In this Presentation You can find the information about W.H. Auden and his Poems which reflects his writing style.

1. Wystan
Hugh
Auden and
his Poems
Department of English, Maharaja
KrishnaKumarSinhji Bhavnagar University,
Bhavnagar

2. Presenters
goswamiupasna339@gmail.com
rathodanjali20022002ui@gmail.com
poojabhuva2002@gmail.com
Upasna Goswami
Anjali Rathod
Pooja Bhuva

3. W. H. Auden’s
Life and Works
In memory of W.
B. Yeats
● Poem
● Themes
● Structure
● Poetic
Techniques
Epitaph on a Tyrant
● Poem
● Historical Context
● Literary Devices
● Structure and Form
● Purpose of the
Poem
Comparison of
W.H. Auden
Poems with the
war of Ukraine
and Russia
1 September, 1939
● Poem
● References and
Symbols
What is War
Poetry?

4. What is War Poetry?
(In simple words)
➢ Naturally, one can easily understand that poetry which is
written for wars or has characteristics of War called War
Poetry. Some are on the side of War and some are anti war
poems. Poetry which deal with subject of War. Simply there
are two types of War Poetry.
1. Patriotic Poetry - Which honours sacrifice and bravery of
soldiers.
2. Anti - War Poetry - Which saws no glory in war but only
suffering and destruction.

5. ➢ W.H. Auden also known with his full name
Wystan Hugh Auden.
➢ He was born on 21 February, 1907 in York,
Yorkshire, England and grew up in and near
Birmingham where he lived with his middle
class family.
➢ He studied English at Christ Church,
Oxford, and he also has interest in German
language. (for article on his relation with
German Language Click Here) From 1930 to
1945 he used to teach in various places.
W. H. Auden
(1907-1973)

6. ➢ His earlier work considered Poems by Auden in 1930 with the help of T.
S. Eliot and ‘The Orators’ in 1932, between 1935 to 1938 he wrote three
plays in collaboration with Christopher Isherwood and Louis
MacNeice and these plays built his reputation as left wing political
writer.
➢ Just before WWII broke out, Auden leave this place and move to United
States where he met the poet Chester Kallman, who became his
lifelong lover. (W. H. Auden)
➢ He won Pulitzer prize for Poetry for his long Poem ‘The Age of Anxiety’
in 1948 and this title become phrase which describes the modern era
and mental situation of modern people.
➢ He published ‘The Dyer’s Hand’ and other Essays in a collection in 1962
which includes his Lectures too.

7. ● ‘For the Time Being’
● ‘Homage to Clio’
● ‘Letters from Iceland’
● ‘Musee des Beaux Arts’
● ‘On his Island’
● ‘Paid on Both Sides’
● ‘The Ascent of F6’
● ‘The Dance of Death’
● ‘The Double Man’
● ‘The Rake’s Progress’
➢ In his early work one can found exploration of the teachings of Marx
and Freud. (Spears)
● ‘September 1, 1939’
● ‘In Memory of W.B. Yeats’
● ‘Epitaph on a Tyrant’ etc.

8. September
1, 1939
- Wystan Hugh Auden

9. About the Poem
➢ This Poem published in ‘The collection-Another Time’ in 1939.
➢ After he shifted to America from England, while sitting in the Bar on
1 September, 1939, he heard this news.
➢ The title of the Poem in itself refers to the date of the German
invasion of Poland, which participated in the War.
➢ Even though this is his best known poem at one time, he criticized
the poem for its “incurable Dishonesty.”
➢ He removed the final stanza in 1945 before repudiating the poem
entirely by leaving it out of his Collected Shorter Poems in 1966.
(Britannica)
➢ This poem has nine stanzas in it, which tells the story of War in a
form of Poetry.

10. ➢ Each stanza has 11 lines in it.
➢ This poem doesn't follow any particular Rhyming Scheme.
➢ In this Poem he gave his idea and opinions on WWII and also satirise
Government of that time.
➢ At first look when one read it seems to be a satire but in that satire
their is also a suggestion that he gave to people that be loyal and
honest with each other.
➢ He sees Government with disgust and called it dishonest
Government.
➢ Cause at that time Government used propaganda during war time to
rule on people.

11. I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.
Accurate scholarship can
Unearth the whole offence
From Luther until now
That has driven a culture mad,
Find what occurred at Linz,
What huge imago made
A psychopathic god:
I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.
➢ Poem starts with the setting of
the, Speaker sitting in a Dive (Bar)
in Fifty-second street in New
York.
➢ He got the news that Hitler's
attack brought a low dishonest
decade, anger, fear and darkness
on Earth.
➢ With that there is one more thing
he brought and that's odour of
Death on September (starting of
the WWII) night.
➢ With the word accurate
scholarship one can interpret this
as historians who can tell
everything about history in which
Martin Luther’s works and ideas
driven whole culture of Germans
mad.
➢ Find what happened and how he
(Adolf Hitler) rais in Linz that he
became psychopath God.
Stanza
1-2

12. ➢ Dive - Bar which is famous for Gay
➢ Fifty-second street - a place in New York
➢ Unmentionable odour of death - WWI
➢ September Night - Beginning of WWII
➢ Luther - Martin Luther
➢ Driven whole culture mad - Anti-Semitism (Prejudice towards Jews)
➢ Linz - Place where Adolf Hitler spends his childhood
➢ Imago - Worldwide
➢ Those to whom…Return - One can interpret that the result of WWI
totally poured on Germany and that's why they return what we do to
Germany
❖ References and symbols
➢ We all know what everyone is Learning. If we do something wrong to
someone there are possibilities they take revenge.

13. Exiled Thucydides knew
All that a speech can say
About Democracy,
And what dictators do,
The elderly rubbish they talk
To an apathetic grave;
Analysed all in his book,
The enlightenment driven away,
The habit-forming pain,
Mismanagement and grief:
We must suffer them all again.
Into this neutral air
Where blind skyscrapers use
Their full height to proclaim
The strength of Collective Man,
Each language pours its vain
Competitive excuse:
But who can live for long
In an euphoric dream;
Out of the mirror they stare,
Imperialism's face
And the international wrong.
When Thucydides exiled from
democratic Athens for a military failure
he wrote ‘The History of Peloponnesian
War’.
In this book there is a famous statement
or propaganda by him which includes
Pericle’s paean (praise).
If we see in Thucydides book we can see
that how habit of pain is formed
throughout the history and now again
and again we suffer from that.
Blind leaders use strength of common
man of America.
Each country give excuses in their own
language but no one can live in this
dream for much longer.
Leaders are gone stare us and control us
through the face of military force and
other propaganda and do wrong things.
Stanza
3-4

14. ➢ Thucydides - Athenian Historian
➢ Pericle’s paean - Speech of western leaders
➢ To an apathetic grave - Thucydide’s Pericles Funeral Oration (from the
sixteenth century onwards it was often included in collections of ancient
speeches that were used to teach students the principles of rhetoric. )
➢ Neutral air - America, cause in September America still didn't take part in
WWII.
➢ Skyscrapers - Leaders, Collective Man - Common People
➢ Out of the mirror they stare - They (Leaders) stare us through this
forces, through imperialism but not directly.
➢ Imperialism - A policy of extending a country's power and influence
through diplomacy or military force.
❖ References and symbols

15. Faces along the bar
Cling to their average day:
The lights must never go out,
The music must always play,
All the conventions conspire
To make this fort assume
The furniture of home;
Lest we should see where we are,
Lost in a haunted wood,
Children afraid of the night
Who have never been happy or
good.
The windiest militant trash
Important Persons shout
Is not so crude as our wish:
What mad Nijinsky wrote
About Diaghilev
Is true of the normal heart;
For the error bred in the bone
Of each woman and each man
Craves what it cannot have,
Not universal love
But to be loved alone.
➢ The people who are in the bar they
are not aware about or don't care
about what happened outside they
are just enjoying their life.
➢ Light shouldn't go and music
shouldn't stop so that no one can
get worried about outside and the
furniture of the bar is giving the
feeling of home.
➢ But in reality we see where we are,
we are in darkness where cause of
war no one is happy and we are
lost.
➢ In satirical manner he says
Propaganda of leaders is not crude
as we think.
➢ For express about love he gave
example of Nijinsky and Diaghilev
and tell that what Nijinsky wrote
about Diaghilev is true but we all
crave for self love, isolated love not
for universal love.
Stanza
5-6

16. ➢ Stanza 5 can be considered as a ‘Murder in the Cathedral’ by T.S. Eliot, a
modern drama. ( In the context that he talking about common people in the
drama, Common People are not concern with the major events like
execution of Thomas Becket ).
➢ Windiest militant trash - Speech or Propaganda which leaders use
➢ Important Persons - Leaders
➢ Nijinsky and Diaghilev are lovers.
➢ Vaslav Nijinsky was a Russian Ballet Dancer and Sergei Pavlovich Diaghilev
was a Russian art critic.
❖ References and symbols

17. From the conservative dark
Into the ethical life
The dense commuters come,
Repeating their morning vow;
"I will be true to the wife,
I'll concentrate more on my work,"
And helpless governors wake
To resume their compulsory game:
Who can release them now,
Who can reach the deaf,
Who can speak for the dumb?
All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.
➢ When they come into their social
life from private life every morning
they repeat their vow to be true to
the wife and concentrate on their
work.
➢ Governors or higher position
people wake and start their Politics
as ordered by their boss.
➢ He asks that who are going to
release them, who can reach to the
dead and who can speak for the
dumb? Cause now totalitarian
started their game.
➢ His poetries can open up the ideal
and romantic lies which filled in the
mind of common people.
➢ Leaders speaks lies which can build
the building who touch the sky.
➢ There is no state but at the same
time we are not alone cause hunger
is the same in everyone.
➢ So, we must love each other and
care for each other.
Stanza
7-8

18. ➢ Conservative dark - one can interpret as private life
➢ Ethical life - Society, Religious life
➢ Dense Commuters - Leaders or Visitors
➢ I have one voice - Poetry
➢ Sensual man in the street - Common People
➢ Authority - Leaders or Authoritarian Government
➢ We must love one another or die - He changed this line in later
version of the Poem.
➢ Original line - Because love can not avert - even if if may predict -
death (He hate this line)
❖ References and symbols

19. Defenceless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.
➢ People are in darkness without
and any defence, in an
unconscious state.
➢ Yet we (human being) are
hoping for a light and
exchanging messages.
➢ So, for this pure love speaker
says let me composed a poem
and my feelings like Eros (God
of Love) and dust ( Human
being).
➢ I myself rejected by the evryone
cause of my homosexuality for
the same reason which I wrote in
the poem but Love is the same.
➢ So, let me show my affirming
flame through my poetry.
Stanza
9

20. ➢ Under the Night - In darkness
➢ Stupor - a state of unconsciousness
➢ Ironic points of light - Windows in the
darkness or hope in unconsciousness
➢ Exchanging their messages - Showing
love to each other
➢ Eros - God of Love, Dust - Human being
➢ Beleaguered - In a very difficult
situations
➢ In last it has an Autobiographical element
too.
❖ References and symbols

21. In Memory of
W. B. Yeats
-
- -Wystan Hugh Auden

22. About the poem
➢ Wystan Hugh Auden elegy on the death of William Butler Yeats in titled ‘In
memory of W.B. Yeats’. It is also a meditation on the role and place of poetry in
the modern world.
➢ It was written in 1940 after W.B. Yeats’s death in 1939. It was the time when the
world encountered the second world war.
➢ This elegy differs from traditional elegy in which there is a serious lamenting on
the death of a person.
➢ In the first section , while paying homage to the as poet , auden succeeds in dying
those magical bardic elements which violate his own conviction.(jstor)
➢ In the second section , he separates the private man for his poetry , first by
embracing yeats in a common humanity and its twentieth century plight, and
then by turning attention to his transcendent gift.(jstor)
➢ In the third section , he literally buries yeats then moves to an impassioned
statement about the efficacy to poetry in terms probably quite different from
those yeats would have wished. (jstor)

23. Part I
He disappeared in the dead of winter:
The brooks were frozen, the airports almost
deserted,
And snow disfigured the public statues;
The mercury sank in the mouth of the dying day.
What instruments we have agree
The day of his death was a dark cold day.
Far from his illness
The wolves ran on through the evergreen forests,
The peasant river was untempted by the
fashionable quays;
By mourning tongues
The death of the poet was kept from his poems.
But for him it was his last afternoon as himself,
An afternoon of nurses and rumours;
The provinces of his body revolted,
The squares of his mind were empty,
Silence invaded the suburbs,
The current of his feeling failed; he became his
admirers.
Analyses of the poem
➢ W.B. Yeats died during winter on a dark cold
day and nature was completely indifferent
and unaffected.
➢ When Yeats died , hid death was kept from
his poems and remains unaltered by the fact
that Yeats the man has now died.
➢ The cruel coldness which is exaggerated to
be the january exploited to lament the
passing away of Yeats.
➢ No sheep rove amid the mourning echoes of
woods and deserted caves; instead , the
wolves run on through the evergreen forests
unmindful of the poet’s death.(jstor)
➢ The implication is that the poems live even
though the man may be dead but the
difficulty with this situation , is that the man
can no longer speak for himself; “he became
his admirers”.

24. ➢ In the third stanza , Auden making a
broader point about the ‘immortality’ of
poets : they survive or don’t survive
depending on who reads them , and how
those readers read them.
➢ Yeats last moments were spent around
nurses in the hospital and he depicts
Yeats’ body at war with itself.
➢ The ugly fact of bad digestion modifies
the poems as “The words of a dead
man/Are modified in the guts of the
living”.
➢ Auden says that all are in the “cell of
himself” where they are “convinced”
almost , of their own freedom.
➢ The repetition of the two lines at the end
of the first stanza , reemphasizing the
need for different instruments to measure
the poet’s death.
Now he is scattered among a hundred cities
And wholly given over to unfamiliar affections,
To find his happiness in another kind of wood
And be punished under a foreign code of
conscience.
The words of a dead man
Are modified in the guts of the living.
But in the importance and noise of to-morrow
When the brokers are roaring like beasts on the
floor of the bourse,
And the poor have the sufferings to which they
are fairly accustomed
And each in the cell of himself is almost
convinced of his freedom
A few thousand will think of this day
As one thinks of a day when one did something
slightly unusual.
What instruments we have agree
The day of his death was a dark cold day.

25. Part II
You were silly like us; your gift survived it
all:
The parish of rich women, physical decay,
Yourself. Mad Ireland hurt you into poetry.
Now Ireland has her madness and her
weather still,
For poetry makes nothing happen: it
survives
In the valley of its making where
executives
Would never want to tamper, flows on
south
From ranches of isolation and the busy
griefs,
Raw towns that we believe and die in; it
survives,
A way of happening, a mouth.
➢ The poet says that W.B. Yeats was also
silly and ordinary like us and he was not
an exceptional hero different from the
common men.
➢ The sufferings of Ireland turned him
into a poet and made him write poetry.
➢ Poetry survives and gives voice to
survival in a space of isolation.
➢ Ireland is still as made as it was and
yeats’ poetry , in the end , has made no
difference.
➢ These are powerful lines that strike at
the heart of one’s perception of the
possibility of literature to effect change.
➢ These lines also refer to Yeats’ criticism
and involvement in the Irish
independence movement.

26. Part III
Earth, receive an honoured guest:
William Yeats is laid to rest.
Let the Irish vessel lie
Emptied of its poetry.
In the nightmare of the dark
All the dogs of Europe bark,
And the living nations wait,
Each sequestered in its hate;
Intellectual disgrace
Stares from every human face,
And the seas of pity lie
Locked and frozen in each eye.
➢ The poet says that the earth should
receive Yeats as an honoured guest.
➢ The word “vessel” is unusual enough in
this setting to require attention. (jstor)
➢ The time is intolerant of the brave and
innocent. It is indifferent towards humans
whether they are ordinary or celebrity.
➢ Poetry worships language and forgives
everyone by whom it lives. It pardons
cowardice and conceit.
➢ The dogs of Europe and human continue
their intellectual disgrace.
➢ Despite despairing atmosphere around ,
the poet follows light , his voice remains
unconstrained and persuades us to rejoice
in life.

27. ➢ The poets writes poetry like a farmer
who grows vineyard of the curse in a
rapture of distress.
➢ Auden says that the heart is dry like a
desert but the poet can create a
healing fountain in the desert of the
heart.
➢ Even when man are imprisoned in
routine humdrum life, they can learn
how to praise good , or be hopeful.
❖ Poetry can free men from routine
life to make him praise the good
and the noble.
Follow, poet, follow right
To the bottom of the night,
With your unconstraining voice
Still persuade us to rejoice;
With the farming of a verse
Make a vineyard of the curse,
Sing of human unsuccess
In a rapture of distress;
In the deserts of the heart
Let the healing fountain start,
In the prison of his days
Teach the free man how to praise.

28. Theme of the poem
❖ Auden was deeply influenced by philosophy, psychology and
political ideology like marxism.
➢ Economic and political issues : political issues dominated the first half of 2oth
century and therefore Auden often used in his poetry. Auden's poem credits poetry
with a different kind of power than the political kind: the power to voice private truths,
creating a parallel or underground record of human experience. He repeatedly adds
that poetry "survives" despite its seeming ineffectuality.
➢ Rational poet : W.H. Auden loved Yeats but as a rational poet , he doesn't lament his
death in a traditional manner. He pays tribute to him proving that poetry survives even
in the cold dark world of despair.
➢ Suffering : The mourners kept his poems alive. Yeats was no more but he lived
through his poetry scattered among unfamiliar readers and admirers of his poetry.
Auden says that the rest of civilization moves on while a few thousand people would
continue to remember the poet. Yeats never truly dies; even if his fame or reputation
fluctuates, he endures forever in the public mind.

29. ➢ ‘In memory of W.B.Yeats’ by W.H. Auden is a three part of the poem
that is further divided into stanzas of different lengths.
➢ The first part of the poem contains six stanzas and written in Free
Verse.
➢ Part two contains a single stanza, which is rhymed ABBACCDCCD.
➢ Part three is written in quatrains that rhyme AABB every line in seven
syllable trochaic verse.
➢ The first part images what it was like when yeats was dying, the
second is addressed to the poet himself, and the third is a much more
traditional elegy.
➢ The poem commentary on the nature of art of W.B. Yeats’s poetry and
its importance during such a disastrous period.
Structure of the Poem

30. Poetic Techniques
➢ Auden makes use of several poetic techniques in ‘In memory of W.B.
Yeats’.
➢ These include enjambment , allusion and alliteration.
➢ Alliteration occurs when words are used in succession, or at least appear
close together and begin with the same sound.
➢ For example, “dying day” in the fourth line of the first stanza in section
one , or “silent” and “suburbs” in stanza three of same section.
➢ Alliteration of the words that reflects depression and desolation like
“death”, “dad” , “deserted”, “disfigured”, “disappeared” and others.
➢ All these alliterations shows the pain of that is veiled in the poem.
➢ The final section alludes to the tragedies of the Second World War that
was brewing in 1939 when W.B. Yeats died.

32. Historical Context
➢ "Epitaph on a Tyrant" was written on the cusp of World War II, just
eight months before the Nazi invasion of Poland.
➢ Although the invasion itself was shocking, flying in the face of the 1938
Munich Agreement that had sought to contain Hitler and Germany's
territorial expansion, the war itself was not particularly surprising to
many observers of the time.
➢ The conflict between fascist and left-wing/democratic forces had
already sparked the Spanish Civil War (1937-1939), and the aggression
of fascist dictators, particularly Germany's Adolf Hitler, had already
embroiled Europe in an intense diplomatic crisis.

33. Introduction:-
➢ W. H. Auden's "Epitaph on a Tyrant" is a satirical
elegy for a dictator.
➢ This work written in 1939, when fascism was
overtaking Europe, the poem describes an
unnamed dictator as a kind of deranged and
narcissistic artist, determined to impose his cruel,
simplistic vision of "Perfection" on all of society.

34. Literary Devices
➢ Throughout this poem, the poet makes use of several literary
devices. These include but are not limited to:
➢ Alliteration: occurs when the poet repeats the same consonant
sound at the beginning of multiple words. For example,
“human” and “hand” in line three and “laughed” and “laughter”
in line five.
➢ Imagery: can be seen when the poet uses particularly
interesting descriptions. For example,
“when he cried the little children died in the streets.”
➢ Anaphora: can be seen when the poet repeats the same word or
phrase at the beginning of multiple lines. For example,
“And,” which begins lines two, four, and six.

35. ➢ Juxtaposition: occurs when the poet contrasts two images against
one another. For example,
the depiction of the tyrant as a poet, humorist, and the leader of
the country’s armed forces.
Meter
Auden was a master of metrical poetry, proficient in a vast array of poetic
forms and techniques. In this poem, he chooses to keep his meter a little
on the loose side. It's basically accentual verse: each line contains about
the same number of stresses (either four or five), but the placement of
stresses and the syllable count vary from line to line. Listen to lines 1-4

36. for example:
Perfection, of a kind, was what he
was after,
And the poetry he invented was easy
to understand;
He knew human folly like the back of
his hand,
And was greatly interested in armies
and fleets;
➢ Lines 1-3 each contain
five strong beats; line 4
contains four.
➢ Otherwise, the
rhythmic pattern is
loose, more like prose
than song.
➢ This slightly prose-like
quality adds to the
poem's flat, dry tone,
which evokes a tragic
political situation
through
understatement and
irony.

37. Structure and Form
➢ ‘Epitaph on a Tyrant’ by W.H. Auden is a short, six-line epitaph
(a poem written in memory of someone who has died) that is
contained within a single six-line stanza, or sestet.
➢ It rhymes ABBCAC and uses a loose accentual meter, with four
or five strong stresses per line.
➢ These qualities add up to a brief and witty (though very bleak)
"Epitaph." The kinds of epitaphs found in graveyards or on
monuments have to be short enough to carve on a headstone,
pedestal, etc. As a literary form, therefore, epitaphs tend to be
pithy, like this one. The concise stanza and exact rhymes neatly
clinch the poem's ideas, driving its point home in a forceful and
memorable fashion.

38. ➢ The purpose is to describe how dangerous
tyrannical leaders like Adolf Hitler are to their
own countries and those they have any power
over. This specific tyrant is never named, but
readers can easily imagine the sway he
maintained over his “senators” and over children
in the street.
❖ What is the purpose of ‘Epitaph on a
Tyrant’?

39. ❖ Comparison of W.H. Auden Poems with the war of
Ukraine and Russia
➢ Human suffering : Both Auden's poetry and the conflict in Ukraine and Russia involve
human suffering. Auden's poems often deal with themes of loss, death, and the struggles
of everyday life, while the war in Ukraine has caused immense human suffering,
including displacement, injury, and death.
➢ Political context : Auden was a poet who lived through some of the most tumultuous
political events of the 20th century, including the rise of fascism and the Second World
War. Similarly, the war in Ukraine has its roots in complex political and historical
factors, including the legacy of the Soviet Union and the tensions between Russia and
Ukraine.
➢ Ethical questions : Both Auden's poetry and the conflict in Ukraine and Russia raise
ethical questions about the nature of humanity and the morality of war. Auden's work
often grapples with issues of conscience, while the war in Ukraine raises questions about
the ethics of military intervention and the responsibilities of global powers in conflicts
abroad.
➢ National identity : Auden was an English poet who often wrote about themes of national
identity and belonging. Similarly, the conflict in Ukraine and Russia involves questions
of national identity and sovereignty, with Ukraine seeking to assert its independence
from Russia. (Chat GPT)

40. ➢ Spears, Monroe K.. W. H. Auden. Encyclopedia Britannica, 12 Jan.
2023, https://www.britannica.com/biography/W-H-Auden
➢ Williams, Edith Whitehurst. “Auden, Yeats, and the Word ‘Silly’: A
Study in Semantic Change.” South Atlantic Review, vol. 46, no. 4,
1981, pp. 17–33. JSTOR,https://doi.org/10.2307/3199697.
Works Cited:-