W. H. Auden

Wystan Hugh Auden (February 21, 1907 – September 29, 1973) was an English poet and critic, widely regarded as among the most influential and important writers of the 20th century. He spent the first part of his life in the United Kingdom, but emigrated to the United States of America in 1939, becoming an American citizen in 1946.

Work

Auden wrote a considerable body of criticism and essays as well as co-authoring some drama with his friend Christopher Isherwood, but he is primarily known as a poet. Auden's work is characterised by exceptional variety, ranging from such rigorous traditional forms as the villanelle to original yet intricate forms, as well as the technical and verbal skills Auden displayed regardless of form. He was also partly responsible for re-introducing Anglo-Saxon accentual meter to English poetry. An area of controversy is the extent to which Auden reworked poems in successive publications, and dropped several of his most well-known poems from "collected" editions because he no longer felt they were honest or accurate. His literary executor, Edward Mendelson, makes the case in his introduction to Auden's Selected Poems that this was in fact an affirmation of Auden's serious belief in the power and importance of poetry. The Selected Poems include some of the verse Auden rejected, and early versions of some which he later revised.

Related Topics:
Christopher Isherwood - Poet - Villanelle - Accentual meter - Edward Mendelson

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Before he turned to Anglicanism (in a more Protestant variety of Anglicanism than the Anglo-Catholicism of his parents), Auden took an active interest in left-wing political controversies of his day and some of his greatest work reflects these concerns, such as Spain, a poem on the Spanish Civil War and September 1, 1939 on the outbreak of World War II (both were later repudiated by Auden, and excluded from his Collected Poems). Other memorable works include his Christmas oratorio, For the Time Being, The Unknown Citizen, Musée des Beaux-Arts, and poems on the deaths of William Butler Yeats and Sigmund Freud. Auden's ironic love poem Funeral Blues (originally written to be sung by a soprano friend of his, Hedli Anderson) was movingly read in the 1994 film Four Weddings and a Funeral. Before this, Auden's work was famously used in the GPO Film Unit's documentary film Night Mail, for which he wrote a verse commentary.

Related Topics:
Anglicanism - Protestant - Anglo-Catholicism - Left-wing - Spanish Civil War - World War II - Christmas - The Unknown Citizen - Musée des Beaux-Arts - William Butler Yeats - Sigmund Freud - Hedli Anderson - 1994 - Film - Four Weddings and a Funeral - GPO Film Unit - Documentary film - Night Mail

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Auden was often thought of as part of a group of like-minded writers including Edward Upward, Christopher Isherwood, Louis MacNeice (with whom he collaborated on Letters from Iceland in 1936), Cecil Day-Lewis, and Stephen Spender, although he himself stopped thinking of himself as part of a group after about the age of 24. He also collaborated closely with composers, writing an opera libretto for Benjamin Britten, and, in collaboration with Chester Kallman, a libretto for Igor Stravinsky and two libretti for Hans Werner Henze.

Related Topics:
Edward Upward - Christopher Isherwood - Louis MacNeice - Cecil Day-Lewis - Stephen Spender - Opera - Libretto - Benjamin Britten - Chester Kallman - Igor Stravinsky - Hans Werner Henze

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