W.H. Auden

Wystan Hugh Auden (21 February 1907 – 29 September 1973) was an influential Anglo-American poet and a left-wing political writer. Two of his most famous and popular poems are: "September 1, 1939" and "Funeral Blues".

Biography:

Wystan Hugh Auden was born on the 21 February 1907 in York, England. From 1915 to 1920 he was a boarder at St Edmund's Preparatory School, Hindhead, Surrey, where he met Christopher Isherwood, a fellow pupil who became a lifelong friend and, during the 1930s, a lover. It was during his stay at Gresham's School, Holt, from 1920 to 1925 that he started to write poetry for the first time. In 1925 he became engaged to a nurse in Birmingham. However, the engagement was only brief and very obscure. In the same year he accompanied his father to Europe. After his return Auden began his studies of Natural Sciences, Politics, Philosophy, Economics and English at Christchurch, Oxford, graduating with a Thrid Class degree. During his undergraduate studies he got into contact with various men who would become famous intellectuals later on in life such as Stephen Spender, Cecil Day Lewis, Louis MacNeice and Bill McElwee, whom he got very fond of.

In 1926 Auden was introduced to modernist writing by a fellow student. As a result, he became fascinated by Eliot's Waste Land as well as writings by Virginia Woolf and Gertrude Stein just to name a few. Auden's early poems were published privately by Stephen Spender in 1928, the very same year that Auden spent in Berlin together with Isherwood, where he encountered left-wing politics for the first time, a circumstance which influenced his political writing.

After his return Auden took to teaching in London. In 1930 T.S. Eliot initiated the publication of Auden's Paid on Both Sides and of Poems respectively. The former, a verse play, was regarded by Eliot as “a brilliant piece of work” with Auden being “the best poet that I have discovered in several years” (qtd. in Fuller, 13). The Orators: An English Study was published in the same year and can be seen as “a surrealist anatomy of a country in crisis” (Fuller, 51). It was the latter that boosted Auden's early reputation with John Hayward writing in the Criterion: “I have no doubt that it is the most valuable contribution to English poetry since The Waste Land” (Fuller, 51). In 1935 Auden married Erika Mann, an anti-Nazi and lesbian daughter of Thomas Mann, in order to provide her with a passport to leave Germany. Two years later, Auden spent three months in Valencia, Spain (from January till March 1937), where he broadcast for the embattled Republic.

In 1939 he moved to the United States together with Isherwood where he worked as script-writer for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in Hollywood. His decision to leave Britain behind was partly a result of the uneasiness he felt over being “the cultural leader of young [leftist] English partisans” (Davenport-Hines in: Smith, 19). A year later he again started teaching; this time at the New School for Social Research, New York. In the subsequent years Auden taught at many other colleges and universities including Michigan University (1941), Bennington College (1946), Barnard College (1947) and Oxford University (1956) among others. In 1946 he finally became a citizen of the US. Wystan Hugh Auden died of a heart attack on 29 September 1973 in a hotel in Vienna.

Style:

In his works Auden drew ideas from other poets as well as from novelists, historians, theologians, psychologists, philosophers, political scientists and anthropologists. Moreover, he was highly influenced by psychoanalytical and Marxist theories. Yet, Auden's devotion to Marxism “was never wholehearted and frequently seemed forced and false” (Wright, 58). During his early years as a poet and writer Auden was numbered among the so-called 'pylon poets', a group of mostly young intellectuals who celebrated new technology. However, Auden was also profoundly committed to political writing with many critical or terrifying concerns about political injustice and human pain being spoken about in several of his works. Consequently, he soon became a spokesperson for many thinking dissenters.

Published works (incomplete list):

Poems (London, 1930; second edn., seven poems substituted, London, 1933; includes poems and Paid on Both Sides: A Charade) (dedicated to Christopher Isherwood).

The Orators: An English Study (London, 1932, verse and prose; slightly revised edn., London, 1934; revised edn. with new preface, London, 1966; New York 1967) (dedicated to Stephen Spender).

The Dance of Death (London, 1933, play) (dedicated to Robert Medley and Rupert Doone).

Poems (New York, 1934; contains Poems [1933 edition], The Orators [1932 edition], and The Dance of Death).

The Dog Beneath the Skin (London, New York, 1935; play, with Christopher Isherwood) (dedicated to Robert Moody).

The Ascent of F6 (London, 1936; 2nd edn., 1937; New York, 1937; play, with Christopher Isherwood) (dedicated to John Bicknell Auden).

Look, Stranger! (London, 1936, poems; US edn., On This Island, New York, 1937) (dedicated to Erika Mann)

Letters from Iceland (London, New York, 1937; verse and prose, with Louis MacNeice) (dedicated to George Augustus Auden).

On the Frontier (London, 1938; New York 1939; play, with Christopher Isherwood) (dedicated to Benjamin Britten).

Journey to a War (London, New York, 1939; verse and prose, with Christopher Isherwood) (dedicated to E. M. Forster).

Another Time (London, New York 1940; poetry) (dedicated to Chester Kallman).

The Double Man (New York, 1941, poems; UK edn., New Year Letter, London, 1941) (Dedicated to Elizabeth Mayer).

For the Time Being (New York, 1944; London, 1945; two long poems: "The Sea and the Mirror: A Commentary on Shakespeare's The Tempest", dedicated to James and Tania Stern, and "For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio", in memoriam Constance Rosalie Auden [Auden's mother]).

The Collected Poetry of W. H. Auden (New York, 1945; includes new poems) (dedicated to Christopher Isherwood and Chester Kallman).

The Age of Anxiety: A Baroque Eclogue (New York, 1947; London, 1948; verse; won the 1948 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry) (dedicated to John Betjeman).

Collected Shorter Poems, 1930–1944 (London, 1950; similar to 1945 Collected Poetry) (dedicated to Christopher Isherwood and Chester Kallman).

The Enchafèd Flood (New York, 1950; London, 1951; prose) (dedicated to Alan Ansen).

Nones (New York, 1951; London, 1952; poems) (dedicated to Reinhold and Ursula Niebuhr)

The Shield of Achilles (New York, London, 1955; poems; won the 1956 National Book Award for Poetry) (dedicated to Lincoln and Fidelma Kirstein).

Homage to Clio (New York, London, 1960; poems) (dedicated to E. R. and A. E. Dodds).

The Dyer's Hand (New York, 1962; London, 1963; essays) (dedicated to Nevill Coghill).

About the House (New York, London, 1965; poems) (dedicated to Edmund and Elena Wilson).

Collected Shorter Poems 1927–1957 (London, 1966; New York, 1967) (dedicated to Christopher Isherwood and Chester Kallman).

Collected Longer Poems (London, 1968; New York, 1969).

Secondary Worlds (London, New York, 1969; prose) (dedicated to Valerie Eliot).

City Without Walls and Other Poems (London, New York, 1969) (dedicated to Peter Heyworth).

A Certain World: A Commonplace Book (New York, London, 1970; quotations with commentary) (dedicated to Geoffrey Gorer).

Epistle to a Godson and Other Poems (London, New York, 1972) (dedicated to Orlan Fox).

Forewords and Afterwords (New York, London, 1973; essays) (dedicated to Hannah Arendt).

Thank You, Fog: Last Poems (London, New York, 1974) (dedicated to Michael and Marny Yates).

Sources:

Fuller, John. A Reader's Guide to W.H. Auden. Thames and Hudson: London, 1976.

Smith, Stan (ed.). The Cambridge Companion to W.H. Auden. Cambridge: CUP, 2004.

Wright, George T. W.H. Auden. Twayne Publishers Inc.: New York, 1969.