Auden, W H

Auden, W(ystan) H(ugh)

Auden, 1965.

(credit: Horst Tappe)

(born Feb. 21, 1907, York, Yorkshire, Eng.—died Sept. 29, 1973, Vienna, Austria) British-born U.S. poet and man of letters. He attended Oxford University, where he exerted a strong influence on C. Day-Lewis, Louis MacNeice, and Stephen Spender. Auden's varied works throughout his life dealt with intellectual and moral issues of public concern as well as with the inner world of fantasy and dream. In the 1930s he became a hero of the left, pointing up the evils of capitalism while also warning against those of totalitarianism. He collaborated with Christopher Isherwood on three verse dramas. Auden's later writing reflects changes in his life (he became a U.S. citizen) and in his religious and intellectual perspective (he embraced Christianity and became disillusioned with the left) and occasionally his homosexuality. His poetic works include The Age of Anxiety (1947, Pulitzer Prize) and the collections Another Time (1940) and Homage to Clio (1960). With his longtime companion Chester Kallman, he wrote opera librettos, notably The Rake's Progress (1951) for Igor Stravinsky.