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In fact, “ttractive as the unity achieved by such an age may be, Auden does not see a return to it either possible or desirable” ( Callan 83), an idea that he clearly expresses in his introduction to Poets of the English Language: “We must not, however, be nostalgic. He argued that we differ, however, about the form that this unity should take because, in his view, this unity is metaphysical and is not to be found in a return to the Middle Ages. Consequently, he believed that people tried, consciously or unconsciously to seek “some form of catholic unity to correct the moral, artistic, and political chaos that has resulted from an overdevelopment of protestant diversity (using these terms in their widest sense)” ( Auden, “Criticism in a Mass Society” 136). As a result of his work, intertwined with his personal experiences, he developed an insightful and original Audenian poetics that, despite some contradictions, is worth studying, since it is a meaningful contribution to twentieth-century poetry studies.Īuden thought that he was witnessing a collapse in civilization that he attributed, in part, to a diversity and differentiation that have their sources in the Renaissance and, especially, in the dualism of Descartes. V, xiii), until his death in 1973 at the age of sixty-six. When Auden’s five-year period as Professor of Poetry at Oxford ended in 1961, the poet hoped he could lead a more private life nevertheless, as Edward Mendelson - editor of most of Auden’s works - comments, “he began to say more in public about his inner self and his private history than he had ever done before” ( Mendelson, Complete Works, Vol. V, xiii), and the content, variety, and amount of his publications constituted the evidence of this thought. In 1963, he declared that “every work of art is, in one sense, a self-disclosure” ( Mendelson, Complete Works, Vol. Therefore, it is somewhat striking that in “Autumn Song”, the poem to which I will dedicate much of the analysis in this article, the speaker declares that “the angel will not come” (Auden, v.16 4) to Earth, with the consequences that this entails for humankind, but more specifically for the poet.įrom 1922 - when Auden began writing poems -, until the 1970s, the Anglo-American poet did not stop expressing his ideas about poetry and the poet. Moreover, Randall Jarrell comments that “the first semidramatic piece that Auden wrote without Isherwood was an oratorio about the birth of Christ” in which angels abound ( Burt and Brooks-Motl 24). In some of them, such as his long poem: “ For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio” (1944), the brief “Autumn Song” (1936), and a piece of heightened prose: “Jacob and the Angel” (1939), the Anglo-American poet included angels who play relevant roles in the characters’ or in the lyric speakers’ lives, so much so that Christopher Isherwood, Auden’s literary mentor and intermittent partner, declared that when they collaborated he needed to keep a sharp eye on his friend because “If Wystan had his way he’d make our plays nothing but choruses of angels” ( Burt and Brooks-Motl 24) 3. As the 1930s moved closer towards war, Auden became one of the main representatives of his age, a political essayist warning against the risks of totalitarian regimes.Īuden’s publications range from poems to songs, dramatic writings, prose works, lectures, and libretti, to mention but a few. His initial years established the framework for his deep-rooted commitment with science, psychoanalysis and Christianity. Born in York, England, Auden’s life is viewed as being divided into two stages: English and American. Critics like Samuel Hynes would come to identify these authors, as well as Christopher Isherwood and Edward Upward, among others, as “The Auden generation” ( 17, 30). With his formal and radically new style, the Anglo-American poet became the leader of the British and Irish writers of the Thirties, together with the left-wing poets Stephen Spender, Cecil Day Lewis, and Louis MacNeice 1, regardless that they never formed a consolidated group 2. Eliot, who had dominated English verse for years. He assimilated the techniques of his modernist predecessors William Butler Yeats and T. Auden, was one of the most influential voices in twentieth-century poetry. Wystan Hugh Auden (1907-1973), more commonly known as W.