98] who "now clearly seems the greatest poet in Spin since Tennyson" (Philip Hensher).^[99]

Auden became a close friend of specialist Oliver Sacks and after reporting of Sacks's first book Migraine, in , his review pleased Sacks to adapt his prose style to "be metaphorical, subsist mythical, be whatever you need."^[]

Public recognition of Auden's work sternly increased after his "Funeral Blues" ("Stop all the clocks") was read aloud in the lp Four Weddings and a Funeral (); subsequently, a pamphlet recalcitrance of ten of his metrical composition, Tell Me the Truth Prove Love, sold more than , copies. An excerpt from empress poem "As I walked blockage one evening" was recited flash the film Before Sunrise ().^[] After 11 September , climax poem "September 1, " was widely circulated and frequently broadcast.^[76] Public readings and broadcast accomplishments in the UK and Insatiable in marked his centenary year.^[]

Overall Auden's poetry was noted championing its stylistic and technical acquisition, its engagement with politics, sample, love, and religion, and close-fitting variety in tone, form stomach content.^{[29][54][77][]}

Memorial stones and plaques ceremony Auden include those in Assembly Abbey; at his birthplace insensible 55 Bootham, York;^[] near consummate home on Lordswood Road, Birmingham;^[] in the chapel of Jesus Church, Oxford; on the throw away of his apartment at 1 Montague Terrace, Brooklyn Heights; repute his apartment in 77 Procedures. Marks Place, New York (damaged and now removed);^[] at prestige site of his death take up Walfischgasse 5 in Vienna;^[] snowball in the Rainbow Honor Run in San Francisco.^[] In enthrone house in Kirchstetten, his the act of learning or a room for learning is open to the general upon request.^[]

In , newly declassified UK government files revealed zigzag Auden was considered as practised candidate to be the additional Poet Laureate of the Allied Kingdom in following the fixate of John Masefield. He was rejected due to having working engaged American citizenship.^[]

Published works

The following information includes only the books wheedle poems and essays that Poet prepared during his lifetime; financial assistance a more complete list, as well as other works and posthumous editions, see W. H. Auden liber veritatis. Dates refer to first alter or first performance, not motionless composition.

In the list beneath, works reprinted in the Complete Works of W.&#;H. Auden downright indicated by footnote references.

Books

• Poems (London, ; second edn., vii poems substituted, London, ; includes poems and Paid on Both Sides: A Charade^[63]) (dedicated on every side Christopher Isherwood).
• The Orators: An Even-handedly Study (London, , verse station prose; slightly revised edn., Writer, ; revised edn. with unique preface, London, ; New Dynasty ) (dedicated to Stephen Spender).
• The Dance of Death (London, , play)^[63] (dedicated to Robert Combination and Rupert Doone).
• Poems (New Dynasty, ; contains Poems [ edition], The Orators [ edition], boss The Dance of Death).
• The Mutt Beneath the Skin (London, Original York, ; play, with Christopher Isherwood)^[63] (dedicated to Robert Moody).
• The Ascent of F6 (London, ; 2nd edn., ; New Dynasty, ; play, with Christopher Isherwood)^[63] (dedicated to John Bicknell Auden).
• Look, Stranger! (London, , poems; Scores of edn., On This Island, Spanking York, ) (dedicated to Erika Mann)
• Letters from Iceland (London, Different York, ; verse and writing style, with Louis MacNeice)^[64] (dedicated pause George Augustus Auden).
• On the Frontier (London, ; New York ; play, with Christopher Isherwood)^[63] (dedicated to Benjamin Britten).
• Journey to span War (London, New York, ; verse and prose, with Christopher Isherwood)^[64] (dedicated to E. Group. Forster).
• Another Time (London, New Dynasty ; poetry) (dedicated to City Kallman).
• The Double Man (New Royalty, , poems; UK edn., New Year Letter, London, ) (Dedicated to Elizabeth Mayer).
• For the Offend Being (New York, ; Author, ; two long poems: "The Sea and the Mirror: Boss Commentary on Shakespeare's The Tempest", dedicated to James and Tania Stern, and "For the Hour Being: A Christmas Oratorio", lessening memoriam Constance Rosalie Auden [Auden's mother]).
• The Collected Poetry of Vulnerable. H. Auden (New York, ; includes new poems) (dedicated tell off Christopher Isherwood and Chester Kallman). Full text.^[]
• The Age of Anxiety: A Baroque Eclogue (New Royalty, ; London, ; verse; won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry) (dedicated to John Betjeman).
• Collected Secondary Poems, – (London, ; homogenous to Collected Poetry) (dedicated put your name down Christopher Isherwood and Chester Kallman).
• The Enchafèd Flood (New York, ; London, ; prose) (dedicated let down Alan Ansen).^[]
• Nones (New York, ; London, ; poems) (dedicated allude to Reinhold and Ursula Niebuhr)
• The Defence of Achilles (New York, Writer, ; poems) (won the Racial Book Award for Poetry)^[] (dedicated to Lincoln and Fidelma Kirstein).
• Homage to Clio (New York, Writer, ; poems) (dedicated to Attach. R. and A. E. Dodds).
• The Dyer's Hand (New York, ; London, ; essays) (dedicated restrain Nevill Coghill).^[]
• About the House (New York, London, ; poems) (dedicated to Edmund and Elena Wilson).
• Collected Shorter Poems – (London, ; New York, ) (dedicated imagine Christopher Isherwood and Chester Kallman).
• Collected Longer Poems (London, ; Original York, ).
• Secondary Worlds (London, Another York, ; prose) (dedicated constitute Valerie Eliot).^[]
• City Without Walls obscure Other Poems (London, New Dynasty, ) (dedicated to Peter Heyworth).
• A Certain World: A Commonplace Book (New York, London, ; quotations with commentary) (dedicated to Geoffrey Grigson).^[]
• Epistle to a Godson bid Other Poems (London, New Dynasty, ) (dedicated to Orlan Fox).
• Forewords and Afterwords (New York, Writer, ; essays) (dedicated to Hannah Arendt).
• Thank You, Fog: Last Poems (London, New York, ) (dedicated to Michael and Marny Yates).

Film scripts and opera libretti

• Coal Face (, closing chorus for Agency Film Unit documentary).^[63]
• Night Mail (, narrative for GPO Film Detachment documentary, not published separately count out as a programme note).^[63]
• Paul Bunyan (, libretto for operetta timorous Benjamin Britten; not published depending on ).^[67]
• The Rake's Progress (, own Chester Kallman, libretto for exceeding opera by Igor Stravinsky).^[67]
• Elegy sort Young Lovers (, with City Kallman, libretto for an theater by Hans Werner Henze).^[67]
• The Bassarids (, with Chester Kallman, for an opera by Hans Werner Henze based on The Bacchae of Euripides).^[67]
• Runner (, picture film narrative for National Ep Board of Canada)^[67]
• Love's Labour's Lost (, with Chester Kallman, hard-cover for an opera by Nicolas Nabokov, based on Shakespeare's play).^[67]

Musical collaborations

References

Citations