W.

H Auden (1907-1973)
• Full name: Wystan Hugh Auden
• Born in: York England
• Influenced by: Old English verse and the poems of Thomas Hardy, Robert Frost, William
Blake and Emily Dickinson.
• W.H. Auden initially studied science and engineering in college before switching his focus
to English.
• 1922: Had discovered his vocation as a poet, and two years later his first poem was
published in Public School Verse.
• 1925: Entered the University of Oxford (Christ Church)
• 1928: Upon graduating from Oxford, Auden, offered a year abroad by his parents, chose
Berlin rather than the Paris by which the previous literary generation had been fascinated.
• He fell in love with the German language and was influenced by its poetry, cabaret songs,
and plays, especially those by Bertolt Brecht. He returned to become a schoolmaster in
Scotland and England for the next five years.
• Collected Shorter Poems (1962) Auden divides his career into four periods.
 First (1927-32)
. when he was still an undergraduate till he published The Orators: An English Study
(1932)
- a long poem in prose and verse about hero-worship
. Published Poem (1928) (published by T.S Eilot) & Paid on Both Side: A Charade
(1930) (his 1st dramatic work; published in Criterion by T.S Eilot)
. Poems: uneven and often obscure, pulled in contrary directions by the subjective impulse
to fantasy, the mythic and unconscious, & the objective impulse to a diagnosis of the ills
of society and the psychological and moral defects of the individuals who constitute it.
 Second (1933-38)
. in which Auden was the hero of the left-wing
. On This Island (in America 1937; in Britain, Look, Stranger! 1936)
. his verse became more open in texture and accessible to a larger public
. 1936: married Erika Mann, the daughter of the German novelist Thomas Mann
. wrote The Dance of Death (a musical propaganda play) for Group Theatre
. Three plays in collaboration with Christopher Isherwood (his friend since preparatory
school): The Dog Beneath the Skin (1935), The Ascent of F6 (1936), and On the
Frontier (1938)
. Psychology and Art Today (1935)
. wrote commentaries for documentary films: Night Mail (1936)
. Letters from Iceland (1937): described his trip to Iceland with MacNeice (a pastiche of
verse, letters, travelogue, Scandinavian mythology & journalism)
. Journey to a War (1939): described his trip to China with Isherwood
. During his trip to China he and Isherwood decided to settle down in America. Both settled in
America in January 1939 (the same year W.B Yeats died)
. Spain (1937): described his visit to Spain
. Funeral Blues (also known as Stop all the clocks)
 Third (1939-46)
. Auden became an American citizen (1939)
. underwent decisive changes in his religious and intellectual perspective. (converted to
Anglicanism in 1940)
 . Another Time (1940) contains some of his best songs and topical verse
. The Double Man (containing “New Year Letter,” which provided the title of the British
edition; 1941) embodies his position on the verge of commitment to Christianity.
. The beliefs and attitudes that are basic to all of Auden’s work after 1940 are defined in three
long poems: (written in a modern version of Anglo-saxon alliterative verse)
- religious in the For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio (1944)
 series of dramatic monologues spoken by the characters in the Christmas story and
by choruses and a narrator.
 dedicated to the memory of Auden's mother, Constance Rosalie Bicknell Auden
- aesthetic in the same volume’s The Sea and the Mirror: A Commentary on
Shakespeare’s The Tempest (1944)
 series of dramatic monologues spoken by the characters in Shakespeare's play after
the end of the play itself
- social-psychological in The Age of Anxiety: A Baroque Eclogue (1947 UK; poem
in six parts) that won Auden the Pulitzer Prize in 1948.
 long poem in six parts
 poem deals, in eclogue form, with man's quest to find substance and identity in a
shifting and increasingly industrialized world.
 Set in a wartime bar in New York City, Auden uses four characters – Quant, Malin,
Rosetta, and Emble – to explore and develop his themes.
. wrote no long poems after that.
 Fourth (1948- 1957)
. established the pattern of leaving New York City each year to spend the months from April to
October in Europe
. 1948-1957: summer residence was the Italian island of Ischia
. latter year he bought a farmhouse in Kirchstetten, Austria, where he then spent his summers.
. The Rake’s Progress (1951): English-language opera in three acts and an epilogue by Igor
Stravinsky.
. The Shield of Achilles (1955)
- A series of 6 Good Friday poems
- A sequence of seven poems about man’s relation to nature, “Bucolics”
Opera
. Elegy for Young Lovers (1961): an opera in three acts by Hans Werner Henze to an
English libretto by W. H. Auden and Chester Kallman.
. The Bassarids (1966) for Hans Werner Henze
. Love's Labour's Lost is an opera by Nicolas Nabokov, written by W. H. Auden and Chester
Kallman, based on Shakespeare's play of the same name.

Other Works
. Homage to Clio (1960)
- A group of poems about “history”, as opposed to “nature”
- History: set to unique events made by human choices
- Nature: set of involuntary events created by natural processes
. The Dyer's Hand and other essays is a prose book by W. H. Auden, published in 1962 in
the US by Random House and in the UK the following year by Faber & Faber.
. About the House (1965)
. City Without Walls (1969)
Translation Works
. The Collected Poems of St. John Perse (1972)

Most Important Works

1. Funeral Blues (1936)
• Also known as Stop all the clocks
• satiric poem of mourning for a political leader
• 1940 Auden included “Funeral Blues” in Another Time, a collection of his poetry.
• Plot
. Turn off the clocks and cut the telephone cords. Give the dog a juicy bone so it stops barking.
Make the pianos stop playing and then bring out the coffin and the mourners, accompanied
only by a quiet drum.
. Let airplanes fly sadly over us and write “He is Dead” in the sky. Put black bows around the
white necks of the pigeons in the street. Make the traffic cops wear black gloves.
. He was everything to me: all the points of the compass. He was my work week and my day
off. He was every hour of my day, present in everything I spoke or sang. I thought our love
would never end. That wasn't true.
. I don’t want to see the stars anymore: put out their lights. Take the moon out of the sky and
take the sun apart. Pour the ocean down the drain and sweep the forest away. Nothing good
can ever happen again.
• Quote
. Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone

2. Another Time (1940)

• dedicated to Chester Kallman
• divided into three parts, "People and Places", "Lighter Poems", and "Occasional Poems".
. People and place: "Law, say the gardeners, is the sun", "Oxford", "A. E. Housman",
"Edward Lear", "Herman Melville", "The Capital", "Voltaire at Ferney", "Orpheus", "Musée
des Beaux Arts", "Gare du Midi", "Dover"
. Lighter Poems: "Miss Gee", "O tell me the truth about love", "Funeral Blues", "Calypso",
"Roman Wall Blues", "The Unknown Citizen", "Refugee Blues"
. Occasional Poems: includes "Spain 1937", "In Memory of W. B. Yeats", "September 1,
1939", "In Memory of Sigmund Freud"
A. Musée des Beaux Arts
. Inspired with paintings
. first published under the title "Palais des beaux arts" (Palace of Fine Arts) in Spring issue
of New Writing, a modernist magazine edited by John Lehmann
. title derives from the Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique (museum) in Brussels
. Plot
- The old Masters were never wrong about human suffering and its position in context
with the rest of human society. While someone is suffering, others are going about their
regular business. The elderly live in desperate hope for a miracle, but children are not
particularly concerned. Even a martyr dies on the margins of society.
- For example, in the painter Brueghel’s depiction of Icarus falling from the sky,
“everything turns away” uncaringly from his disaster. The ploughman might have heard
Icarus splash into the water, but it mattered little to him. The sun glimmers on white
legs disappearing below the water. On the nearby ship, people must have seen the
amazing sight of a boy falling from the sky, but they have somewhere to go, so they sail
away.
 . Paintings in Poem
- first references Brueghel the elder’s The Census at Bethlehem, which depicts Mary and
Joseph after they've completed the long journey to Bethlehem.
- Breughel the Younger’s Massacre of the Innocents, in which the first Christian martyrs—
Bethlehem’s boys under the age of two—are slaughtered because the aging Herod, King
of Judea, saw Jesus’s birth as a threat to his power
 drawing the reader’s attention to dogs, who “go on with their doggy life” and a
“torturer’s horse,” who “scratches its innocent behind on a tree.”
- Breughel the elder’s, Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, a scene whose bystanders are
aware of the suffering taking place in front of them and still turn a blind eye.
B. In Memory of W. B. Yeats
. The first part of the poem contains six stanzas, the second: one and the third
. Plot
- The first part of the poem addresses the last days of Yeats’ life and what it was like right
after he died. Auden speaks on the loss and how it impacted and didn’t impact, the world.
- The second section of ‘In Memory of W.B. Yeats’ is directed, through a second person
speaker, to Yeats himself.
- While the third is an elegy meant to sum up that which was spoken about previously but
also make new statements about what poetry can do for humankind, especially in the
face of WWII.
. Quotes
- He disappeared in the dead of winter ... (opening lines)
- The parish of rich women, physical decay, / Yourself…’ - These lines make W. B. Yeats
appear silly in W. H. Auden’s view.
- These following images are part of W.H. Auden’s poem “In Memory of W.B. Yeats”.
 “Mercury sinking in the mouth of the dying day”
 “Wolves running through evergreen forests”
 “Silence invading the suburbs”
- "In the deserts of the heart/ Let the healing fountain start, / In the prison of his days, /
Teach the free man how to praise" (Closing Lines)
C. September 1, 1939
• written on the outbreak of World War II
• conveys the poet’s emotional response to the outbreak of World War II.
• Title: refers to the date of the German invasion of Poland, which precipitated the war.
• Important Fact: Greek historian Thucydides knew about dictators and so-called
democracy, their “elderly rubbish” of arguments that enable the dictator to cause pain,
mismanagement, and grief while an apathetic population permits it. It is happening again
in 1939. (from poem’s summary)
• Quotes
- We must love one another or die
- I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty Second Street Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire of a low dishonest decade ... (opening lines)
- To resume their compulsory game:
Who can release them now,
 Who can reach the deaf,
Who can speak for the dumb?

- Not universal love

But to be loved alone.
- May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame. (closing lines)

3. Brother and Other (1963): he depicts Antonio’s love for Bassanio as homosexual
(Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice)
 AUDEN GROUP / Auden Generation / Thirties Poets
• Active in 1930
• Oxford educated
• Bisexuals
• Uses industrial imagery
• Called: Pink Poets, Pylon Poets
• Left wing view- point shared
 Not Conservative like the modernist
 Upheld liberal political ideals
 Involved in Spanish Civil War
• The poets W. H. Auden, Louis MacNeice and Cecil Day Lewis of England during the 1930s had left-
leaning tendencies. (PYQ)

Members
• W.H Auden
• Louis MacNeice
• Cecil Day Lewis
• Stephen Spender
• Christopher Isherwood (Occasionally included)

MacSpaunday
• MacSpaunday was a name invented by Roy Campbell, in his Talking Bronco (1946)
• to designate a composite figure made up of the four poets:
. Louis MacNeice ("Mac")
. Stephen Spender ("sp")
. W. H. Auden ("au-n")
. Cecil Day-Lewis ("day")
 Previous Years Questions
• “The Disquieting Muses” by Sylvia Plath, “The Starry Night” by Anne Sexton, “Mournin Picture”
by Adrienne Rich and “Muse des Beaux Arts” by W. H. Auden are inspired by paintings.
• “Psychology and Art Today” (1935) is written by W. H. Auden.
• The year 1939 proved to be a crucial year for two important writers in England: For Yeats who
died and for Auden who left England for the U. S.
• The parish of rich women, physical decay, / Yourself…’ - These lines make W. B. Yeats appear
silly in W. H. Auden’s view. (In Memory of W. B. Yeats)
• He disappeared in the dead of winter ...” - “In Memory of W. B. Yeats” by Auden
• "In the deserts of the heart/ Let the healing fountain start, / In the prison of his days, / Teach the
free man how to praise" are lines from "In Memory of W. B. Yeats" by Auden.
• These following images are part of W.H. Auden’s poem “In Memory of W.B. Yeats”.
 “Mercury sinking in the mouth of the dying day”
 “Wolves running through evergreen forests”
 “Silence invading the suburbs”
• I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty Second Street Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire of a low dishonest decade ...
These are the opening lines of Auden's poem “September 1, 1939”. Here dives means night
club. The date refers to the Germany invasion into Poland which caused the WWII. It was
published on 18 October 1939.
• A boy falling out of the sky, children … skating on a pond at the edge of wood and the dogs go on
with their doggy life are some of the images that appear in Auden’s poem “Musee des Beaux
Arts”.
• These are lines from a poem “Auden’s Funeral” by Stephen Spender. “You are your words.
Your listeners see Written on your face the poems they hear Like letters carved in a tree’s bark
The sight and sound of solitudes endured …”
• Look, Stranger! by W. H. Auden and The Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell were published
in 1936 and 1937.