http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,,2024918,00.html
Auden in cahoots with the Cambridge disciples - possibly.
On one level, I've always wondered how Auden made it to the US to
become a US citizen (did he?) I mean, here was a notorious left-wing
libertine, up to his, uh, neck in (then) impolite activities, Germany
behind him, and he bobs up in America in '39. Compare and contrast
Adorno and Benjamin's exits to America, or not. So, in the 50s, we
have MI6 implicating WH with another bunch of traitors; the evidence
is circumstantial but people have been hanged for less. Yet, he's off
to America again, to escape. Umm.
So, at the same time that he's writing religious poetry,he's still
connected to his old friends. And that's another curious thing: I
always thought that the CofE - broad church it may be - vilified
"perverts" like WH, even more so in his day. Yet, I don't see him
chafing at these attitudes in his poetry. It's almost as if his
homosexuality doesn't exist in this respect.
Underneath all this autobiographical detail lies, I think, an
ideological slipperiness. I'm reminded of Dominic's words about
choosing allegiances. I get the feeling that politics, for Auden,
isn't that important. Isn't it his political shapelessness that has
made his work endure thus far? A man for all seasons and all those
cliches.
Roger
--
My Stuff: http://www.badstep.net/
"Patriotism is a virtue of the vicious." Oscar Wilde
|