W.H. Auden
By: McKenzie White
o Born in York, England on February 21,
1907
o Moved to Birmingham during childhood
o Attended school at Christ Church, Oxford.
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Influenced by the Poetry of
Thomas Hardy
Robert Frost
William Blake
Emily Dickinson
Gerard Manley Hopkins
Old English verse.
Life Long Friends
When At Oxford his skills for poetry were
immediately apparent. He formed a
friendship
with two other writers at Oxford named
Stephen Spender and Christopher
Isherwood.
1928
Poems was privately printed
1930
another collection Poems (though its
contents were different) was published
*Poems (privately printed, 1928) *Best Seller
Poems (1930)
The Orators prose and verse (1932)
Look, Stranger! in America: On This Island (1936)
Spain (1937)
Another Time (1940)
The Double Man (1941)
The Quest (1941)
For the Time Being (1944)
The Sea and the Mirror (1944)
Collected Poetry (1945)
The Age of Anxiety: A Baroque Eclogue (1947)
Collected Shorter Poems 1930-1944 (1950)
Nones (1952)
(continued)
The Shield of Achilles (1955)
Selected Poetry (1956)
The Old Man's Road (1956)
Homage to Clio (1960)
About the House(1965)
Collected Shorter Poems 1927-1957 (1966)
Collected Longer Poems (1968)
City without Walls (1969)
Academic Graffiti (1971)
Epistle to a Godson (1972)
Thank You, Fog: Last Poems (1974)
Selected Poems (1979)
Collected Poems (1991)
Auden was always admired for his
versatility in writing. He was gifted
enough to be able to write any type
of poem there is. Other than
writing poems he also wrote
playwrights, librettists, editorials,
and essays.
His Work
His work talked about culture,
current events, and vernacular
speech; it also shows a large range
of his intellect. His work shows a
variety of literature, art forms,
social/political theories , and
scientific/technical information.
What Else He Did…
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When he wasn’t writing he was traveling.
He visited Germany, Iceland, and China
He served in the Spanish Civil War
In 1939 he moved to the United states where
he became an American Citizen and also met
his lover Chester Kallman
Different Views
While in the United States his
believes changed drastically. He is
now a firm believer
in Christianity
and Theology.
Death
Auden died on September
28, 1973 in
Vienna, Austria.
QuickTime™ and a
decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
Test Questions
1.
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6.
When was Auden Born?
What does the W.H. stand for?
What were two of his influences?
What was his best selling book?
What war was he apart of?
Where did he die at?
-Answers1. February 21, 1907
2. Wystan Hugh
3. Thomas Hardy, Robert Frost, William
Blake, Emily Dickinson, Gerard Manley
Hopkins, and Old English verse.
4. Poems (1928)
5. Spanish Civil War
6. Vienna, Austria
A Walk After Dark
By: W.H. Auden
A cloudless night like this
Can set the spirit soaring:
After a tiring day
The clockwork spectacle is
Impressive in a slightly boring
Eighteenth-century way.
It soothed adolescence a lot
To meet so shameless a stare:
The things I did could not
Be so shocking as they said
If that would still be there
After the shocked were dead.
Now unready to die
Bur already at the stage
When one starts to resent the
young.
I am glad those points in the sky
May also be counted among
The creatures of the middle-age.
It’s cosier thinking of night
As more an Old peoples home
Than a shed for a faultless
machine.
That the red pre-Cambrian light
Os gone like imperial Rome
Or myself at seventeen.
Yet however much we may like
The stoic manner in which
The classical authors wrote.
Only the young and rich
have the nerve or the figure to
strike
The lacrimae rerum note
For the present stalks abroad
Like the past and its wronged
again
Whimper and are ignored,
And the truth cannot be hid:
Somebody chose their pain,
What needn’t have happened did.
Occurring this very night
By no established rule,
Some event may already have
hurled
Its first little No at the right
Of the laws we accept to school
Our postdiluvian world:
But the stars burn on overhead,
Unconscious of final ends,
As I walk home to bed,
Asking what judgment waits
My person, all my friends,
And these United States.
Work Cited
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