W H Auden's poetry themes

THEMES OF W.H.
AUDEN’S POETRY
{
SAMI UL HAQ
M PHIL LITERATUR 2ND SEMESTER
LAHORE LEADS UNIVERSITY, LAHORE

 Born 1907 in England
 Died 1973 in Austria
 Anglo- American
Writer
 Poet
 School and University
teacher
 Married Erika Mann
(unconsummated love)
W.H. AUDEN :
INTRODUCTION

 Friend and lover of
Christopher Isherwood
 Witnessed Spanish civil
War
 Visited Sino-Japanese
war “A Journey to War”
 Moved to America in
1939
 Become a US subject in
1946
W.H. AUDEN :
INTRODUCTION
(CONTD)

 Eliot was successor of
Yeats and Auden was
Eliot’s successor.
 His poetic works
divided into three
periods
 Early wok (1922-1939)
 Middle Period (1940-
1957)
 Later Works (1958-
1973)
W.H. AUDEN :POETRY

 1ST period Wordsworth’s
Romanticism+Rural style
like Charles Dicken and
T.S.Eliot style
 Poems of 1St period are
 Poems of 1928
 Drama “Paid on both
sides” and 30 poems in
1933 (Collective theme
Family Ghosts)
W.H. AUDEN :POETRY

 War Poetry
 2nd period
 Rediscovered
Anglicanism
 Poems about
theological and history
 Poems “Canzone”
 “kiros and Logos”
 “A Walk after Dark”
 “The Love Feast”
 “Love Feast”
 “The Fall of Rome”
W.H. AUDEN :POETRY
(CONTD)

 3rd Period
 “About the House” in
1965
Published in total
about 400 poems.
W.H. AUDEN :POETRY
(CONTD)

 Love
 Religion
 Politics and social
concerns
 Citizenship
THEMES

 War
 Death
 Modern horrors
 Totalitarianism
THEMES CONTINUED

 These Poems deals
with basic theme of
love
 “As I Walked out One
Evening”,
 “Lullaby”,
 “O Tell Me the Truth
About Love”,
 and “Funeral Blues”
THEME: LOVE

In the last stanza of “September 1, 1939” he
says:
"We must love one another or die,"
 In poem “The More Loving One” he says:
“If equal affection cannot be
Let the more loving one be me”
THEME LOVE:
CONTINUED

 In 1940 he reconverted
to Christianity, he
wrote about religion
these poems have
religious theme:
 “For the Time Being“
 "The Ballad of
Barnaby“
 "Song of the Devil"
THEME: RELIGION

 Age of political
turmoil
 Spain civil war,
(fascism – Marxism )
 Sino- Japanese war
 “The Age of Anxiety”
 “Journey to War”
THEME: SOCIAL AND
POLITICAL CONCERNS

 He married Erika
Mann,
unconsummated love
for the purpose of
providing her with
British passport,
citizenship, to shelter
her from the Nazi’s
crimes.
THEMES: CITIZENSHIP

 “The Unknown Citizen”
 “Refugee Blues”
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.
THEMES: CITIZENSHIP
(COTINUED)

 War Poetry
 Auden visited
Germany with “US
Strategic Bombing
Survey”
 Sino- Japanese war
 Spanish Civil War
 “Journey to a War”
 “September 1, 1939”
THEME: WAR

 "I sit in one of the dives On Fifty-second
Street Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade".
Message of this poem:
"We must love one another or die,"
THEME WAR
(CONTINUED)

 Auden’s unpublished diary September 1,
1939:
"Such a beautiful evening and in an hour,
They say, England will be at war,"
THEME WAR
(CONTINUED)

 “In the Memory of
W.B.Yeats”
 “In the Memory of
Sigmund Freud”
 “Musee Des Beaux Arts”
(Museum of fine Arts).
 “Funeral Blues”
“Let aero planes circle
moaning overhead/
Scribbling on the sky the
message He Is Dead”
THEME: DEATH

 “Musee Des Beaux Arts” (Museum of fine
Arts)
 This poem 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.
THEMES: MODERN
HORRORS

 Age of Hitler,
Mussolini, Stalin, and
Franco
 “The Unknown
Citizen”
 “The Shield of
Achilles”
 “Friday’s Child”
 Refugee Blues, and
 “September 1, 1939”.
THEMES:TOTALITARIANISM

 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 convey
a silent message:
CONCLUSION

"We must love
one another or
die,"
MESSAGE

W H Auden's poetry themes

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W H Auden's poetry themes