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W. H. Auden
144
U. S. Library of Congress
Born 21 February 1907
York, England
Died 29 September 1973 (aged 66)
Vienna, Austria

Wystan Hugh Auden (21 February 1907 – 29 September 1973, pronounced /ˈwɪstən ˈhjuː ˈɔːdən/)[1] who signed his works W. Events 362 - Athanasius returns to Alexandria. 1245 - Thomas, the first known Bishop of Finland Year 1907 ( MCMVII) was a Common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common year York ( is an historic Walled city sited at the confluence of the rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. England is a Country which is part of the United Kingdom. Its inhabitants account for more than 83% of the total UK population whilst its mainland Events 522 BC - Darius I of Persia kills the Magian usurper Gaumâta securing his hold as king of the Persian Empire. Year 1973 ( MCMLXXIII) was a Common year starting on Monday (link will display full calendar of the 1973 Gregorian calendar. Vienna ( in Wien; see also other names) is the Capital of Austria, and is also one of the nine States of Austria. Austria (Österreich ( officially the Republic of Austria (Republik Österreich Events 362 - Athanasius returns to Alexandria. 1245 - Thomas, the first known Bishop of Finland Year 1907 ( MCMVII) was a Common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common year Events 522 BC - Darius I of Persia kills the Magian usurper Gaumâta securing his hold as king of the Persian Empire. Year 1973 ( MCMLXXIII) was a Common year starting on Monday (link will display full calendar of the 1973 Gregorian calendar.  H. Auden, was an Anglo-American poet, regarded by many as one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. [2] His work is noted for its stylistic and technical achievements, its engagement with moral and political issues, and its variety of tone, form and content. [3][4] The central themes of his poetry are love, politics and citizenship, religion and morals, and the relationship between unique human beings and the anonymous, impersonal world of nature.

Auden grew up in Birmingham in a professional middle-class family and read English literature at Christ Church, Oxford. Birmingham ( ˈbɜːmɪŋəm Ber -ming-um Not to be confused with Christchurch, a city in New Zealand. Christ Church (Ædes Christi the temple or house of Christ and thus sometimes known as His early poems, written in the late 1920s and 1930s, alternated between telegraphic modern styles and fluent traditional ones, were written in an intense and dramatic tone, and established his reputation as a left-wing political poet and prophet. He became uncomfortable in this role in the later 1930s, and abandoned it after he moved to the United States in 1939. His poems in the 1940s explored religious and ethical themes in a less dramatic manner than his earlier works, but still combined new forms devised by Auden himself with traditional forms and styles. In the 1950s and 1960s many of his poems focused on the ways in which words revealed and concealed emotions, and he took a particular interest in writing opera librettos, a form ideally suited to direct expression of strong feelings. [5]

He was also a prolific writer of prose essays and reviews on literary, political, psychological and religious subjects, and he worked at various times on documentary films, poetic plays and other forms of performance. Throughout his career he was both controversial and influential. After his death, some of his poems, notably "Funeral Blues" ("Stop all the clocks") and "September 1, 1939", became widely known through films, broadcasts and popular media. "Funeral Blues" is a Poem first published in 1936 by W September 1 1939 is a poem by W H Auden written on the occasion of the outbreak of World War II. [2]

Contents

Life

Childhood and education, 1907-1927

Childhood

Wystan Hugh Auden was born in York, England, where his father George Augustus Auden was a physician. York ( is an historic Walled city sited at the confluence of the rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. England is a Country which is part of the United Kingdom. Its inhabitants account for more than 83% of the total UK population whilst its mainland George Augustus Auden (1872 &ndash 1957 English physician professor of Public health, school medical officer and writer on archaeological subjects Wystan (see note on the source of this name[6]) was the third of three children, all sons; the oldest, George Bernard Auden, became a farmer; the second, John Bicknell Auden, became a geologist. John Bicknell Auden ( 14 December 1903 - 1991 was an English Geologist and Explorer, and an official with the World Health Organization. His mother, Constance Rosalie Bicknell Auden, had trained as a missionary nurse. Auden's grandfathers were both Church of England clergymen; his household was Anglo-Catholic, following a "High" form of Anglicanism with doctrine and ritual resembling that of Roman Catholicism. The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England, the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican The terms Anglo-Catholic and Anglo-Catholicism (or sometimes possibly incorrectly High Church &mdashsee below describe people " High Church " relates to Ecclesiology and Liturgy in Anglican theology and practice Anglicanism is a tradition of Christian faith Churches in this tradition either have historical connections to the Church of England or have similar beliefs [7][8] Auden traced his love of music and language partly to the church services of his childhood. [9] He believed he was of Icelandic descent, and his lifelong fascination with Icelandic legends and sagas is visible throughout his work. [10]

In 1908 his family moved to Harborne, Birmingham, where his father had been appointed the School Medical Officer and Lecturer (later Professor) of Public Health; Auden's lifelong psychoanalytic interests began in his father's library. Harborne is an area three miles southwest from Birmingham city centre England. Birmingham ( ˈbɜːmɪŋəm Ber -ming-um From the age of eight he attended boarding schools, returning home for holidays. [7]

From the ages six to twelve, "I spent a great many of my waking hours in the fabrication of a private secondary sacred world, the basic elements of which were (a) a limestone landscape mainly derived from the Pennine Moors in the North of England, and (b) an industry - lead mining". [11] His visits to the Pennine landscape and its declining lead-mining industry figure in many of his poems; the remote decaying mining village of Rookhope was for him a "sacred landscape",[12] evoked in a late poem, "Amor Loci". Rookhope is a former lead and Fluorspar mining village in County Durham, in England.

Until he was fifteen he expected to become a mining engineer, but his "passion for words" had already begun. He wrote later: "words so excite me that a pornographic story, for example, excites me sexually more than a living person can do". [13]

Education

Auden's first school was St. Edmund's School (Hindhead), Surrey, where he met Christopher Isherwood, later famous as a novelist. St Edmund's School is a nursery pre-prep and preparatory school originally founded in Hunstanton, Norfolk in 1874 and subsequently moved to Hindhead, Surrey in Surrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. Christopher Isherwood ( August 26, 1904 &ndash January 4, 1986) was an Anglo-American Novelist. At thirteen he went to Gresham's School in Norfolk, where, in 1922, his friend Robert Medley first suggested that he might write poetry. Gresham’s School is an independent Norfolk (ˈnɔrfək is a low-lying county in East Anglia, England, United Kingdom. Charles Robert Owen Medley CBE, RA, ( 19 December 1905 - 20 October 1994) always known as Robert Medley, was [7] Soon after, he "discover[ed] that he has lost his faith" (through a gradual realization that he had lost interest in religion, not through any decisive change of views). [14] He played Caliban in a school production of The Tempest in 1922,[15] and his first published poems appeared in the school magazine in 1923. [16]

In 1925 he went to Christ Church, Oxford, with a scholarship in biology, but he switched to English by his second year. Not to be confused with Christchurch, a city in New Zealand. Christ Church (Ædes Christi the temple or house of Christ and thus sometimes known as Friends he met at Oxford included Cecil Day Lewis, Louis MacNeice, and Stephen Spender; these four were commonly though misleadingly identified in the 1930s as the "Auden Group" for their shared (but not identical) left-wing views. Cecil Day-Lewis (or Day Lewis) CBE ( 27 April 1904 &ndash 22 May 1972) was an Irish -born Poet Frederick Louis MacNeice ( September 12 Sir Stephen Harold Spender CBE, ( 28 February 1909 – 16 July 1995) was an English Poet, Novelist The Auden Group is the name given to a group of writers active in the 1930s that included W Auden left Oxford in 1928 with a third-class degree. The British undergraduate degree classification system is a grading scheme for Undergraduate degrees ( Bachelor's degrees and some Master's degrees [7][9]

He was reintroduced to Christopher Isherwood in 1925; for the next few years Isherwood was his literary mentor to whom he sent poems for comments and criticism. Christopher Isherwood ( August 26, 1904 &ndash January 4, 1986) was an Anglo-American Novelist. Auden probably fell in love with Isherwood (who was unaware of the intensity of Auden's feelings) and in the 1930s they maintained a sexual friendship in intervals between their relations with others. In 1935-39 they collaborated on three plays and a travel book. [17]

From his Oxford years onward, his friends uniformly described him as funny, extravagant, sympathetic, generous, and, partly by his own choice, lonely. In groups he was often dogmatic and overbearing in a comic way; in more private settings he was diffident and shy except when certain of his welcome. He was punctual in his habits, and obsessive about meeting deadlines, while choosing to live amidst physical disorder. [8]

Britain and Europe, 1928-1938

In the autumn of 1928 Auden left Britain for nine months in Weimar Berlin, partly to rebel against English repressiveness in a city where homosexuality was widely tolerated. The term Weimar Republic ( ˈvaɪmarɐ repuˈbliːk is used by historians to signify the democratic and Republican period of Germany from 1919 to 1933 Berlin is the capital city and one of sixteen states of Germany. In Berlin, he said, he first experienced the political and economic unrest that became one of his central subjects. [9]

On returning to Britain in 1929, he worked briefly as a tutor. In 1930 his first published book, Poems (1930), was accepted by T. S. Eliot for Faber and Faber; the firm also published all his later books. Thomas Stearns Eliot, OM (September 26 1888 – January 4 1965 was a poet Dramatist, and Literary critic. Faber and Faber, often abbreviated to Faber, is an independent publishing house in the UK, notable in particular for publishing In 1930 he began five years as a schoolmaster in boys' schools: two years at the Larchfield Academy, in Helensburgh, Scotland, then three years at the The Downs School, in the Malvern Hills, where he was a much-loved teacher. Larchfield Academy (often called Larchfield School was a preparatory school for boys in Helensburgh, Scotland. Helensburgh ( Baile Eilidh in Gaelic) is a Burgh in Argyll and Bute, Scotland. The Downs School is an independent coeducational school founded in 1900 The Malvern Hills are a range of hills in the English counties of Worcestershire, Herefordshire and a small area of northern Gloucestershire [7] At the Downs, in June 1933, he experienced what he later described as a "Vision of Agape," when, while sitting with three fellow-teachers at the school, he suddenly found that he loved them for themselves, that their existence had infinite value for him; this experience, he said, later influenced his decision to return to the Anglican Church in 1940. Agapē (ˈægəpiː ( Gk αγάπη) is one of several Greek words translated into English as love. [18]

During these years, Auden's erotic interests focused, as he later said, on an idealized "Alter Ego"[19] rather than on individual persons. His relations (and his unsuccessful courtships) tended to be unequal either in age or intelligence; his sexual relations were transient, although some evolved into long friendships. He contrasted these relations with what he regarded as the "marriage" (his word) of equals that he began with Chester Kallman in 1939 (see below), based on the unique individuality of both partners. Chester Simon Kallman ( 7 January 1921 &ndash 18 January 1975) was an American Poet, librettist and translator best known [20]

From the G.P.O. Film Unit's Night Mail; scene possibly directed by Auden
From the G. P. O. Film Unit's Night Mail; scene possibly directed by Auden

From 1935 until he left Britain early in 1939, Auden worked as freelance reviewer, essayist, and lecturer, first with the G.P.O. Film Unit, a documentary film-making branch of the post office, headed by John Grierson. Night Mail is a 1936 Documentary film about a London Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS mail train from London to The GPO Film Unit was a subdivision of the UK General Post Office. John Grierson ( 26 April 1898 &ndash 19 February 1972) is often considered the Father of British and Canadian He collaborated there with Benjamin Britten, with whom he also worked on plays, song cycles, and a libretto. Edward Benjamin Britten Baron Britten, OM CH (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976 was an English Composer, conductor, Auden's plays in the 1930s were performed by the Group Theatre, in productions that he supervised to varying degrees. The Group Theatre (London no connection with the New York company with the same name was an experimental theatre company founded in 1932 by Rupert Doone and Robert Medley [9]

His work now reflected his belief that any good artist must be "more than a bit of a reporting journalist". [21] In 1936 he spent three months in Iceland, where he gathered material for a travel book Letters from Iceland (1937), written in collaboration with Louis MacNeice. Letters from Iceland is a travel book in prose and verse by W Frederick Louis MacNeice ( September 12 In 1937 he went to Spain intending to drive an ambulance for the Republic in the Spanish Civil War, but was put to work broadcasting propaganda, a job he left in order to visit the front. Spain () or the Kingdom of Spain (Reino de España is a country located mostly in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. The Spanish Civil War was a major conflict in Spain that started after an attempted Coup d'état committed by parts of the army against the government of His seven-week visit to Spain affected him deeply, and his social views grew more complex as he found political realities to be more ambiguous and troubling than he had imagined. [7][20] Again attempting to combine reportage and art, he and Isherwood spent six months in 1938 visiting the Sino-Japanese War, working on their book Journey to a War (1939). The Second Sino-Japanese War ( July 7, 1937 to September 9, 1945) was a major war fought between the Republic of China and the Journey to a War is a travel book in prose and verse by W H Auden and Christopher Isherwood, published in 1939 On their way back to England they stayed briefly in New York and decided to move to the United States. Auden spent the autumn of 1938 partly in England, partly in Brussels. Brussels (Bruxelles pronounced; Brussel pronounced) officially the Brussels Capital-Region, is [7]

Many of his poems during the 1930s and afterward were inspired by unconsummated love, and in the 1950s he summarized his emotional life in a famous couplet: "If equal affection cannot be / Let the more loving one be me" ("The More Loving One"). He had a gift for friendship and, starting in the late 1930s, a strong wish for the stability of marriage; in a letter to his friend James Stern he called marriage "the only subject". James Stern ( 26 December 1904 – 22 November 1993) Anglo-Irish novelist and short story writer [22] Throughout his life, he performed charitable acts, sometimes in public, as in his marriage of convenience to Erika Mann in 1935 that gave her a British passport with which to escape the Nazis,[7] but, especially in later years, usually in private, and he was embarrassed if they were publicly revealed (as when his gift to his friend Dorothy Day for the Catholic Worker movement was reported on the front page of The New York Times in 1956). Erika Julia Hedwig Mann ( November 9, 1905 &ndash August 27, 1969) was the eldest daughter of novelist Thomas Mann and Katia Dorothy Day ( November 8, 1897 – November 29, 1980) was an American Journalist turned anarchist, social activist The Catholic Worker is a monthly Newspaper published by the Catholic Worker Movement community in New York City. [23]

United States and Europe, 1939-1973

Auden and Isherwood sailed to New York in January 1939, entering on temporary visas. Their departure from Britain was later seen by many there as a betrayal and Auden's reputation suffered. [7] In April 1939 Isherwood moved to California, and he and Auden saw each other only intermittently in later years. Around this time, Auden met an eighteen-year old poet Chester Kallman, who became his lover for the next two years (Auden described their relation as a "marriage" that began with a cross-country "honeymoon" journey). Chester Simon Kallman ( 7 January 1921 &ndash 18 January 1975) was an American Poet, librettist and translator best known [24] In 1941 Kallman ended their sexual relations because he could not accept Auden's insistence on a mutual faithful relationship, but he and Auden remained companions for the rest of Auden's life, sharing houses and apartments from 1953 until Auden's death. Year 1953 ( MCMLIII) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Auden dedicated both editions of his collected poetry (1945/50 and 1966) to Isherwood and Kallman. [25]

In 1940-41, Auden lived in a house in Brooklyn Heights which he shared with Carson McCullers, Benjamin Britten, and others, and which became a famous center of artistic life. Carson McCullers ( February 19, 1917 &ndash September 29, 1967) was an American Writer. Edward Benjamin Britten Baron Britten, OM CH (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976 was an English Composer, conductor, [26] In 1940, he joined the Episcopal Church, returning to the Anglican Communion he had abandoned at thirteen. The Episcopal Church is the official name of the Province of the Anglican Communion in the United States. Anglicanism is a tradition of Christian faith Churches in this tradition either have historical connections to the Church of England or have similar beliefs His reconversion was influenced partly by what he called the "sainthood" of Charles Williams,[27] whom he had met in 1937, partly by reading Søren Kierkegaard and Reinhold Niebuhr; his existential, this-worldly Christianity became a central element in his life. Charles Walter Stansby Williams ( September 20, 1886 – May 15, 1945) was a British Poet, Novelist, Theologian Søren Aabye Kierkegaard (ˈsœːɐn ˈkʰiɐ̯kəˌɡ̊ɒˀ in Danish Anglicized as;) Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr ( June 21, 1892 &ndash June 1, 1971) was an American theologian. [28]

In 1941-42 he taught English at the University of Michigan. The University of Michigan Ann Arbor ( U of M, U-M, UM or simply Michigan) is a top-ranked Coeducational public research He was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1942, but did not use it, choosing instead to teach at Swarthmore College in 1942-45. Guggenheim Fellowships are American grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who Swarthmore College is a private, independent, liberal arts college in the United States with an enrollment of about 1500 students [7] In the summer of 1945, after the end of World War II in Europe, he was in Germany with the U. S. Strategic Bombing Survey, studying the effects of Allied bombing on German morale, an experience that affected his postwar work as his visit to Spain had affected him earlier. See also Strategic Bombing Survey The United States Strategic Bombing Survey (Europe was established by the Secretary of War on 3 November [25] On his return, he settled in Manhattan, working as a freelance writer and as a visiting professor at Bennington, Smith, and other American colleges. Manhattan Island, in New York Harbor, is much the largest part of the Borough of Manhattan, one of the Five Boroughs which form the City of New York Bennington College is a nationally recognized liberal arts college located in Bennington Vermont. Smith College is a private, independent women's liberal arts college located in Northampton Massachusetts. In 1946 he became a naturalized citizen of the US. Naturalization is the acquisition of Citizenship or Nationality by somebody who was not a citizen or national of that country when he or she was born [7][9]

His theology in his later years evolved from a highly inward and psychologically oriented Protestantism in the early 1940s to a more Roman Catholic-oriented interest in the significance of the body and in collective ritual in the later 1940s and 1950s, and finally to the theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer which rejected "childish" conceptions of God for an adult religion that focused on the significance of human suffering. Protestantism refers to the forms of Christian faith and practice that originated in the 16th century Protestant Reformation. Dietrich Bonhoeffer ˈdiːtrɪç ˈboːnhøfɐ ( February 4, 1906 &ndash April 9, 1945) was a German Lutheran [25][28]

Auden began summering in Europe in 1948, first in Ischia, Italy, where he rented a house, then, starting 1958, in Kirchstetten, Austria where he bought a farmhouse, and, he said, shed tears of joy at owning a home for the first time. For the comune see Ischia (comune. For the part of the human hip see Ischium Ischia is a Volcanic Island in the Kirchstetten is a town in district of Sankt Pölten-Land in the Austrian state of Lower Austria. [7]

W. H. Auden, 1970
W. H. Auden, 1970

In 1951, shortly before the two British spies Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean fled to the USSR, Burgess attempted to phone Auden to arrange a vacation visit to Ischia that he had earlier discussed with Auden; Auden never returned the call and had no further contact with either spy, but a media frenzy ensued in which his name was mistakenly associated with their escape. Guy Francis De Moncy Burgess ( 16 April, 1911 &ndash 30 August, 1963) was a British -born Intelligence officer and Donald Duart Maclean (məˈkleɪn 25 May, 1913 Marylebone, London – 6 March, 1983 Moscow) was a British The frenzy was repeated when the MI5 documents on the incident were released in 2007. [29][30]

In 1956-61, Auden was Professor of Poetry at Oxford University where he was required to give three lectures each year. The chair of Professor of Poetry at the University of Oxford is an unusual academic appointment now held for a term of five years and chosen through an election open to all The University of Oxford (informally "Oxford University" or simply "Oxford" located in the city of Oxford, Oxfordshire, England is the This fairly light workload allowed him to spend most of his time in New York and his summer home. He now earned his income mostly by readings and lecture tours, and by writing for The New Yorker and other magazines. The New Yorker is an American Magazine that publishes reportage commentary criticism essays fiction satire cartoons and poetry [9]

During his last years, his conversation became repetitive, to the disappointment of friends who had known him earlier as a witty and wide-ranging conversationalist. [7][31] In 1972, he moved his winter home from New York to Oxford, where his old college, Christ Church, offered him a cottage, but he continued to summer in Austria. He died in Vienna in 1973 and was buried in Kirchstetten. Vienna ( in Wien; see also other names) is the Capital of Austria, and is also one of the nine States of Austria. Kirchstetten is a town in district of Sankt Pölten-Land in the Austrian state of Lower Austria. [7]

Work

See also: Bibliography of W. H. Auden

Overview

Auden published about four hundred poems, including seven long poems (two of them book-length). This is a bibliography of books plays films and libretti written edited or translated by the Anglo-American poet W His poetry was encyclopedic in scope and method, ranging in style from obscure twentieth-century modernism to the lucid traditional forms such as ballads and limericks, from doggerel through haiku and villanelles to a "Christmas Oratorio" and a baroque eclogue in Anglo-Saxon meters. Baroque art redirects here Please disambiguate such links to Baroque painting, Baroque sculpture, etc [5] The tone and content of his poems ranged from pop-song clichés to complex philosophical meditations, from the corns on his toes to atoms and stars, from contemporary crises to the evolution of society. [20][2]

He also wrote more than four hundred essays and reviews about literature, history, politics, music, religion, and many other subjects. He collaborated on plays with Christopher Isherwood and on opera libretti with Chester Kallman, worked with a group of artists and filmmakers on documentary films in the 1930s and with the New York Pro Musica early music group in the 1950s and 1960s. Christopher Isherwood ( August 26, 1904 &ndash January 4, 1986) was an Anglo-American Novelist. Chester Simon Kallman ( 7 January 1921 &ndash 18 January 1975) was an American Poet, librettist and translator best known New York Pro Musica was a vocal and instrumental ensemble that specialized in Medieval and Rennaisance Early music. About collaboration he wrote in 1964: "collaboration has brought me greater erotic joy .  .  . than any sexual relations I have had". [32]

Auden controversially rewrote or discarded some of his most famous poems when he prepared his later collected editions. He wrote that he rejected poems that he found "boring" or "dishonest" in the sense that they expressed views that he had never held but had used only because he felt they would be rhetorically effective. [33] His rejected poems include "Spain" and "September 1, 1939". Spain is a poem by W H Auden written after his visit to the Spanish Civil War and widely regarded as one of the most important literary works to emerge September 1 1939 is a poem by W H Auden written on the occasion of the outbreak of World War II. His literary executor, Edward Mendelson, argues in his introduction to Auden's Selected Poems that Auden's practice reflected his sense of the persuasive power of poetry and his reluctance to misuse it. Edward Mendelson is a professor of English and Comparative Literature and the Lionel Trilling Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University. [34] (Selected Poems includes some poems that Auden rejected and early texts of poems that he revised. )

Early work, 1922-1939

Cover of the privately-printed Poems (1928)
Cover of the privately-printed Poems (1928)

Through 1930

Auden began writing poems at thirteen, mostly in the styles of 19th-century romantic poets, especially Wordsworth, and later poets with rural interests, especially Thomas Hardy. Poems is the title of three separate collections of the early poetry of W Thomas Hardy OM (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928 was an English novelist Short story writer and poet of the naturalist movement though he saw At eighteen he discovered T. S. Eliot and adopted an extreme version of Eliot's style. Thomas Stearns Eliot, OM (September 26 1888 – January 4 1965 was a poet Dramatist, and Literary critic. He found his own voice at twenty, when he wrote the first poem later included in his collected work, "From the very first coming down". [20] This and other poems of the late 1920s tended to be in a clipped, elusive style that alluded to, but did not directly state, their themes of loneliness and loss. Twenty of these poems appeared in his first book Poems (1928), a pamphlet hand-printed by Stephen Spender. Poems is the title of three separate collections of the early poetry of W Sir Stephen Harold Spender CBE, ( 28 February 1909 – 16 July 1995) was an English Poet, Novelist [35]

In 1928 he wrote his first dramatic work, Paid on Both Sides, subtitled "A Charade," which combined style and content from the Icelandic sagas with jokes from English school life. Paid on Both Sides A Charade was the first dramatic work written by W The sagas (from Icelandic saga, plural sögur) are stories about ancient Scandinavian and Germanic history about early Viking voyages This mixture of tragedy and farce, with a dream play-within-the-play, introduced the mixed styles and content of much of his later work. [5] This drama and thirty short poems appeared in his first published book Poems (1930, 2nd edition with seven poems replaced, 1933); the poems in the book were mostly lyrical and gnomic mediations on hoped-for or unconsummated love and on themes of personal, social, and seasonal renewal; among these poems were "It was Easter as I walked," "Doom is dark," "Sir, no man's enemy," and "This lunar beauty. Poems is the title of three separate collections of the early poetry of W "[20]

A recurrent theme in these early poems is the effect of "family ghosts", Auden's term for the powerful, unseen psychological effects of preceding generations on any individual life (and the title of a poem). A parallel theme, present throughout his work, is the contrast between biological evolution (unchosen and involuntary) and the psychological evolution of cultures and individuals (voluntary and deliberate even in its subconscious aspects). [5][20]

1931 through 1935

Auden's next large-scale work was The Orators: An English Study (1932; revised editions, 1934, 1966), in verse and prose, largely about hero-worship in personal and political life. The Orators An English Study is a long poem in prose and verse written by W In his shorter poems, his style became more open and accessible, and the exuberant "Six Odes" in The Orators reflect his new interest in Robert Burns. [5] During the next few years, many of his poems took their form and style from traditional ballads and popular songs, and also from expansive classical forms like the Odes of Horace, which he seems to have discovered through the German poet Hölderlin. Quintus Horatius Flaccus, ( Venosa, December 8, 65 BC - Rome, November 27, 8 BC known in the English-speaking world as Horace Johann Christian Friedrich Hölderlin (ˈjoːhan ˈkrɪstiaːn ˈfriːdrɪç 'hœldərliːn in German March 20, 1770 &ndash June 6, 1843 [20] Around this time his main influences were Dante, William Langland, and Alexander Pope. William Langland (ca 1332 - ca 1386 is the conjectured Author of the 14th-century English Dream-vision Piers Plowman. Alexander Pope (21 May 1688 – 30 May 1744 is generally regarded as the greatest English Poet of the eighteenth century best known for his Satirical [36]

Programme of a Group Theatre production of The Dance of Death, with unsigned synopsis by Auden
Programme of a Group Theatre production of The Dance of Death, with unsigned synopsis by Auden

During these years, much of his work expressed left-wing views, and he became widely known as a political poet, although his work was more politically ambivalent than many reviewers recognized. The Dance of Death is a one-act play in verse and prose by W H [20] He generally wrote about revolutionary change in terms of a "change of heart", a transformation of a society from a closed-off psychology of fear to an open psychology of love. [8] His verse drama The Dance of Death (1933) was a political extravaganza in the style of a theatrical revue, which Auden later called "a nihilistic leg-pull". The Dance of Death is a one-act play in verse and prose by W H [37] His next play The Dog Beneath the Skin (1935), written in collaboration with Isherwood, was similarly a quasi-Marxist updating of Gilbert and Sullivan in which the general idea of social transformation was more prominent than any specific political action or structure. The Dog Beneath the Skin or Where is Francis? A Play in Three Acts, by W Gilbert and Sullivan refers to the Victorian era partnership of Librettist W [5][20]

The Ascent of F6 (1937), another play written with Isherwood, was partly an anti-imperialist satire, partly (in the character of the self-destroying climber Michael Ransom) an examination of Auden's own motives in taking on a public role as a political poet. The Ascent of F6 A Tragedy in Two Acts, by W H Auden and Christopher Isherwood, was the second play in the Auden-Isherwood collaboration first published [20] This play included the first version of "Funeral Blues" ("Stop all the clocks"), written as a satiric eulogy for a politician; Auden later rewrote the poem as a "Cabaret Song" about lost love (written to be sung by the soprano Hedli Anderson for whom he wrote many lyrics in the 1930s). "Funeral Blues" is a Poem first published in 1936 by W Antoinette Millicent Hedley Anderson (1907–1990 was an English Singer and Actor. [38] In 1935, he worked briefly on documentary films with the G.P.O. Film Unit, writing his famous verse commentary for Night Mail and lyrics for other films that were among his attempts in the 1930s to create a widely-accessible, socially-conscious art. The GPO Film Unit was a subdivision of the UK General Post Office. Night Mail is a 1936 Documentary film about a London Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS mail train from London to [20][5][38]

1936 through 1939

These tendencies in style and content culminate in his collection Look, Stranger! (1936; his British publisher chose the title, which Auden hated; Auden retitled the 1937 US edition On This Island). On This Island is a book of poems by W H Auden, first published under the title Look Stranger! in the UK in 1936 then published under Auden's preferred [20] This book included political odes, love poems, comic songs, meditative lyrics, and a variety of intellectually intense but emotionally accessible verse. Among the poems included in the book, connected by themes of personal, social, and evolutionary change and of the possibilities and problems of personal love, were "Hearing of harvests", "Out on the lawn I lie in bed", "O what is that sound", "Look, stranger, on this island now" (later revised versions change "on" to "at"), and "Our hunting fathers. "[20][5] Auden was now arguing that an artist should be a kind of journalist, and he put this view into practice in Letters from Iceland (1937) a travel book in prose and verse written with Louis MacNeice, which included his long social, literary, and autobiographical commentary "Letter to Lord Byron". Letters from Iceland is a travel book in prose and verse by W Frederick Louis MacNeice ( September 12 [39] In 1937, after observing the Spanish Civil War he wrote a politically-engaged pamphlet poem Spain (1937); he later discarded it from his collected works. The Spanish Civil War was a major conflict in Spain that started after an attempted Coup d'état committed by parts of the army against the government of Spain is a poem by W H Auden written after his visit to the Spanish Civil War and widely regarded as one of the most important literary works to emerge Journey to a War (1939) a travel book in prose and verse, was written with Isherwood after their visit to the Sino-Japanese War. Journey to a War is a travel book in prose and verse by W H Auden and Christopher Isherwood, published in 1939 The Second Sino-Japanese War ( July 7, 1937 to September 9, 1945) was a major war fought between the Republic of China and the [39] Auden's last collaboration with Isherwood was their third play, On the Frontier, an anti-war satire written in Broadway and West End styles. On the Frontier A Melodrama in Two Acts, by W H Auden and Christopher Isherwood, was the third and last play in the Auden-Isherwood collaboration first Broadway theater, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 39 large professional theaters with 500 seats or more located West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London 's "Theatreland" [20][9]

Auden's themes in his shorter poems now included the fragility and transience of personal love ("Danse Macabre", "The Dream", "Lay your sleeping head"), a theme he treated with ironic wit in his "Four Cabaret Songs for Miss Hedli Anderson" (which included "O Tell Me the Truth About Love" and the revised version of "Funeral Blues"), and also the corrupting effect of public and official culture on individual lives ("Casino", "School Children", "Dover"). Antoinette Millicent Hedley Anderson (1907–1990 was an English Singer and Actor. "Funeral Blues" is a Poem first published in 1936 by W [5][20] In 1938 he wrote a series of dark, ironic ballads about individual failure ("Miss Gee", "James Honeyman", "Victor"). All these appeared in his next book of verse, Another Time (1940), together with other famous poems such as "Dover", "As He Is", and "Musée des Beaux Arts" (all written before he moved to America in 1939), and "In Memory of W. Another Time is a book of poems by W H Auden, published in 1940 "Musée des Beaux Arts" ( French for "Museum of Fine Arts" is the title of a poem by W B. Yeats", "The Unknown Citizen", "Law Like Love", "September 1, 1939", and "In Memory of Sigmund Freud" (written in America). The Unknown Citizen is a poem by W H Auden. It was published in 1939 in The New Yorker, shortly after Auden became an American citizen and was first September 1 1939 is a poem by W H Auden written on the occasion of the outbreak of World War II. [5] The elegies for Yeats and Freud are partly statements of Auden's anti-heroic theme, in which great deeds are performed, not by unique geniuses whom others cannot hope to imitate, but by otherwise ordinary individuals who were "silly like us" (Yeats) or of whom it could be said "he wasn't clever at all" (Freud), and who became teachers of others, not awe-inspiring heroes. [20]

Middle period, 1940-1957

1940 through 1946

In 1940 Auden wrote a long philosophical poem "New Year Letter", which appeared with miscellaneous notes and other poems in The Double Man (1941). The Double Man is a book of poems by W H Auden, published in 1941 At the time of his return to the Anglican Communion he began writing abstract verse on theological themes, such as "Canzone" and "Kairos and Logos". Around 1942, as he became more comfortable with religious themes, his verse became more open and relaxed, and he increasingly used the syllabic verse he learned from the poetry of Marianne Moore. Syllabic verse is a Poetic form having a fixed number of Syllables per Line Marianne Moore ( November 15, 1887 – February 5, 1972) was a Modernist American Poet and Writer [25]

His recurring themes in this period included the artist's temptation to use other persons as material for his art rather than valuing them for themselves ("Prospero to Ariel") and the corresponding moral obligation to make and keep commitments while recognizing the temptation to break them ("In Sickness and Health"). [5][25] From 1942 through 1947 he worked mostly on three long poems in dramatic form, each differing from the others in form and content: "For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio", "The Sea and the Mirror: A Commentary on Shakespeare's The Tempest" (both published in For the Time Being, 1944), and The Age of Anxiety: A Baroque Eclogue (published separately 1947). For the Time Being A Christmas Oratorio, is a long poem by W H The Sea and the Mirror A Commentary on Shakespeare's The Tempest, is a long poem by W The Age of Anxiety A Baroque Eclogue (1947 first UK edition 1948 is a long Poem in six parts by W [25] The first two, with Auden's other new poems from 1940-44, were included in his first collected edition, The Collected Poetry of W. H. Auden (1945), with most of his earlier poems, many in revised versions. [5]

1947 through 1957

After completing The Age of Anxiety in 1946 he focused again on shorter poems, notably "A Walk After Dark," "The Love Feast", and "The Fall of Rome. "[25] Many of these evoked the Italian village where he summered in 1948-57, and his next book, Nones (1951), had a Mediterranean atmosphere new to his work. The Roman calendar changed its form several times in the time between the foundation of Rome and the fall of the Roman Empire. A new theme was the "sacred importance" of the human body[40] in its ordinary aspect (breathing, sleeping, eating) and the continuity with nature that the body made possible (in contrast to the division between humanity and nature that he had emphasized in the 1930s); his poems on these themes included "In Praise of Limestone" and "Memorial for the City". " In Praise of Limestone " is a poem written by W H Auden in Italy in May 1948 [5][25] In 1949 Auden and Kallman wrote the libretto for Igor Stravinsky's opera The Rake's Progress, and later collaborated on two libretti for operas by Hans Werner Henze. Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (Игорь Фёдорович Стравинский) ( &ndash 6 April 1971 was a Russian born Composer, considered by many to The Rake's Progress is an Opera in three acts and an epilogue by Igor Stravinsky. Hans Werner Henze (born July 1 1926 Gütersloh, Germany is a German composer well known for his left-wing political convictions [7][41]

Auden's first separate prose book was The Enchafèd Flood: The Romantic Iconography of the Sea (1950), based on a series of lectures on the image of the sea in romantic literature. The Enchafèd Flood or The Romantic Iconography of the Sea is a book of three lectures by W [42] Between 1949 and 1954 he worked on a sequence of seven Good Friday poems, "Horae Canonicae", an encyclopedic survey of geological, biological, cultural, and personal history, focused on the irreversible act of murder; the poem was also a study in cyclical and linear ideas of time. Good Friday, also called Holy Friday or Great Friday, is the Friday preceding Easter Sunday ("Pascha" Horae Canonicae is a series of poems by W H Auden written between 1949 and 1955. While writing this, he also wrote a sequence of seven poems about man's relation to nature, "Bucolics". Both sequences appeared in his next book, The Shield of Achilles (1955), with other short poems, including the book's title poem, "Fleet Visit", and "Epitaph for the Unknown Soldier". The article is about poems by W H Auden For the actual object see Shield of Achilles. [5][25]

Extending the themes of "Horae Canonicae", in 1955–56 he wrote a group of poems about "history," a word he used to mean the set of unique events made by human choices, as opposed to "nature," the set of involuntary events created by natural processes, statistics, and anonymous forces such as crowds. These poems included "T the Great", "The Maker", and the title poem of his next collection Homage to Clio (1960). Homage to Clio is a book of poems by W H Auden, published in 1960 [5][25]

Later work, 1958-1973

In the late 1950s Auden's style became less rhetorical while its range of styles increased. In 1958, having moved his summer home from Italy to Austria, he wrote "Good-bye to the Mezzogiorno"; other poems from this period include "Dichtung und Wahrheit: An Unwritten Poem", a prose poem about the relation between love and personal and poetic language, and the contrasting "Dame Kind", about the anonymous impersonal reproductive instinct. These and other poems, including his 1955-66 poems about history, appeared in Homage to Clio (1960). Homage to Clio is a book of poems by W H Auden, published in 1960 [5][25]

His prose book The Dyer's Hand (1962) gathered many of the lectures he gave in Oxford as Professor of Poetry in 1956-61, together with revised versions of essays and notes written since the mid-1940s. The Dyer's Hand and other essays is a prose book by W H Auden, published in 1962 [25]

While translating the haiku and other verse in Dag Hammarskjöld's Markings, Auden began using haiku for many of his poems. Dag Hjalmar Agne Carl Hammarskjöld ( (29 July 1905 &ndash 18 September 1961 was a Swedish Diplomat, Christian mystic, and the second Secretary-General [25] A sequence of fifteen poems about his house in Austria, "Thanksgiving for a Habitat", appeared in About the House (1965), with other poems that included his reflections on his lecture tours, "On the Circuit". About the House is a book of poems by W H Auden, published in 1965 [5] In the late 1960s he wrote some of his most vigorous poems, including "River Profile" and two poems that looked back over his life, "Prologue at Sixty" and "Forty Years On". All these appeared in City Without Walls (1969). City Without Walls and other poems is a book by W H Auden, published in 1969 His lifelong passion for Icelandic legend culminated in his verse translation of The Elder Edda (1969). The Poetic Edda is a collection of Old Norse poems primarily preserved in the Icelandic mediaeval Manuscript Codex Regius. [5][25]

He was commissioned in 1963 to write lyrics for the Broadway musical Man of La Mancha, but the producer rejected them as insufficiently romantic. Man of La Mancha is a musical with a book by Dale Wasserman, lyrics by Joe Darion and music by Mitch Leigh. [41] A Certain World: A Commonplace Book (1970) was a kind of self-portrait made up of favorite quotations with commentary, arranged in alphabetical order by subject. A Certain World A Commonplace Book, by W H Auden, is a book containing quotations selected by Auden with his commentary arranged in an alphabetical sequence of His last prose book was a selection of essays and reviews, Forewords and Afterwords (1973). [7]

His last books of verse, Epistle to a Godson (1972) and the unfinished Thank You, Fog (1974) include reflective poems about language ("Natural Linguistics") and about his own aging ("A New Year Greeting", "Talking to Myself", "A Lullaby" ["The din of work is subdued"]). Epistle to a Godson and other poems is a book of poems by W H Thank You Fog last poems by W H Auden is a posthumous book of poems by W His last completed poem, in haiku form, was "Archeology", about ritual and timelessness, two recurring themes in his later years. [25]

Reputation and influence

Auden’s stature in modern literature has been disputed, with opinions ranging from that of Hugh MacDiarmid, who called him "a complete wash-out", to the obituarist in the Times (London), who wrote: "W. Hugh MacDiarmid is the pen name of Christopher Murray Grieve (Crìsdean Mac a' Ghreidhir (11 August 1892 Langholm - 9 September 1978 Edinburgh The Times is a daily national Newspaper published in the United Kingdom since 1785 when it was known as The Daily Universal Register.  H. Auden, for long the enfant terrible of English poetry .  .  . emerges as its undisputed master". [43]

In his enfant terrible stage in the 1930s he was both praised and dismissed as a progressive and accessible voice, in contrast to the politically nostalgic and poetically obscure voice of T. S. Eliot. Thomas Stearns Eliot, OM (September 26 1888 – January 4 1965 was a poet Dramatist, and Literary critic. His departure for America in 1939 was hotly debated in Britain (once even in Parliament), with some critics treating it as a betrayal, and the role of influential young poet passed to Dylan Thomas, although defenders such as Geoffrey Grigson, in an introduction to a 1949 anthology of modern poetry, wrote that Auden "arches over all". Dylan Marlais Thomas (27 October 1914 – 9 November 1953 was a Welsh poet who wrote exclusively in English Geoffrey Edward Harvey Grigson ( 2 March 1905 &ndash 25 November 1985) was a British writer His stature was suggested by book titles such as Auden and After by Francis Scarfe (1942) and The Auden Generation by Samuel Hynes (1972). Francis Scarfe (1911 - 1986 was an English poet critic and novelist who became an academic translator and Director of the British Institute in Paris. [2]

In the US, starting in the late 1930s, the detached, ironic tone of Auden’s regular stanzas set the style for a whole generation of poets; John Ashbery recalled that in the 1940s Auden "was the modern poet". John Ashbery (born July 28, 1927) is [43] His manner was so pervasive in American poetry that the ecstatic style of the Beat Generation was partly a reaction against his influence. In the 1950s and 1960s, some writers (notably Philip Larkin and Randall Jarrell) lamented that Auden’s work had declined from its earlier promise. Philip Arthur Larkin, CH, CBE, FRSL (9 August 1922 – 2 December 1985 was an English Poet, Novelist and Jazz Randall Jarrell ( May 06, 1914 – October 14, 1965) was a United States Poet, Novelist, Critic [43][44]

By the time of Auden’s death in 1973 he had attained the status of a respected elder statesman. The Encyclopaedia Britannica notes that "by the time of Eliot's death in 1965 . The Encyclopædia Britannica is a general English-language encyclopaedia published by Encyclopædia Britannica Inc Thomas Stearns Eliot, OM (September 26 1888 – January 4 1965 was a poet Dramatist, and Literary critic. . . a convincing case could be made for the assertion that Auden was indeed Eliot's successor, as Eliot had inherited sole claim to supremacy when Yeats died in 1939". [45] With some exceptions, British critics tended to treat his early work as his best, while American critics tended to favor his middle and later work. Unlike other modern poets, his reputation did not decline after his death, and Joseph Brodsky wrote that his was "the greatest mind of the twentieth century". Joseph Brodsky ( May 24, 1940 — January 28, 1996) born Iosif Aleksandrovich Brodsky (Иосиф Александрович Бродский [4]

Auden’s popularity and familiarity suddenly increased after his "Funeral Blues" ("Stop all the clocks") was read aloud in the film Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994); subsequently, a pamphlet edition of ten of his poems, Tell Me the Truth About Love, sold more than 275,000 copies. "Funeral Blues" is a Poem first published in 1936 by W Four Weddings and a Funeral is a 1994 British Romantic comedy film directed by Mike Newell. After September 11, 2001, his poem "September 1, 1939" was widely circulated and frequently broadcast. September 1 1939 is a poem by W H Auden written on the occasion of the outbreak of World War II. [43] Public readings and broadcast tributes in the UK and US in 2007 marked his centenary year. [46]

Published works

The following list includes only the books of poems and essays that Auden prepared during his lifetime; for a more complete list, including other works and posthumous editions, see Bibliography of W. H. Auden. This is a bibliography of books plays films and libretti written edited or translated by the Anglo-American poet W

In the list below, works reprinted in the Complete Works of W. H. Auden are indicated by footnote references.

Books

Film scripts and opera libretti

Notes

  1. ^ The first syllable of "Auden" rhymes with "law" (not with "how").
  2. ^ a b c d Smith, Stan, ed. (2004). The Cambridge Companion to W. H. Auden. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-82962-3.  
  3. ^ Academy of American Poets. W. H. Auden. Retrieved on 2007-01-21. Year 2007 ( MMVII) was a Common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. Events 1189 - Philip II of France and Richard I of England begin to assemble troops to wage the Third Crusade.
  4. ^ a b Brodksy, Joseph (1986). Less Than One: selected essays. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, p. 357. ISBN 0-374-18503-4.  
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Fuller, John (1998). John Fuller (born 1 January 1937) is an English Poet and author and Fellow Emeritus at Magdalen College Oxford. W. H. Auden: a commentary. London: Faber and Faber. ISBN 0-571-19268-8.  
  6. ^ The name Wystan originates from the ninth century St Wystan, a grandson of King Wiglaf of Mercia, who may have ruled Mercia himself briefly in 839-840. Wigstan (died 840 also known as Saint Wystan, was the son of Wigmund of Mercia and Ælfflæd daughter of King Ceolwulf I of Mercia. Wiglaf (died 839 was King of Mercia from 827 to 829 and again from 830 until his death Mercia (ˈmɝsiə was one of the kingdoms of the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy. St Wystan was murdered by Beorhtwulf, king of Mercia 840-852. Beorhtwulf (died 852 (also Berhtwulf, was King of the Mercians from 840 to 852 He was buried at Repton, Derbyshire, where a cult grew up. Repton is a large Village in Derbyshire, England between Derby and Burton upon Trent, situated at the edge of the River History The area that is now Derbyshire was first visited probably briefly by humans 200000 years ago during the Aveley Interglacial as evidenced by a Middle Auden's father, George Augustus Auden, was educated at Repton School, where the parish church is called St Wystan's (Humphrey Carpenter, W. George Augustus Auden (1872 &ndash 1957 English physician professor of Public health, school medical officer and writer on archaeological subjects Repton School, founded in 1557, is a British independent public school located in the village of Repton, in Derbyshire, England H. Auden: A Biography, 1981).
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Carpenter, Humphrey (1981). Humphrey William Bouverie Carpenter ( April 29 1946 – January 4 2005) was an English biographer, Author, and W. H. Auden: A Biography. London: George Allen & Unwin. ISBN 0-049-28044-9.  
  8. ^ a b c Davenport-Hines, Richard (1995). Richard Davenport-Hines (born 1953) is a British writer best known for his biography of the poet W Auden. London: Heinemann. ISBN 0-434-17507-2.  
  9. ^ a b c d e f g Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. The Dictionary of National Biography ( DNB) is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history published from 1885 Auden, Wystan Hugh (Subscription access only). Retrieved on 2007-01-21. Year 2007 ( MMVII) was a Common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. Events 1189 - Philip II of France and Richard I of England begin to assemble troops to wage the Third Crusade.
  10. ^ In "Letter to Lord Byron" he names the saga character Auðun Skökull as one of his ancestors.
  11. ^ Auden, W. H. (1970). A Certain World. New York: Viking, p. 423. ISBN 0-670-20994-5.  
  12. ^ Auden, W. H; ed. by Katherine Bucknell and Nicholas Jenkins (1995). In Solitude, For Company: W. H. Auden after 1940, unpublished prose and recent criticism (Auden Studies 3). Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 193. ISBN 0-19-818294-5.  
  13. ^ Auden, W. H. (1993). The Prolific and the Devourer. New York: Ecco, p. 10. ISBN 0-88001-345-1.  
  14. ^ Auden, W. H. (1973). Forewords and Afterwords. New York: Random House, p. 517. ISBN 0-394-48359-6.  
  15. ^ Wright, Hugh, Auden and Gresham's in Conference Common Room, Vol. 44, No. 2, Summer 2007 online at schoolsearch. Hugh Raymond Wright (born 24 August 1938) is an English schoolmaster and Educationalist who was chairman of the Headmasters' Conference co. uk (accessed 25 April 2008)
  16. ^ Auden, W. H. ; ed. by Katherine Bucknell (1994). Juvenilia: Poems, 1922-1928. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-03415-X.  
  17. ^ Davenport-Hines, Richard (1995). Richard Davenport-Hines (born 1953) is a British writer best known for his biography of the poet W Auden. London: Heinemann, ch. 3. ISBN 0-434-17507-2.  
  18. ^ Auden, W. H. (1973). Forewords and Afterwords. New York: Random House, p. 69. ISBN 0-394-48359-6.  
  19. ^ Mendelson, Edward (1999). Edward Mendelson is a professor of English and Comparative Literature and the Lionel Trilling Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University. Later Auden. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, p. 35. ISBN 0-374-18408-9.  
  20. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Mendelson, Edward (1981). Edward Mendelson is a professor of English and Comparative Literature and the Lionel Trilling Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University. Early Auden. New York: Viking. ISBN 0-670-28712-1.  
  21. ^ Auden, W. H. ; ed. by Edward Mendelson (1996). Prose and travel books in prose and verse, Volume I: 1926-1938. Princeton: Princeton University Press, p. 138. ISBN 0-691-06803-8.  
  22. ^ Auden, W. H. ; ed. by Katherine Bucknell and Nicholas Jenkins (1995). In Solitude, For Company: W. H. Auden after 1940, unpublished prose and recent criticism (Auden Studies 3). Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 88. ISBN 0-19-818294-5.  
  23. ^ Lissner, Will. "Poet and Judge Assist a Samaritan. " New York Times, 2 March 1956, pp. 1, 39.
  24. ^ Mendelson, Edward (1999). Edward Mendelson is a professor of English and Comparative Literature and the Lionel Trilling Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University. Later Auden. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, p. 46. ISBN 0-374-18408-9.  
  25. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Mendelson, Edward (1999). Edward Mendelson is a professor of English and Comparative Literature and the Lionel Trilling Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University. Later Auden. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 0-374-18408-9.  
  26. ^ Tippins, Sherrill (2005). February House: The Story of W. H. Auden, Carson McCullers, Jane and Paul Bowles, Benjamin Britten, and Gypsy Rose Lee, Under One Roof In Wartime America. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 0-618-41911-X.  
  27. ^ Pike, James A., ed., (1956). James Albert Pike ( February 14, 1913 - September 1969 was an American Episcopal Bishop, prolific writer and one of the first Modern Canterbury Pilgrims. New York: Morehouse-Gorham, p. 42.  
  28. ^ a b Kirsch, Arthur (2005). Auden and Christianity. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-10814-1.  
  29. ^ BBC report on release of MI5 file on Auden.
  30. ^ Mendelson, Edward. Clouseau Investigates Auden.
  31. ^ Clark, Thekla (1995). Wystan and Chester: a personal memoir of W. H. Auden and Chester Kallman. London: Faber and Faber. ISBN 0-571-17591-0.  
  32. ^ Davenport-Hines, Richard (1995). Richard Davenport-Hines (born 1953) is a British writer best known for his biography of the poet W Auden. London: Heinemann, p. 137. ISBN 0-434-17507-2.  
  33. ^ Auden, W. H. (1966). Collected Shorter Poems, 1927-1957. London: Faber and Faber, p. 15. ISBN 0-571-06878-2.  
  34. ^ Auden, W. H. ; ed. by Edward Mendelson (1979). Selected Poems, new edition. New York: Vintage Books, pp. xix-xx. ISBN 0-394-72506-9.  
  35. ^ Auden, W. H. ; ed. by Katherine Bucknell (1994). Juvenilia: Poems, 1922-1928. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-03415-X.  
  36. ^ Auden, W. H. ; ed. by Edward Mendelson (2002). Prose, Volume II: 1939-1948. Princeton: Princeton University Press, p. 92. ISBN 0-691-08935-3.  
  37. ^ Auden, W. H. and Christopher Isherwood; ed. by Edward Mendelson (1988). Plays and other dramatic writings by W. H. Auden, 1928-1938. Princeton: Princeton University Press, p. xxi. ISBN 0-691-06740-6.  
  38. ^ a b c d e f g h Auden, W. H. and Christopher Isherwood; ed. by Edward Mendelson (1988). Plays and other dramatic writings by W. H. Auden, 1928-1938. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-06740-6.  
  39. ^ a b c d Auden, W. H. ; ed. by Edward Mendelson (1996). Prose and travel books in prose and verse, Volume I: 1926-1938. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-06803-8.  
  40. ^ Auden, W. H. (1973). Forewords and Afterwords. New York: Random House, p. 68. ISBN 0-394-48359-6.  
  41. ^ a b c d e f g Auden, W. H. and Chester Kallman; ed. by Edward Mendelson (1993). Libretti and other dramatic writings by W. H. Auden, 1939-1973. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-03301-3.  
  42. ^ Auden, W. H. ; ed. by Edward Mendelson (2002). Prose, Volume II: 1939-1948. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-08935-3.  
  43. ^ a b c d Sansom, Ian (2004). "Auden and Influence", in Stan Smith: The Cambridge Companion to W. H. Auden. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 226-39. ISBN 0-521-82962-3.  
  44. ^ Haffenden, John (1983). W. H. Auden: The Critical Heritage. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. ISBN 0-7100-9350-0.  
  45. ^ Encyclopaedia Britannica Article: W. H. Auden. Retrieved on 2008-02-23. 2008 ( MMVIII) is the current year in accordance with the Gregorian calendar, a Leap year that started on Tuesday of the Common Events 1455 - Traditional date for the publication of the Gutenberg Bible, the first Western Book printed from Movable
  46. ^ The W. H. Auden Society. The Auden Centenary 2007. Retrieved on 2007-01-20. Year 2007 ( MMVII) was a Common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. Events 250 - Emperor Decius begins a widespread persecution of Christians in Rome.

References

See also: Category:Poetry by W. H. Auden, Category:Books by W. H. Auden, Category:W. H. Auden plays, and Category:Libretti by W. H. Auden

Printed sources

See also the listings on the criticism page at the W. H. Auden Society web site. In the list below, unless noted, publication data and ISBN refer to the first editions; many titles are also available in later reprints.

Bibliography

General biographical and critical studies

Special topics

Auden Studies series

External links

See also the descriptive list on the links page at the W. H. Auden Society web site.


Persondata
NAME Auden, Wystan Hugh
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Auden, W. H.
SHORT DESCRIPTION 20th century Anglo-American poet
DATE OF BIRTH 21 February 1907
PLACE OF BIRTH York, England
DATE OF DEATH 29 September 1973
PLACE OF DEATH Vienna, Austria
Events 362 - Athanasius returns to Alexandria. 1245 - Thomas, the first known Bishop of Finland Year 1907 ( MCMVII) was a Common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common year York ( is an historic Walled city sited at the confluence of the rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. England is a Country which is part of the United Kingdom. Its inhabitants account for more than 83% of the total UK population whilst its mainland Events 522 BC - Darius I of Persia kills the Magian usurper Gaumâta securing his hold as king of the Persian Empire. Year 1973 ( MCMLXXIII) was a Common year starting on Monday (link will display full calendar of the 1973 Gregorian calendar. Vienna ( in Wien; see also other names) is the Capital of Austria, and is also one of the nine States of Austria. Austria (Österreich ( officially the Republic of Austria (Republik Österreich
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