I forgot to say, I'm not sure how Us Immigration procedures work, but
Auden's exits to America have an almost magical quality about them.
It's almost as if he's got a fairy godmother in the State Department.
On 3/3/07, Roger Day <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 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
>
--
My Stuff: http://www.badstep.net/
"Patriotism is a virtue of the vicious." Oscar Wilde
|