Eng426 20th century english literature

UNIT 2 – W.H. Auden’s Pessimistic Poetry

Content
1.0 Introduction
2.0 Objectives

0. 
   Main Content
   
1. 
   W.H. Auden
   
2. 
   “Stop All the Clocks, Cut Off the Telephone”
   
3. 
   Themes in “Stop All the Clocks, Cut Off the Telephone”
   

4.0 Conclusion
5.0 Summary
6.0 Tutor-Marked Assignment
7.0 References/ Further Reading

1.0INTRODUCTION

Wystan Hugh Auden is one of the modernist poets whose personal experiences and feelings are reflected in their works. In this unit you will be introduced to W.H. Auden and two of his poems - “Stop all the Clocks, Cut off the Telephone” and “September 1, 1939”.

0. OBJECTIVES

At the end of the unit you should be able to:

• 
  relate W.H. Auden’s personal life to the poetry discussed in the unit
  
• 
  analyze the poem by focusing on modernist concerns in the poem
  

0. MAIN CONTENT

1. 
   W.H. Auden
   

WystanHugh Auden was born in 1907 in York, England. He attended Christ Church College, University of Oxford after which he became a school master; he later became a professor of poetry at Oxford before he returned to Christ Church as a writer in residence. He was one of the great poets of the 20th century and his style has been compared to T.S Eliot’s especially for his use of irony and allusions to religious themes. He is asocial and political poet and playwright who depended on the proceeds coming from his poetry for a living. When writing poetry professionally could not sustain him, he had to go into teaching to augment his income. His first poetry collection was published in 1928. He was homosexual and his love life was not really a success. Christopher Isherwood was one of his lovers. Isherwood helped him greatly in his literary career, he wrote three plays and two books with Isherwood before he went on with Chester Kallman who was also a poet and writer and he wrote the poem “Atlantis” for Kallman. He was awarded the King’s Gold Medal for Poetry and his poem “The Age of Anxiety” won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1948. Other poems by Auden include “Lay your Sleeping Head, My Love”,
“Miss Gee”, “James Honeyman” “In Memory of W.B. Yeats” and “Musee Des Beaux”. Auden converted to Christianity after the Second World War. He died in 1973.

0.