W.H. Auden

 Hello!

I am Nidhi Jethava and I am a student of MKBU English department.  Today I am going to answer three questions from the poem of W.H. Auden. 

About W.H. Auden. 

Wystan Hugh Auden was born in York, England, on February 21, 1907. He moved to Birmingham during childhood and was educated at Christ Church, Oxford. As a young man he was 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.

In 1928, his collection Poems was privately printed, but it wasn't until 1930, when another collection titled Poems (though its contents were different) was published, that Auden was established 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. 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

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. 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 served as 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 on September 29, 1973.

1) Which lines of 'September 1, 1939' you liked the most? Why?

Answer : 

Those to whom evil is done

Do evil in return.

The poem has very interesting lines and these two lines are my most favorite. It has references of dictators like Adolph Hitler. Future scholars will describe how a cultural problem led from the time of Martin Luther to the time of Hitler’s hometown of Linz, a pattern which has driven the German culture into madness. Meanwhile, schoolchildren and the average person know well enough: “Those to whom evil is done / Do evil in return.”

These lines are very fascinating. It has universal questions. Speaker wants to say that those to whom evil is done/Do evil in return. 

2) What is so special about 'In Memory of W B Yeats'?

Answer: 

Written in 1939.

‘ In memory of W. B. Yeats is a different kind of elegy by W. H. Auden. W.H. Auden admired W. B. Yeats but he did not exaggerate Yeats’s contribution and the impact of his death on poetry and art in general. 

William Butler Yeats died in winter. The brooks were frozen and all airports were quite empty and deserted. The statues were covered with snow. The thermometer showed that the day he died was a dark cold day.

Nature followed its course but the mourners kept his poems alive.  They did not allow the death of the poet to interfere with their admiration for his poetry. However for Yeats, mind and body failed. He was no more but he lived through his poetry scattered among unfamiliar readers and admires of his poetry. W. H. Auden says that the rest of the civilization moves on while a few thousand people would continue to remember the poet and lament his death. 

In the second section of the poem, Yeats is called “ silly like us” by W. H. Auden. The poet says that W. B. Yeats was also silly and ordinary like us. He was not an exceptional hero different from common men. 

It was “ Mad Ireland “ that made him a poet. The sufferings of Ireland turned him into a poet and made him write poetry. 

W.H. Auden further says that time is intolerant of the brave and innocent. It is Indifferent towards humans whether they are ordinary or celebrity.

The poem is an elegy but written in a different mood. There is no serious lamentation. There is no undue exaggerated admiration of the dead poet. W. H. Auden loved Yeats but as a rational poet , he did not lament his death in a traditional manner. He pays tribute to him proving that poetry survives even in the cold dark world of desire. 

3) Is there any contemporary relevance of 'Epitaph on a Tyrant'?

Answer : 

‘Epitaph on a Tyrant’ is one of Auden’s short masterpieces. In just six lines, W. H. Auden (1907-73) manages to say so much about the nature of tyranny. You can read ‘Epitaph on a Tyrant’ here, this powerful poem that remains all too relevant today. 

We can find so many tyrants nowadays. Who wants power, money and wants  to create utopia and his own world or country. 

We can find  so many  figures who are purely called tyrants in contemporary times. They are in different forms and use different techniques for establishing their power and their own world . 

For example, Bhagwan Rajneesh( OSHO )

  

Rajneesh (born Chandra Mohan Jain, 11 December 1931 – 19 January 1990), also known as Acharya Rajneesh, Bhagwan Shri Rajneesh, Bhagwan Rajneesh, Osho Rajneesh and later as Osho , was an Indian godman,  mystic, and founder of the Rajneesh movement. 

In 1981, the Rajneesh movement's efforts refocused on activities in the United States and Rajneesh relocated to a facility known as Rajneeshpuram in Wasco County, Oregon. Almost immediately the movement ran into conflict with county residents and the state government, and a succession of legal battles concerning the ashram's construction and continued development curtailed its success. In 1985, in the wake of a series of serious crimes by his followers, including a mass food poisoning attack with salmonella bacteria and an aborted assassination plot to murder U.S. Attorney Charles H. Turner, Rajneesh alleged that his personal secretary Ma Anand Sheela and her close supporters had been responsible. He was later deported from the United States in accordance with an Alford plea bargain.

Osho is a very powerful speaker as well. 

All time tyrants are there in different forms but their main goal is to create power, money and country the human life. Here, I am also putting on a documentary based on Osho’s life. His personal security guard and Personal secretary reveal unbelievable things about him and his aims. 

Thank you…...

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