Auden
W.H. Auden, perhaps one of the most renowned poets of the 20th century, was an intellectual in constant search for understanding of the world in which he lived. Time after time, whether it was during his days of study at Oxford University or amidst his return to an absolute, Christian frame of mind as a middle-aged man, Auden, vacillated back and forth between opposite poles of viewpoint. Auden questioned institutionalized ideas from the start and for a good part of his childhood rejected the idea of religion in full (though he still went to church to soak in the fiery orations), only to later accept Christianity's doctrines as a middle-aged man. One thing that remained consistent, though, in Auden was his methodology of thinking - he continually involved himself in critical thought, in barefaced attempt to make sense of his life. Though this mode of philosophy did pave the way to further intellect - like any big thinker - Auden was often left still scratching his head. His confusion, most likely overlapping with his romantic feelings for the same sex, undeniably coincided with his inclination to begin writing poetry. Concerned with knowledge, practice, and understanding, Auden persistently psychoanalyzed himself and others,
Going hand-in-hand with this 'Wasteland'-ish scene is the idea of Auden making his own reality, instead of searching for it. Carpenter describes an interaction between the two in which Auden declared himself a believer in God, surprising Medley. Though happiness would seemingly be anything but doleful, let us not reduce it to that. It would be rather impossible to talk of Auden without revering the words "vacillate" or "change" as his most likely descriptors. Auden's works, thus, are not without continuity - like the 'questing hero' himself, the poems' motive principles remain little changed, though they move rapidly through changing landscapes of thought and feeling. Auden was amidst the process of searching for more than just happiness (if he wanted to be happy, he would have stopped 'thinking' a long time ago) - he was on a quest for understanding, a quest for truth, a realness, a stronghold amidst his life's crashing waves, and this quest led him invariably through a great deal change in life. Still later in his life, despite his surface acceptance of Christianity, Auden seemed to become more self-contained than communal. Auden, as Everett points out, "has done so in a terminology that was in the earlier part of his career, 'political,' in a very romantic and personal way" (Everett 8). Medley's influence on Auden did not stop at scholastic discussion though; Medley was the first to encourage Auden to write poetry. Auden, like other men in their twenties, only knew the concept of love through abstraction, a kind of love that cannot attach itself to a real lover, a love which is all-too demanding, too demanding for any individual to know through experience. The first passage is taken from Poem XI in the 1930 Poems, published when Auden was twenty-three. Even though Auden was going through a period in which he actually enjoyed making his confessions, a practice that was encouraged by the school chaplain, the religion at Gresham's School was, as Auden soon found, religion without real dogma, and therefore (as he put it) 'nothing but vague uplift, as flat as an old bottle of soda water. These included sub-elements of Freedom and Necessity, Isolation and Community, Art and Reality.
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Acceptance Essays
