Much as T S Eliot (1888-1965) became established as the poetic voice of the 1920's, so W H Auden emerged as the poetic voice of the 1930's. Born in York in England in 1907, Auden moved to the United States at the age of 32 in 1939 and took out citizenship papers, reversing the Odyssey of T S Eliot, who was born in St. Louis, Missouri in USA and became a British Subject.
The youthful Auden was greatly influenced by Eliot's 'Waste Land' (1922), but in later life both men replaced their anger and despair with a staunch Christian faith. As early as in 1937, Auden was firmly established as the great poet of is generation. His reputation had already spread to America. He was the voice of youth, the voice of the radical left, well travelled and universally celebrated in Europe. Versatility, wit and dazzling technique characterized Auden's poetry.
The poem of Auden I love most is 'September 1, 1939', written in the early days of II World War. This poem was reminiscent of the voice of W B Yeats (1865-1939) who wrote a great poem during the I World War titled 'Easter 1916'. Very much like Yeats, Auden gave a poignant description of historical lapses, frustrations and failures gradually moving towards a possible transformation of the landscape in the future. I am giving below a few stanzas from Auden's great poem:
September 1, 1939
I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.
Accurate scholarship can
Unearth the whole offence
From Luther until now
That has driven a culture mad,
Find what occurred at Linz,
What huge imago made
A psychopathic god:
I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.
Exiled Thucydides knew
All that a speech can say
About Democracy,
And what dictators do,
The elderly rubbish they talk
To an apathetic grave;
Analysed all in his book,
The enlightenment driven away,
The habit-forming pain,
Mismanagement and grief:
We must suffer them all again.
Into this neutral air
Where blind skyscrapers use
Their full height to proclaim
The strength of Collective Man,
Each language pours its vain
Competitive excuse:
But who can live for long
In an euphoric dream;
Out of the mirror they stare,
Imperialism's face
And the international wrong.
ALL I HAVE IS A VOICE
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.
Defenceless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
SHOW AN AFFIRMING FLAME.
Until the two final stanzas, the above poem briefly describes the social and personal pathology that brought about the outbreak of II World War: first the historical development of Germany �from Luther until now�, next the internal conflicts in every individual person that correspond to the external conflicts of the war. Much of the language and content of the poem echoes the voice and spirit of C G Jung in his book Psychology and Religion (1938).
In the last two stanzas Auden turns towards the truth that a poet can tell. He said 'We must love one another or die,' and look to the presence in the world of 'the Just' who exchange messages of hope. The poem ends with the hope that the poet, like 'The Just', can 'SHOW AN AFFIRMING FLAME' in the midst of the disaster. After the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York on 11 September, 2001, Auden's poem '1 September, 1939' was read (with certain lines omitted) on National Public Radio and was enthusiastically received by the public in America.
When W B Yeats (1865-1939) died in 1939, Auden wrote a great Elegy called 'In Memory of W B Yeats'. The dark days of II World War had begun. Auden's immortal lines recapture the impending gloom of the period. Here are my favourite lines from this Elegy:
'Earth, receive an honoured guest;
William Yeats is laid to rest:
Let the Irish vessel lie
Emptied of its poetry
Time that is intolerant
Of the brave and innocent,
And indifferent in a week
To a beautiful physique.
Worships language and forgives
Everyone by whom it lives;
Pardons cowardice, conceit
Lays its honours at their feet.
In the nightmare of the dark
All the dogs of Europe bark,
And the living nations wait,
Each sequestered in its hate.
Intellectual disgrace
Stares from every face,
And the seas of pity lie
Locked and frozen in each eye.
Follow, poet, follow right
To the bottom of the night,
With your unconstraining voice
Still persuade us to rejoice;
With the farming of a verse
Make a vineyard of the curse,
Sing of human unsuccess
In a rapture of distress;
In the deserts of the heart
Let the healing fountain start,
In the prison of his days
Teach the free man how to praise'
One of the most moving poems about 'Death' in the English language is Auden's 'Funeral Blues'. Whenever I read this poem, the following words of Bertrand Russel (1872-1970) rush into my mind and consciousness: �United with his fellow-men by the strongest of all ties, the tie of a common doom..... the life of Man is a long march through the night, surrounded by invisible foes, tortured by weariness and pain, towards a goal that few can hope to reach, and where none may tarry long.
One by one as they march, our comrades vanish from our sight, seized by the silent orders of omnipotent death. Very brief is the time in which we can help them, in which their happiness or misery is decided. Be it ours to shed sunshine on their path, to lighten their sorrows by the balm of sympathy, to give them the pure joy of a never-tiring affection, to strengthen failing courage, to instill faith in hours of despair...'
Brief and powerless is Man's life; on him and all his race the slow, sure doom falls pitiless and dark. Blind to good and evil, reckless of destruction, omnipotent matter rolls on its way. The ruthless trampling onward march of this unconscious power can be felt in our bones, minds and hearts when we read and re-read the words of Auden:
Funeral Blues
'Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.'
When the Civil War broke out in Spain in 1937, Auden burst out into the following lines of poetry. This poem is called 'SPAIN'. Here are a few lines from this poem:
In the necessary murder;
Today the expending of powers
On the flat ephemeral pamphlet
and the boring meeting.
The stars are dead. The animals will not look.
We are alone with our day,
and the time is short, and
History to the defeated
May say Alas but cannot help nor pardon.'
In February 2007, The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) in USA celebrated the Centenary of Auden's birth by a programme titled 'All I Have Is a Voice'. It was a two-day event to honor the legacy of poet W. H. Auden. Dana Gioia, NEA Chairman, told the public: 'W H Auden was one of the greatest poets of the twentieth century. Although born in England, he spent half his life in the United States and died an American citizen. Few poets have ever equalled his combination of imaginative force, musical genius, and moral authority. It is important for his Centenary to be celebrated in the capital of his adopted country.'
(To be contd...)
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