W. H. Auden

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Lore & Background

Auden was born at 54 Bootham, York, on 21 February 1907, the third of three sons. His father was a physician, his mother had trained as a missionary nurse. He grew up in an Anglo-Catholic household. At thirteen he went to Gresham's School in Holt, Norfolk; there, in 1922, when his friend Robert Medley asked him if he wrote poetry, Auden first realised his vocation was to be a poet. Soon after, he discovered he had lost his faith. In 1925 he went up to Christ Church, Oxford, with a scholarship in biology; he changed to English by his second year, and was introduced to Old English poetry through the lectures of J. R. R. Tolkien. He left Oxford in 1928 with a third-class degree. In late 1928, Auden left Britain for nine months, going to Berlin. In Berlin, he first experienced the political and economic unrest that became one of his central subjects. On returning in 1929 he worked briefly as a tutor. In 1930 his first published book, Poems (1930), was accepted by T. S. Eliot for Faber & Faber. From 1930 to 1935 he taught in British private preparatory schools: two years at the Larchfield Academy in Helensburgh, Scotland, then three years at the Downs School in the Malvern Hills. At the Downs, in June 1933, he experienced what he later described as a "Vision of Agape", which he said later influenced his decision to return to the Anglican Church in 1940. In 1935 Auden married Erika Mann, the novelist daughter of Thomas Mann, in a marriage of convenience so she could become a British subject. From 1935 until he left Britain early in 1939, Auden worked as freelance reviewer, essayist, and lecturer, first with the GPO Film Unit. Through his work for the Film Unit in 1935 he met and collaborated with Benjamin Britten. In 1936, Auden spent three months in Iceland where he gathered material for a travel book Letters from Iceland (1937), written with Louis MacNeice. In 1937, he went to Spain intending to drive an ambulance for the Republican side.

Reader's Guide

Auden came to wide public attention in 1930 with his first book, Poems; it was followed in 1932 by The Orators. Three plays written in collaboration with Christopher Isherwood between 1935 and 1938 built his reputation as a left-wing political writer. Auden moved to the United States in 1939 partly to escape this reputation, and his work in the 1940s, including the long poems "For the Time Being" and "The Sea and the Mirror", focused on religious themes. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his 1947 long poem The Age of Anxiety, the title of which became a popular phrase describing the modern era. From 1956 to 1961, he was Professor of Poetry at Oxford; his lectures were popular with students and faculty and served as the basis for his 1962 prose collection The Dyer's Hand. Auden was a prolific writer of prose essays and reviews on literary, political, psychological, and religious subjects, and he worked at various times on documentary films, poetic plays, and other forms of performance. Throughout his career he was both controversial and influential. Critical views on his work ranged from sharply dismissive (treating him as a lesser figure than W. B. Yeats and T. S. Eliot) to strongly affirmative (as in Joseph Brodsky's statement that he had "the greatest mind of the twentieth century"). After his death, his poems became known to a much wider public through films, broadcasts, and popular media.

Did You Know?

• Auden first realised his vocation to be a poet in 1922 when his friend Robert Medley asked him if he wrote poetry.
• He was introduced to Old English poetry through the lectures of J. R. R. Tolkien at Oxford.
• In June 1933, Auden experienced a 'Vision of Agape' while sitting with three fellow teachers at the Downs School, which later influenced his return to the Anglican Church.
• In 1935, Auden married Erika Mann in a marriage of convenience so she could become a British subject and escape Nazi Germany.
• Auden won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his 1947 long poem The Age of Anxiety, whose title became a popular phrase describing the modern era.