W. H. Auden Summary

Biography EssayW. H. Auden was a major English poet, probably the most important English-speaking poet born in the twentieth century. Noted especially for native lyrical gifts and highly developed tec... Read more

"America may break one completely, but the best of which one is capable is more likely to be drawn out of one here than anywhere else," W. H. Auden wrote a friend soon after immigrating to the United ... Read more

W.H. Auden was a major English poet, probably the most important English-speaking poet born in the twentieth century. Noted especially for native lyrical gifts and highly developed technical expertise... Read more

In the following essay, Hynes discusses Auden's emigration to the United States, his preoccupation with history and art, and "New Year Letter" as a reflection of Auden's hi... Read more

In the following essay, France examines Auden's historical perspective and juxtaposition of Latin and Gothic Christianity in his "In Praise of Limestone." Critics of W. H. Aude... Read more

In the following essay, Held discusses the significance of Auden's appropriation of blues music convention in "Refugee Blues." All art, Walter Pater declared, aspires to the co... Read more

In the following essay, Jenkins provides an overview of Auden's literary career and the significance of his expatriation in the United States. No episode in the century's English-spea... Read more

In the following essay, Caserio discusses Auden's attitudes toward civic allegiance, the significance of his emigration to the United States, and the association of homosexuality with exile. ... Read more

Critical Essay by James D. Brophy In a century of the symbolist, surreal, and absurd, W. H. Auden is essentially a poet of the reasonable. "Coming out of me living is always thinking," ... Read more

Critical Essay by David Perkins Above all I was charmed in Auden by what to me, when I first read him, seemed the ultimate sophistication, which was not disillusion but instead minimal expectations. ... Read more

Critical Essay by Dr. Narsingh Srivastava Symbolisation of landscape is one of the major structural patterns in the poetry of W. H. Auden. Aware as he has ever been of the inadequacy of the direct st... Read more

Critical Essay by Edward Callan The first of Auden's longer works, Paid on Both Sides: A Charade,… is ostensibly an episode in a continuing feud between two families who live some fifte... Read more

Critical Essay by Frank Kermode Auden came close to a point where he no longer understood his own poetry…. [Something] happened that made him close his mind, not to the earliest poetry so much... Read more