Wystan Hugh Auden (1907–73,) known as W. H. Auden, was an English-born American poet. He was one of the major poets of the 20th century—he published more than 400 poems, essays, plays, and opera libretti.
Auden’s first volume of poetry, Poems (1930,) written while he was still an undergraduate, established him as the leading voice in a group of young left-wing writers, which included Stephen Spender, Louis MacNeice, Cecil Day-Lewis, and Christopher Isherwood. His The Orators (1932,) a volume consisting of odes, parodies of school speeches and sermons, and the surreal “Journal of an Airman,” provided a barrage of satire against England.
Auden traveled widely during the subsequent years. He and Isherwood worked together on a series of plays, such as The Ascent of F6 (1936.) Auden joined the Republican cause in the Spanish Civil War and wrote Spain (1937.) In 1939, he emigrated to New York, becoming a U.S. citizen in 1946. His writings on religion continued to evolve—his work became increasingly overshadowed by his Christian belief and an existential search for redemption. His long contemplative works include The Double Man (1941,) The Sea and the Mirror (1944,) For the Time Being (1944,) and The Age of Anxiety (1947,) for which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1948.
From 1956–61, Auden was a professor of poetry at Oxford University. His poetry adopts many tones, often using colloquial and everyday language. Auden’s Collected Poems was published in 1976.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by W. H. Auden
A daydream is a meal at which images are eaten. Some of us are gourmets, some gourmands, and a good many take their images precooked out of a can and swallow them down whole, absent-mindedly and with little relish.
—W. H. Auden
Topics: Dreams, Eating
I think the first prerequisite to civilization is an ability to make polite conversation.
—W. H. Auden
My deepest feeling about politicians is that they are dangerous lunatics to be avoided when possible and carefully humored; people, above all, to whom one must never tell the truth.
—W. H. Auden
Topics: Politics
No good opera plot can be sensible, for people do not sing when they are feeling sensible.
—W. H. Auden
Topics: Opera
The critical opinions of a writer should always be taken with a large grain of salt. For the most part, they are manifestations of his debate with himself as to what he should do next and what he should avoid.
—W. H. Auden
Topics: Criticism, Critics
Between friends, differences in taste or opinion are irritating in direct proportion to their triviality.
—W. H. Auden
Topics: Friendship
A real book is not one that we read, but one that reads us.
—W. H. Auden
Topics: Reading, Books
see without looking, … hear without listening, … breathe without asking.
—W. H. Auden
To be happy means to be free, not from pain or fear, but from care or anxiety.
—W. H. Auden
Topics: Happiness
Geniuses are the luckiest of mortals because what they must do is the same as what they most want to do.
—W. H. Auden
Topics: Genius
If we really want to live, we’d better start at once to try.
—W. H. Auden
Topics: Procrastination, Inaction, Getting Going
Machines are beneficial to the degree that they eliminate the need for labor, harmful to the degree that they eliminate the need for skill.
—W. H. Auden
Topics: Science
Choice of attention – to pay attention to this and ignore that – is to the inner life what choice of action is to the outer. In both cases, a man is responsible for his choice and must accept the consequences, whatever they may be.
—W. H. Auden
Topics: Decisions, Self-reliance, Responsibility
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