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Auden & America

Submitted by Deschanel, Mar 9, 2008 15:23

While it's true that Auden's literary cohort were pacifists, it is difficult to overstate how much Auden's private life factored into his decision to leave Britain, regardless of the perilous time. Stay in a country he found repressive and claustrophobic, hidebound and class-bound, where his homosexuality was an imprisonable crime? Or go to New York as millions of other immigrants, to see the vast, bustling dynamic and open society rapidly developing, to be with the New York City young man he loved? It is as they say, a no-brainer. For what I hope are obvious reasons, Auden could hardly have opened declared his love for Chester Kallmann, then or for decades afterward. (They remained together the rest of their lives.) He mightn't have had much love for Britain, but he no doubt felt that Britain had a deep contempt for him.

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Comment	By	Date
Poor Auden! In death he is a "stick for one and a shield the other". As to facts, I have... [MORE]	Barry Larking	Mar 14, 2008 05:11
In his poem, September 1, 1939, Auden speaks directly about the l930s as "a low dishonest decade." This would include... [MORE]	Paul Dresman	Mar 10, 2008 11:59
Nope, none of it works. He didn't go to New York to pass some literary baton, he didn't go to... [MORE]	Robert Smith	Mar 10, 2008 05:44
Humorlesss? My goodness. And to charge Auden's "cloudiness" to Kierkegaard seems a real injustice. Has Ormsby read the aesthete's volume... [MORE]	Jack Johnson	Mar 9, 2008 23:46
Auden's defection was the first of two times that a poet's actions sparked debated in the House of Commons (the... [MORE]	Daniel Heinde	Mar 9, 2008 19:26
To assert, as this critic does, that writing prose improved Auden's poetry reveals a tin ear for verse. I defy... [MORE]	lawrence richette	Mar 9, 2008 19:12
While it's true that Auden's literary cohort were pacifists, it is difficult to overstate how much Auden's private life factored...	Deschanel	Mar 9, 2008 15:23
As an historian, Auden got it right, I am sure... [MORE]	Artemio Benavides	Mar 8, 2008 17:07
Was Auden so great that he had to be secreted away to England's strategic hinterland like the atomic bomb secrets... [MORE]	Toby Mottram	Mar 8, 2008 16:57
The master of ironic subversion of himself Kierkegaard was anything but humorless. [MORE]	Shalom Freedman	Mar 8, 2008 14:15
I don't think ironic subversion is funny [MORE]	Stephen H	Mar 9, 2008 14:19
I should, perhaps, not take Ormsby's off-hand remark about Kierkegaard's humorlessness too seriously, but it is significant as yet another... [MORE]	Jan Sjåvik	Mar 8, 2008 14:02
A fine article; no complaint, but a quibble. No one who knows the work of Kierkegaard could possibly describe him... [MORE]	David Bentley	Mar 8, 2008 10:59
Migration mean change, and change always bring new biginning.Those who migrate they are unsatsifated bored in their native land .... [MORE]	Ramesh Raghuvanshi	Mar 8, 2008 02:29
Auden deserves all those high praises. Further he presided over the transfer the great Marble Laurel Wreath that passed from... [MORE]	Tom Disch	Mar 5, 2008 06:57
Too bad that all Ormsby can remark about Kierkegaard is that he was 'dismal,' thus faulting Auden's appreciation of Kierkegaard's... [MORE]	F. Major	Mar 9, 2008 01:11
Whatever misguided patriotism may call Auden, no one can call him a coward. In 1939 (as in 2008), living openly... [MORE]	Marcy Haynes	Mar 9, 2008 01:15

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