Liberal Arts Blog — W.H.Auden: “the Greatest mind of the 20th Century” (Brodsky)
Liberal Arts Blog — Tuesday is the Joy of Literature, Language, Religion, and Culture Day
Today’s Topic: W.H.Auden: “the Greatest mind of the 20th Century” (Brodsky)
How good was Auden? Opinions differ. But Joseph Brodsky was no slouch. He did after all win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1987. Personally, I was a big fan of Auden’s back in the 1970s. Especially of the poem “September 1, 1939.” This week, inspired by the comment of a friend, I decided to revisit his work in the hopes of finding some gems to share. I was not disappointed. Experts — please chime in. Correct, elaborate, elucidate.
WOW! TOP THIS! (I did not know any of these three before this morning’s digging.)
1. “I’ll love you, dear, I’ll love you till China and Africa meet and the river jumps over the mountain and the salmon sing in the street.”
2. “Poetry might be defined as the clear expression of mixed feelings.”
3. “We must love one another or die.”
NB “A poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with language.”
AND DON’T MISS THESE
1. “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.”
2. “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 forever: I was wrong.”
3. “How should we like it were stars to burn With a passion for us we could not return? If equal affection cannot be, Let the more loving one be me.”
NB: “Admirer as I think I am Of stars that do not give a damn, I cannot, now I see them, say I missed one terribly all day.”
FUNERAL BLUES, SOME BOOKS, CHANGE
1. “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.”
2. “Some books are undeservedly forgotten; none are undeservedly remembered.”
3. “We would rather be ruined than changed We would rather die in our dread Than climb the cross of the moment And let our illusions die.”
NB: “Evil is unspectacular and always human, And shares our bed and eats at our own table ….”
CONCLUSION: Brodsky might be right. Or not. Thoughts?
FOOTNOTES — Biographical and other
1. Auden’s memorial stone at Westminster Abbey reads: “In the prison of his days, teach the free man how to praise,” a line from his poem “In Memory of W.B. Yeats.”
To me the line echoes the last lines of “September 1, 1939” — “May I, composed like them Of Eros and of dust, Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair, Show an affirming flame.” He is actually buried in Kirchstetten, Austria, where he spent his summers. His gravestone there reads: “W.H. Auden, Poet and Man.”
2. He was born in York, a “cathedral city” in the northeast of England. His family were “minor gentry with a strong clerical tradition.”
3. Studied at Oxford, became famous for his poetry at a young age. Married Erika Mann in 1935 so she could have a British passport to escape the Nazis. He was homosexual and had several lovers including Christopher Isherwood and Chester Kallman.
NB: He abandoned religion at age 15 but returned to the “Anglican Communion” in 1940, aged 33. He became an American citizen in 1946 (but kept his British citizenship as well). A plaque at a house in Brooklyn Heights, New York, which he shared with a colorful group of friends including Carson McCullers, Benjamin Britten, and Gypsy Rose Lee, includes the following quote: “And love illuminates again, the city and the lion’s den, the world’s great rage and the travel of young men.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._H._Auden
https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/233593.W_H_Auden
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YOUR TURN
Please share the coolest thing you learned this week related to words, language, literature, religion, culture. Or, even better, the coolest or most important thing you learned in your life related to Words, Language, Literature (eg. quotes, poetry, vocabulary) that you have not yet shared.
This is your chance to make someone else’s day. Or to cement in your own mind something that you might otherwise forget. Or to think more deeply than otherwise about something dear to your heart. Continuity is key to depth of thought.
