W. H. Auden Source

W. H. Auden Wystan Hugh Auden Born in York, England, in 1907; moved to Birmingham during childhood; educated at Christ's Church, Oxford. Influenced by the poetry of Thomas Hardy and Robert Frost, as well as William Blake, Emily Dickinson, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and Old English verse. At Oxford his precocity as a poet was immediately apparent, and he formed lifelong friendships with two fellow writers, Stephen Spender and Christopher Isherwood.

W. H. Auden In 1928, Auden published his first book of verse, and his collection Poems, published in 1930, established him as the leading voice of a new generation. Ever since, he has been admired for his unsurpassed technical virtuosity and an ability to write poems in nearly every imaginable verse form; the incorporation in his work of popular culture, current events, and vernacular speech; and also for the vast range of his intellect, which drew easily from an extraordinary variety of literatures, art forms, social and political theories, and scientific and technical information.

W. H. Auden He had a remarkable wit, and often mimicked the writing styles of other poets such as Dickinson, W. B. Yeats, and Henry James. His poetry frequently recounts, literally or metaphorically, a journey or quest, and his travels provided rich material for his verse.

W. H. Auden He visited Germany, Iceland, and China, served in the Spanish Civil war, and in 1939 moved to the United States, where he met his lover, Chester Kallman, and became an American citizen. His own beliefs changed radically between his youthful career in England, when he was an ardent advocate of socialism and Freudian psychoanalysis, and his later phase in America, when his central preoccupation became Christianity and the theology of modern Protestant theologians.

W. H. Auden A prolific writer, Auden was also a noted playwright, librettist, editor, and essayist. Generally considered the greatest English poet of the twentieth century, his work has exerted a major influence on succeeding generations of poets on both sides of the Atlantic.

W. H. Auden W. H. Auden was a Chancellor of The Academy of American Poets from 1954 to 1973, and divided most of the second half of his life between residences in New York City and Austria. He died in Vienna in 1973. The following painting of the Fall of Icarus is by the Flemish painter Pieter Brueghel (ca. 1520-1569): Icarus’ legs are disappearing into the sea in one corner of the picture, the rest of which has nothing to do with him.

Background information "Musee Des Beaux Arts" Meaning: Auden parallels ordinary events (first stanza) and extraordinary one (second stanza) to describe that life goes on not only while a “miraculous birth occurs”, but also while “the disaster”of Icarus’ death happens. Background information Icarus was a Greek mythological figure, also known as the son of Daedalus (famous for the Labyrinth of Crete). Now Icarus and his dad were stuck in Crete, because the King of Crete wouldn't let them leave. Daedalus made some wings for both of them and gave his son instruction on how to fly (not too close to the sea, the water will soak the wings, and not too close to the sky, the sun will melt them). Icarus, however, appeared to be obstinate and flew to close to the sun. This caused the wax that held his wings to his body to melt. Icarus crashed into the sea and died.

Analysis: “miraculous birth”, “the tragedy” of a death 1. Human suffering and human condition— “miraculous birth”, “the tragedy” of a death 2. Human indifference to other people’s suffering 3. The poem suggests a religious acceptance of suffering. Religious acceptance basically means coming to terms with the ways of the world. Sources: “Musee Des Beaux Arts.” W. H. Auden. 15 Feb. 2006 <http://poetrypages.lemon8.nl/life/musee/museebeauxarts.htm>. “Musee Des Beaux Arts.” Essay Studyarea.Com. 20 Feb. 2006 <http://essay.studyarea.com/frame.php?url=http://www.123student.com/english/1639.shtml>. W. H. Auden Society. 24 Feb. 2006 <http://audensociety.org/>.

“Their Lonely Betters” (i) --W. H. Auden Betters: the survived Robin: a kind of red bird Christian name: given name. It is used to distinguish from you and me. Only human beings have “names”.

“Their Lonely Betters” (ii) 3rd stanza: “assumed responsibility” → time passes, and people have more responsibilities in life. People should treasure time and friends. 4th stanza let “them”: all the creatures in the garden have died we, too: “we” -- human beings Question: Discuss the speaker’s voice/poet’s attitude towards human beings and Nature in the poem.

“The More Loving One” 1 That what is needed in love is generosity and what matters if being able to love someone, whether or not it is reciprocated. Rather than be so cold and impersonal, its better to be the one who is the worshipper, the "more loving one" because that way one is at least, despite the pain, affirming his/her humanness, his/her emotional self and making him/her a more whole person than the unloving star ever will be.

“The More Loving One” 2 There are often people who write about being in love with someone who doesn’t reciprocate it, or in a relationship with someone who doesn’t love them as much they love the other one. This seems terrible at the time, but Auden is saying that perhaps it’s not so bad (perhaps influenced in this by his own relationship with Chester Kallman. It was a lasting relationship, but it seems to have often been an unequal one, especially as Auden grew older). It’s more important to feel love than to be the cold loved one.

“The More Loving One” 3 But the next two verses seem almost to reverse this. Is he saying that we also need to realize that the stars aren't so important? Or that we will realize over time that the objects of our affection aren't so important? I think he could be arguing the case for reality. Yes, it’s important to love the way he says you should in the first half. But it’s also important to remember that the pain you'll feel of such love will go over time. That time heals all things, deadens emotions.

“Lullaby” 1 This is almost the definitive poem on modern love. Those two opening lines say everything: “Lay your sleeping head, my love/Human on my faithless arm.” This isn't romantic, chivalric, ideal love. This is love for our times, where the speaker is illusionless about love. His awareness of the fragility of this love makes him appreciate it all the more.

“Lullaby” 2 The whole poem is shot through with this feeling - melancholic, tender and intensely aware, of the whole world around them, of the pains and the costs of living in this world, and yet with an insistence that the present be appreciated: "but from this night/Not a whisper, not a thought/Not a kiss nor look be lost."

Auden’s Style 1 He was not a "Modern" poet like Eliot and Pound, experimenting with forms, with ideas and concepts. He was too human (as opposed to intellectual), too romantic even for that. At the same time, he's not Romantic - if he had idealism (which initially at least he did), it was never blind, and as time and the Thirties took their toll his disillusioned intelligence grew, and that's what give the later poems the full force of their understanding, despair and yet some sort of hope in the beauty of things, and also in a religious feeling of sorts. When you read Auden it’s not for the beauty of the poems, but because you know that here is a poet who really reflects the way you think.

Auden’s Style 2 Auden's modernity, rather than Modernity, also comes through in the technical aspect of the poems. Auden's technical skills are awesome. He's a rebuke to all those people who imagine that they can just churn out something and call it poetry. His skills are rarely ostentatious, but are always there. While he can do free verse as well as the Modernists, I think the humanity and the ability to communicate with people that he had, made him aware that sometimes the formal poetic forms - ballads, sonnets, quatrains, rhymes - work best.

Work Cited “W. H. Auden.” The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Ed. M.H. Abrams, et al. 7th ed. Vol.2. New York: Norton, 2000. 2500-12.