Author: W.H. Auden
Profile: W. H. Auden was an Anglo-American poet. He was born in York, United Kingdom and died in Vienna, Austria. His name is Wystan Hugh Auden. He is a man of letters and an English-born poet who attained fame early in life during the period of Great Depression in the 1930s. He in collaboration with Christopher Isherwood wrote many verse dramas of the Great Depression period. He became a citizen of the United States after settling in the U.S. in 1939. His family shifted to Birmingham in 1908. His family was devoutly Anglo-Catholic, a higher form of Anglicanism. ‘Exciting magical rites’ were his first religious memories. His main intention was to be a mining engineer. Primarily he was interested in science, and specialized in biology. After discovering his vocation as a poet he published his first poem in 1922. Gradually he established a daunting reputation as a sage and poet in 1925.
Writing style: W.H. Auden’s poetry was well known for its technical and stylistic achievement, its variety in terms of content, form and tone and for its engagement with religion, politics, love and morals.
Published Texts:
Books
1933 – Seven Poems and Paid on Both Sides: A Charade
1932 – The Orators: An English Study
1933 – The Dance of Death
1934 – Poems – The Orators and the Dance of Death
1935 – The Dog Beneath the Skin
1936 – The ascent of F6
1936 – Look, Stranger!
1937 – Letters from Iceland
1938 – On the Frontier
1939 – Journey to a War
1940 – Another Time
1941 – The Double Man
1944 – For the Time Being
1945 – For the Time Being
1945 – The Collected Poetry of W.H. Auden
1947 – The Age of Anxiety: A Baroque Eclogue
1930-1944 – Collected Shorter Poems
1950 – The Enchafed Flood
1951 – Nones
1955 – The Shield of Achilles
1960 – Homage to Clio
1962 – The Dryer’s Hand
1965 – About the House
1927-1957 – Collected Shorter Poems
1968 – Collected Longer Poems
1969 – Secondary Worlds
1969 – City Without Walls and Other Poems
1970 – A Certain World: A Commonplace Book
1972 – Epistle to a Godson and Other Poems
1973 – Forewords and Afterwords
1974 – Thank You, Fog: Last Poems
Awards and Acknowledgements:
1948 – Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
1954 – Bollingen Prize
1956 – National Book Award for Poetry
1942 – Guggenheim Fellowship for Creative Arts, US & Canada
1968 – American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal for Poetry
1970 – St. Louis Literary Award
