Concetti Chiave
- Auden, born in York in 1907, was a prominent Modernist poet and leader of the "Oxford poets," engaging deeply with social and political issues.
- His early English period was influenced by Freud and Marx, focusing on psychological and societal themes, emphasizing the poet's public role.
- In 1939, Auden moved to New York, marking a shift from political activism to exploring personal and ethical themes in his poetry.
- Auden's style evolved to reject a single poetic culture, advocating for self-improvement as a precursor to societal change.
- "Another Time" (1940) symbolizes Auden's transition, featuring poems that blend intellectual rigor with various styles, organized into thematic sections.
Wystan Hugh Auden
Auden was born in York in 1907, of a middle-class High Church Anglican parents. Starting from his youth, he was a voracious reader. He moved to Oxford where he got in touch with the Modernist poetry and where he became the leader of the so-called “Oxford poets”, a group of left-winged young intellectuals
=> He was deeply committed with social and political issues:
• 1926: he worked for the strikers during the General Strike
• in Berlin he witnessed the rise of Nazism
• he became an ambulance driver during the Spanish Civil War
1935: he married a Jewish woman in order to provide her the passport to escape from Nazi Germany
He became concerned with homosexuality
1939: he moved to New York
1940: he began teaching in New York and published Another Time
1948: Pulitzer Price for The Age of Anxiety
He died of heart attack in 1973
The English period
At the beginning of his career he was influenced by Freud and psychoanalysis and he thought about psychological models in relation to the costumes of an entire society.
Another influence was that of Karl Marx. His way of arguing took for granted the engagement of the individual with history.
Role of the poet → tell stories of particular people and experiences from which each person can
draw her own conclusion according to her own immediate needs
Poet's task → act as a public voice, support the causes for freedom against tyranny, express the anxieties of the contemporary left-wing intellectuals
The American Period
It started when Auden moved to New York and left the political commitment.
He expresses his disillusionment with political events such as the Republican defeat in Spain.
With his move, he freed himself from the social and political commitment in order to become a verbal artist.
Style → refuses the identification with a single poetic culture
He started to believe that improvement must begin within the self, not within society.
Theme of the quest:
English period: quest for a new society and a new self
American period: quest for a new life
Another time - 1940
Collection of poems
Symbolic title: the poet enter another time through the exile that would lead to his becoming an American citizen
Pivotal collection: Auden turns from political interests towards ethical concerns
It contains some of Auden's famous poems and shows the main features of his poetry: it combines intellectual rigor and social conscience with a mix of styles
He uses simple popular forms (ballads, songs)
The poems are organized into three sections:
People and places ═► theme of sorrow, relationship between man and nature
Lighter poems ═► light comic tone
Occasional poems ═► celebration of the deaths of great figures examples of transgression and of moral and artistic renewal (Freud, Yeats)
Domande da interrogazione
- Quali sono stati i principali impegni sociali e politici di Auden durante il suo periodo inglese?
- Come è cambiato l'approccio di Auden alla poesia e alla politica dopo il suo trasferimento negli Stati Uniti?
- Quali sono le caratteristiche principali della raccolta "Another Time" pubblicata nel 1940?
- Qual è il ruolo del poeta secondo Auden durante il suo periodo inglese?
Auden si è impegnato profondamente in questioni sociali e politiche, lavorando per gli scioperanti durante lo Sciopero Generale del 1926, assistendo alla nascita del nazismo a Berlino, e diventando autista di ambulanze durante la Guerra Civile Spagnola. Ha anche sposato una donna ebrea per aiutarla a fuggire dalla Germania nazista.
Dopo essersi trasferito a New York nel 1939, Auden ha abbandonato il suo impegno politico per concentrarsi sull'arte verbale. Ha espresso disillusione per eventi politici come la sconfitta repubblicana in Spagna e ha iniziato a credere che il miglioramento dovesse iniziare dall'individuo piuttosto che dalla società.
"Another Time" è una raccolta di poesie che segna il passaggio di Auden da interessi politici a preoccupazioni etiche. Combina rigore intellettuale e coscienza sociale con una varietà di stili, utilizzando forme semplici e popolari come ballate e canzoni. Le poesie sono organizzate in tre sezioni: persone e luoghi, poesie leggere, e poesie occasionali.
Durante il suo periodo inglese, Auden credeva che il ruolo del poeta fosse quello di raccontare storie di persone ed esperienze particolari, permettendo a ciascuno di trarre le proprie conclusioni. Il poeta doveva agire come una voce pubblica, sostenendo le cause della libertà contro la tirannia e esprimendo le ansie degli intellettuali di sinistra contemporanei.
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