Who is Wystan Hugh Auden

Wystan Hugh Auden (; 21 February 1907 – 29 September 1973) was a British-American poet. Auden's poetry was noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in tone, form, and content. Some of his best known poems are about love, such as "Funeral Blues"; on political and social themes, such as "September 1, 1939" and "The Shield of Achilles"; on cultural and psychological themes, such as The Age of Anxiety; and on religious themes such as "For the Time Being" and "Horae Canonicae".He was born in York and grew up in and near Birmingham in a professional middle-class family. He attended various English independent (or public) schools and studied English at Christ Church, Oxford. After a few months in Berlin in 1928�...
Read Full Biography

---

Wystan Hugh Auden Poems

• Stop All The Clocks, Cut Off The Telephone
  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. ...
• Grub First, Then Ethics
  opos is, we could say to him: "Well,
  we can read to ourselves, our use
  of holy numbers would shock you, and a poet
  may lamentâ??'Where is Telford...

Read All Poems

---

Wystan Hugh Auden Quotes

• The image of myself which I try to create in my own mind in order that I may love myself is very different from the image which I try to create in the minds of others in order that they may love me.
• The countenances of children, like those of animals, are masks, not faces, for they have not yet developed a significant profile of their own.
• May it not be that, just as we have faith in Him, God has to have faith in us and, considering the history of the human race so far, may it not be that faith is even more difficult for Him than it is for us
• All sin tends to be addictive, and the terminal point of addiction is what is called damnation.
• Goodness is easier to recognize than to define.

Read All Quotes

---

Comments about Wystan Hugh Auden

• Kadirbilgin: those to whom evil is done do evil return. ''wystan hugh auden''
• Michaelscaines: i don’t think wystan’s terrific virtuosity quite compensates for his lack of a strong, lucid, objective, free-verse style. all that.. seems to me a kind of fire works which is marvellous of wystan, but of no real help to anyone else writing poetry. – stephen spender, march 7 1935
• Rhul_library: wystan hugh auden was a british-american poet and academic, closely associated with his friend and fellow-writer, christopher isherwood. auden wrote nearly 400 poems encompassing a wide range of styles, tone and themes, including politics, morals, love, and religion.
• Lordbonkers: liberal england: the importance of auden to english literature
• Lordbonkers: liberal england: the importance of wystan hugh auden

Read All Comments