W. H. Auden (1907–73) was quite explicit about the origin of his poetic vocation. In "Making, Knowing and Judging," a lecture he delivered at Oxford in 1956, Auden recalls that he decided to become a poet "one Sunday afternoon in March 1922" because "a friend suggested that I should." At that time Auden was fifteen years old.

In the poem, Auden's creatures are described as without sustenance and "dumb". The angels as absent and the dead are close behind the living. You can read more of Auden's poetry here. Structure and Form 'Autumn Song' by W.H. Auden is a five stanza poem that is separated into sets of four lines, known as quatrains.

Wystan Hugh Auden, born in 1907 in York, England, distinguished himself with a prolific career, producing about 400 poems and essays each. His verse, blending contemporary events with everyday language, drew inspiration from poets like Emily Dickinson, contrasting with his aversion to Romanticism.. Auden's notable works include 'Poems' …

 — Some further notes that may be of interest: W. H. Auden's Revising Process, a series of eleven articles by Yoshinari S. Yamada, first published in 1974-1990, is now available from this site as a single PDF file.. Auden's Revisions, by W. D. Quesenbery, is a book-length study that the author completed shortly before his death. Through the …

Auden's poem is a fascinating imitation of the ballad form as developed by the eighteenth and nineteenth century poets who took it out of the ownership of ordinary folk, primarily …

Funeral Blues is a poem by W. H. Auden. An early version was published in 1936, but the poem in its final, familiar form was first published in The Year's Poetry (London, 1938). Death is the subject and main theme of the poem. Through the text Auden makes a compelling statement about the devastating effects that the death of a loved one has ...

W. H. Auden was admired for his unsurpassed technical virtuosity and ability to write poems in nearly every imaginable verse form; his incorporation of popular culture, current events, and vernacular speech in his work; and also for the vast range of his intellect, which drew easily from an extraordinary variety of literatures, art forms, social and political theories, …

Poems. Because of copyright restrictions, no texts of Auden's poems are posted on this site. Links are provided below to poems posted on other sites with the permission of Auden's …

'The Fall of Rome' was written in 1947 and is one of Auden's best poems to come after his famed 30's period.It details the fall of civilizations in the Roman Empire and beyond through the depiction of "Rome." Readers might approach this piece as an allegory, a story with a deeper meaning that has to be uncovered.In this case, he's speaking about how …

'A Walk After Dark' is a beautiful and complicated poem in which W.H. Auden uses a series of metaphors and other forms of figurative language in order to describe a walk at night. He spends the majority of the time in this piece thinking about the past, present, and future, and how one might learn from that which has already come to pass.

"The day after W. H. Auden's unexpected and untimely death, I was incensed to see a suggestion in the New York Times to the effect that the poet's work might not outlive him," the American poet L. E. Sissman …

 — W.H. Auden was born Wystan Hugh Auden in York, England, on February 21, 1907. Raised by a physician father and a strict, Anglican mother, Auden pursued science and engineering at Oxford University ...

Throughout 'As I Walked Out One Evening,' Auden uses speaking city clocks to discuss the nature of mortality and time.Life is filled with disappointments, the clocks say, but one has to go on despite this and recognize it as a gift. It's important to love and accept the corrupt and sinful natures of those around you and realize that love is not perfect or liberating.

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) 'Another Time' is a poem, initially untitled when it was first published in 1940, by the Anglo-American poet W. H. Auden (1907-73). Like many of Auden's greatest poems, 'Another Time' is at once disarmingly clear in its language and hauntingly elusive in its meaning. Before we offer some words…

W. H. Auden B. 1907 D. 1973. Art is our chief means of breaking bread with the dead. - W. H. Auden. Share Poet Copy to clipboard Copy to clipboard Copied. Biography Poems Books & Awards. Home. Explore. Poets. W. …

 — W. H. Auden (born February 21, 1907, York, Yorkshire, England—died September 29, 1973, Vienna, Austria) was an English-born poet and man of letters who achieved early fame in the 1930s as a hero of the left during the Great Depression. Most of his verse dramas of this period were written in collaboration with Christopher Isherwood.

 — How does W.H. Auden's poem "O what is that sound that so thrills the ear", also known as "The Quarry", relate to the "Romantic lie"?

Auden in this poem evokes a mood of reverie or contemplation, in which the speaker, characteristically remote from the distant ships like floating seeds, becomes immersed in the rhythms of nature. The technical device Auden has used in this poem has made the poem an inexplicable wonder.

W. H. Auden was admired for his unsurpassed technical virtuosity and ability to write poems in nearly every imaginable verse form; his incorporation of popular culture, current events, and vernacular speech in his work; and also for the vast range of his intellect, which drew easily from an extraordinary variety of literatures, art forms, social and political theories, …

Stay with me here! Were the vows you swore deceiving, deceiving? No, I promised to love you, dear, But I must be leaving. O it's broken the lock and splintered the door, O it's the …

W. H. Auden's poetry is famous for his witty diction, striking tone, and modern themes. These aspects are evident in his poem 'Funeral Blues,' an elegiac note refined and revised over a period of time to give it a universal outlook. At first hand, it seems the speaker of the poem is unable to cope with the loss. However, it goes beyond that point.

The English poet W.H. Auden wrote "Partition" in 1966. Though it never mentions him by name, the poem describes Cyril Radcliffe: the British lawyer who was tasked with drawing the boundaries during the 1947 Partition of India, which divided the country into a Hindu-majority India and a Muslim-majority Pakistan. The poem illustrates how little ...

W.H. Auden has managed to write a tragic poem of violence and suffering without mentioning any physical violence. The ballad discusses the conversationof a husband and wife, most likely looking out of their window as they follow the progression of an army marching from far, all the way to their house. This poem …

So from the years the gifts were s… Ran off with his at once into his… Bee took the politics that make a… Fish swam as fish, peach settled i… And were successful at the first e…

 — W. H. Auden (1907–1973) is one of the greatest poets of the twentieth century, and his reputation has only grown since his death. Published on the hundredth anniversary of the year in which he began to write poetry, this is the first of two volumes of the first complete edition of Auden's poems. Edited, introduced, and annotated by …

'The Diaspora' is one of Auden's celebrated sonnets.Originally it was part of a longer poem entitled New Year Letter published in 1941. In the poem, this sonnet occurs in the situation in which Auden treats the persecution of Christ by the Jews. Later it was extracted from New Year Letter, and published in his Collected Shorter Poems (1930-1944), in 1950.

In his essay "The Age of Anxiety," W.H. Auden explores the psychological and cultural landscape of post-World War II society. Through a critical literary analysis of his own long poem of the same name, Auden examines the anxieties and uncertainties that characterized the era and offers insights into the human condition that are still relevant …

The poem was first published in Auden's 1969 collection City Without walls. About Poet. W. H. Auden was an English poet, playwright, critic, and liberalist of the 20th century. He exerted a major influence on poetry. As a poet, Auden was much influenced by the poetry of Thomas Hardy, William Blake, and G. M. Hopkins.

Summary 'Refugee Blues' by W.H. Auden is a powerful poem that describes the plight of German Jews seeking a refugee from the policies of Nazi Germany. The speaker begins this poem by suggesting that there …

Behind the quarry's dying glare, Love raging for, the personal glory That reason's gift would add, The liberal appetite and power, The rightness of a god. ... W H Auden Follow. Read more → . Browse all Famous poems > By W H Auden . 8.0k …