Themes of Wystan Hugh Auden’s Poetry

Sami Ul Haq Sir Liaqat M Phil English Literature 21 November, 2014 Themes of Wystan Hugh Auden’s Poetry Wystan Hugh Auden (1907-1973) an Anglo American greatest poet, writer of 20th Century, famous for his stylistic and technical achievement, grew up as Anglo-Catholic as his grandfathers were clergymen in Church of England, his father was Medical Officer in a school and lecturer- then professor in public health, studied in Christ Church Oxford, became a friend to Isherwood; who become his mentor , Auden became a school and Michigan University teacher, moved to America, became a citizen there in 1946, died while sleeping in Austria. Poems which gain popularity after his death includes “Funeral Blues”, “Refugee Blues”, “The Unknown Citizen”, “September 1, 1939”’ and “Stop All the Clocks”. His literary life divides into three periods, first from (1922-1939), second from (1940-1957), and third from (1958-73). During first period at the age of thirteen he started writing poems by imitating Wordsworth’s romanticism, while at 18 years of age he took interests in rural landscapes like Charles Dicken (i.e. “Egdon Heath” of “Return of the Native”), and T S Eliot’s style. Works of first period are “Poems of 1928’, drama “Paid on Both Sides” and 30 poems in 1933 with main theme of “Family Ghosts” beside sub themes of personal and social renovation, some poetry of this period is also called as “War Poetry” . During middle period, he rediscovered Anglicanism, wrote theological verse and about history, about religious, moral, and ethical themes. Poems of this period are “Canzone”, “kiros and Logos”, “A Walk after Dark”, “The Love Feast”, “Love Feast”, and “The Fall of Rome”. In third period of his literary career he wrote “About the House” in 1965, these works are multi styled and less rhetorical. W B Yeats, T S Eliot and W H Auden all the three belongs to modern period and are in fact successors of each other’s respectively. Encyclopedia Britannica says: “By the time of Eliot’s death in 1965… 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.” W.H. Auden’s published poems are about 400 , having multi themes, some and outstanding of these are: love, religion, politics and social concerns, citizenship, war, death, modern horrors and totalitarianism. Poems “As I Walked out One Evening”, “Lullaby”, “O Tell Me the Truth About Love”, and “Funeral Blues” all deals with the basic theme of love. He says love is sweet but cannot be achieved without sorrows, his poems from 30’s to 50’s have basic theme of unconsummated love as in “The More Loving One” he says: “If equal affection cannot be/ Let the more loving one be me” and in the last stanza of “September 1, 1939” he says: "We must love one another or die,". He did not write directly about religion, but after 1940 when reconverted to Christianity, he wrote indirectly about religion, some of these writings are “For the Time Being", "The Ballad of Barnaby", and "Song of the Devil" all these have much about theme of religion and God. Work, for which he won Pulitzer Prize in 1948 is “The Age of Anxiety”, depicts social and political theme, man’s identity in an industrialized world. Poems of middle period of his life Such as “Journey to War” which he wrote jointly with Christopher Isherwood shows a political issues , as it was the age of political turmoil, of Spain civil war, (fascism – Marxism ), Sino- Japanese war, Auden sided Marxism and the Republics, was against fascism. Some of his poems have theme of citizenship i.e. poem “The Unknown Citizen” discusses citizen’s problems and critiquing states determinism about finding meaning of life with the help of some collected data. Auden married Erika Mann, an unconsummated love for the purpose of providing her with British passport, citizenship, to shelter her from the Nazi’s crimes. Another poem “Refugee Blues” also deals with the problem of citizenship faced by Jews in America, when they were expelled from German, these lines of the verse stats: “Came to a public meeting; the speaker got up and said; "If we let them in, they will steal our daily bread": He was talking of you and me, my dear, he was talking of you and me. Auden’s poetry is anti-romantic, his themes anti-heroic as in elegies for Yeats and Freud, he did visit Germany with “US Strategic Bombing Survey” to check devastation, that is his post war experience which effected his later works, later on, this was termed as “ war poetry”, poems of this period includes: “Journey to a War” which is a travel diary, by both Auden and Isherwood, while on journey to China, it describes Sino –Japanese, Spanish Civil war, poem “September 1, 1939” written at the outbreak of WW2 with a message: "We must love one another or die," this poem opens with these lines "I sit in one of the dives / On Fifty-second Street / Uncertain and afraid / As the clever hopes expire / Of a low dishonest decade". He left Britain in 1939 before outbreak of WW2 but through poetry he shared his part , says: "Such a beautiful evening and in an hour, they say, England will be at war,". Death is another theme in his poetry, we can see it in “Funeral Blues”, mourning, grief, and how it is experienced by the bereaved, Says: “Let aero planes circle moaning overhead/ Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead” other poems are “In the Memory of W.B.Yeats”, “In the Memory of Sigmund Freud” and “Musee Des Beaux Arts” (Museum of fine Arts). Modern Sufferings is another theme which Auden highlighted in some of his poems as in “Musee Des Beaux Arts” says: “About suffering they were never wrong,/The old Masters: how well they understood/Its human position: how it takes place” , these sufferings include , unfaithfulness, sickness, time , greed , religious doubt, war and other hardships. Auden also wrote about totalitarianism and bureaucracy in his poems as this was the age of Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, and Franco, as in “The Unknown Citizen”, “The Shield of Achilles”, “Friday’s Child”, Refugee Blues, and “September 1, 1939”. To sum up, Auden’s poetry is anti-romantic with anti-heroic themes, having manifold aspects and themes; he was against totalitarianism and fascism, major themes of his poems are love, politics and social concerns, citizenship, religion, war, death, modern sufferings and totalitarianism. Through his poetry he conveyed a silent message "We must love one another or die," References 1. Kendall, Tim. Modern English War Poetry. Oxford University Press, 2006. 2. http://www.bbc.co.uk/poetryseason/poets/wh_auden.shtml