TWENTIETH—CBBTUHY ROMAMTICISM* W» H . AUDEN

APPROVEDt

Ha lor Fro

M i n o r P r o f a s s o r

Director of th$ De^afrtment of English

Jrcr&tA^g B e a n o f th® Graduate School"

TWENTIETH-CENTURY ROMAOTIClSMl W, E, AUDEN

TRESIS

Presented to the Graduate Council of the

North Texes State Univeraity in Partial

Fulfillment of the Requirement*

For the Degree of

Master of &rts

by

S« Jerry Mattheva, B* B# A,

Denton, Texas

August, 19$*

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Pag®

INTRODUCTION , , . . • » I

Chapter

I* RQHAHIXCXSKi DEFINITIONS, . , , . 3

II. THE LITERARY REVOLUTION OF Iflfe , . 11

III. THE NEW CRITICISM . . . . . 21

IV. TtfENTIETH-CENTURY ROMANTICISM 36

V. CRITICAL VIEWS OF W* H. AUDEN . . . . . . . . 1*5

VI. AUDEN AND MODERNISM • . .

VII. AUDEN*S ROMANTICISM . , 66

VIII. AUDEN* S ROMANTICISMf SELECTIONS 77

CONCLUSION . . , • . . . • . , , 88

APPENDIX . . . 90

BIBLIOGRAPHY 95

ill

IKTRODUCTION

i William Butler Yeat#, one# asked to define a literary

atonement, replied, "A literary movement consist® of two

writers in the sane city who hate each other.*'1 When

attention 1« directed toward tlx® Romantie Movement, a

humorous definition night not bo the loaat relevant

approach. For to® moaning of Semanticism remains an

prating and embarrassing gal*joet among literary

histoiri4ns. A recent comment in a scholarly Journal is

representatives tt. . .In my reading I have come \ \ • f

aoros^ so many of the''thing# whioh Howantieisa is not, . .

that th#re wottld i'ee® to be little left that it oan ho."2

Perhaps Ho«anti«i#» is ©aslor to'recognize than to

define. Though it 1# difficult to always say why, some

writer# have a netioeably "romantic*8 flavor# Certain

characteristics, however, may be pointed to at descriptive

of Romanticism. In this thesis these characteristics

serve as guiding point#*

Chapter X is a dissuasion of the meaning of

Romanticism, this chapter serve# as background for idea#

^John Gunther, Inside tl. (lew York, 19^7)* p. 888.

%arold Truseott, "Form in Romantic Kusio," Studies in " " 0 t (19^3), 29.

•onMming Hi® broadness of associative meaning in the

term

Chapters II and III are discussions of Hi© Jfedernistlt*

trend in tw©nti©th»«cenfcwry literature. Chapter II deals

with the Literary Revolution to the early twentieth*

eenturyi Chapter III is concerned with a specific growth

of the Literary Revelutlent tho Sow Criticism*

Chapter XV represents a sampling erf twentieth-

century Romantic peetry* Use attempt is te make note of

important poet* whose work in soste way exemplifies

Romantic qualities.

The remaining 0hapters ? through VIII are eoneemed

with an iag>ortant contemporary peet« V« H, Auden, and the

relative influence of Modernism and Romanticism on his

poetry* Auden seems te be an ©specially suitable choice

for a study of this sort* beoause he readily exemplifies

traits common both te Modernism and to Remantloism—traits

whioh te some night be conceived as Irreconcilable.

there has been no attempt te deal with the whole

body of tf« H. Auden's poetry, whleh is fairly large• The

emphasis has been laid en his short poem and setae excerpts

from the longer poems*

CHAPTER I

ROM&HTXCXSMt BEflMITIOlS

It Is necessary at the beginning of this thesis to

discuss broadly the meaning of Bemantielsm and what majr be £

called the "p*1®**!®®" Romanticism, The spirit of

Romanticism has remained a fairly elusive thing to date,

soaethlmig perhaps very recognizable but nevertheless

resistant to sure definition, the origin of the word

"romantic" is suggestive ef some of the! T*ri#4 connotations l !

still related to ita meaning. The following selection r S |

summarily traces the development of the! wijrdi ! I

The word "roE»anti©w is of English origin, its use 'dating from the period of the Jjojml&riiy* of medieval and French hero leal r&m&mm in the middle

. of the seventeenth century# It originally meant "like Mi# old romances,w but since!these work* had to do with improbable adventures r#i»€?ie from ordinary life* wroxnantien earns to mean something unreal or fsp^fetohed a® opposed to faet. Baring the ©Ight-•eenth century the word "romantic" gained Increasing currency in some suoh sense as fictitious, or ei-travagant, time it came to be used as a descriptive t«rm for pleasing scenes and situations described in the romances, tout more often it was Applied specifi» •oally to the literature of earlier times which described tixti* .scenes# The term *roamnti©lism,B a Ifctour sewwti# development, has come to refer, generally to the resurgence of progressive thought and emotion which ©ighteenth~century rationalism never wholly repressed.1

^taaiiU sort., Smitllh flOfpntjc mm, sat front {Sew York, 1956), p, xx.

If

That Romanticism refers to a fairly definite literary perled

is veil-known, The meaning, though, of this much-used

descriptive phrase, or label, is more obscure * Some of the

I ^

semantic problems whlph jar# often ®»ee»at®ra«l in the use of

the wards "Romantic" ami B&omantl©ism* should b© stated#

There hare been warty ourlous uses of these teams, and

literary historians have never stad.© m completely satisfactory

assessment.of the Reman tie Movement« An important dlseussion

of the problem of discovering $ust what Romanticism Is

appeared in 192*»« it is th© printed address of Arthur 0#

LoveJoy entitled. "On the Discrimination of Romanticisms•"

Acoording to .Love joy, "The word 1 romantic1 has corae to mean

3& mmy thinga that, by itself* it m®«m» ncthiftg*'"2 He

refers to the oenfuslon of terminology and thought on the

subject of ftcntaatieisn a © a century-long scandal of literary

history and criticising Seeking a remedy, he writes, ; * • » Hie on® mdieal rowdy*.-namely, that w* should ; all ftemse talking about Romantic lsm*M»is , 2 fear,

: i certain not to be adopted. It would probably be equally futile to attempt to prevail upon scholars and critics to restrict their use of the torn* to a single and reasonably well-defined sense« Such a proposal would only be the startlng<»point of a new controversy.

LoveJoy suggests two inquiries to gain a clearer under-

standing of the word* JTlrst, he points to the need for an

adequate se®aslologi®&l study of the term, noting that it

2Arthur 0, Lovejoy, "On the Discrimination, of ?SS?ticisU!U" Swaai Aa Bieistt at M m a . <»•» *®»*.

3 S M » « p» 23^* **Xbld.

offors one of the most fasolufiting <tudi®8 in. sonantios »

The seoend inquiry would have two steps* The first is that

of learning to use the word "Romantic lass" In the plural •

He writes*

, , , tthat la needed la that any study- of the eubjeot should begin with % recognition of a t>ri«a-facle plural ityof Reaanticlsias* of p0s»iMyWt©Sf?ti«et th«#*t-@e»ple*es» a rannber #f which may appear In ono oountry. There Is no hope of clear thinking on the part of the student of modern literature* if*»»as* alas! has been repeatedly dene by eminent writers-*he vaguely hypostatics the team* and starts with the presunptlen that "Roiaanticism" Is fee te&ven-appelnted designation ef some single real entity* @r type of entitles* t© be found in nature* He must set eut frest the siiapl# and obvious fast that there are Yarleus historic episodes or raovestents to which different his-torians of eur own or other periods have, for one reasdn or another* given the xmm**

The second step suggested is that ef discerning analytically

the ide&s and aesthetic components of the elements of oaeh

particular phase of Romanticise.

Other critics have also had difficulty with the

meaning of the term "Reiaantlcisa*" 1st J&eques Barsun's

book Clft|uyA<y» jatSMtajBt e aftd, Modern( a second revised edition

8MMMitiaAsM gfe I M g R 1<&)» ttore is a collection

of varied definitions and descriptions of Itaaantieisn taken

frost a wide selection of modern writing* Thero Is a whole

chapter on these usages entitled •"Romantic1---A Sailing of

Modem Usage So nany uses ef th© word are included that

JSLovejoy, p. 235«

Barsun* &B& *H®W

York* 19&)» p* 155.

its use wight ###!» to have infinite me&nlnga and shadings of

meaning.

Another critic, Morse Pecfdiam, after noting Baraun's

collection of definitions, described the problem in this way t

• . . The utmost confusion reigns in the whole field* In the pant fifteen or twenty fears, most scholars have done one of two things. Either they have given up hope for any sense to coiae out of this tangle and have stoutly denied that there was such a movement, or# less pessimistically,, they have continued to use one or more eonoepts or ideas*.-theories which they feel te be unsatisfactory yet which they continue to employ because there is nothing better# Most student9 are convinced that something happened to literature between the death ef Fop® and the death of Coleridge, bat not very many are willing* when you question them sharply# to tell you exactly what happened# the situation is all the more discouraging in thftt it is generally ©©needed that romanticism is a central prob** lea in literary history, and that if we have failed to , solve that problem, we can scarcely hope to solve any genermi problems in literary history.?

the preceding statements are indication® of tee lack

of common agreement concerning Roman tio ism« Several more

or less acceptable definitions and descriptions ef

Ron&ntlolsm will now be stated. The first of these

descriptions pertains to the idea of Romanticism in general*

three examples follow1

Olassical and romantic— these are the systole and diastole of the human heart in history. ' They represent on the on© hand our need of #rder, of synthesis, of a comprehensive yet definite, therefor© exclusive as well as inclusive, ordering of thought and feeling and action* and on the other hand the inevitable finlteness of every human synthesis, the

UCVI (l?"*/" -""' " T 0 w a r d " Theor>' of HoMntloism," gHLA.

discovery thai, in Carlyle1 s metaphor, our ft® longer fit as,' that the classical has become the eon~ ventlonal* that our spiritual aspirations are being starred, or that our secular impulses are w©rifob*d, cabined, and confined, « • «H§

What then 1© Romanticism? Whether philosophic* theologl©* or aesthetic, it is the revolution in the European mind against thinking in terns of static mechanism and the redirection of ih© mind to thinking in terms of dynamic organicism. Its fain®# ay® ohange« imperfection, growth, diversity, the ere*tire imagination, th# unconscious,"

If we ©onalder romanticism as a phase of life created, fey the imagination and opposed to realism, w» cannot deny that ail people are romanticists * But the quality #f that romanticism will depend upon *toai it is based* Both the Anglos and the Hesdcanm are romantic, except that American romanticism is? based on tho future, and Spanish romanticism Is nourished in the past#!®

Next are examples which pertain to Romanticism in

poetry or literature* The first is Herbert Read's

explanation by analogy to the following couplet by Go® the I

"A talent is formed in solitude; A character in fee stream of the world***

• , * a sentiment which 1 w#«Id ask the reader to remember because 1 am presently going to suggest that this difference between the conditions necessary for the formation of a character and for the formation of what G*o©the calls a talent and what I am here ©ailing a personality, corresponds precisely with the difference between rhetorical and lyrical literature,

8Sir Herbert Grierson, quoted in Herbert Head, yhe Iftttiffgte, Ut M m $£& Is®** Yorlt, 1937), p. 113.

^FecKhw®, p# i%#

lOA # L. Campa, *M»nan& is Today,M

Write (Albuquerque, 19^6),p. 292,

8

i*hich Is the difference often loosely implied in the terms "classical" and "romantic" literature

!«jct is on© of the many comments from the book by B&rmn

noted earliert

Romanticism vill exist in human nature &s leng as bamn nature itself exists* the point is (in imaginative literature) to adopt that form of romanticism which is the mood of the age«*2

two exaiaples which follow pertain to Roman tio poetry I

That the romantic attitude to life and art hue a subjective foundation is not to be denied* Romantio poetry and thought have their starting-point in the poet himself, In his aspirations a t i i n his exiserierio© i on the one hand* h i s to m certaJ.n fullness of be ing , to c e r t a i n purity of s p i r i t u a l life, to har»-mony and unity, a yearning towards the absolute, usually fcnOtea by its German name SMmsachti on the other hand, a visionary experienoe which responds to this aspiration, and which assures the soul of the va l id i ty 1 o f its dream and ef its hope.#*3

* . * indeed i t would be a reasonably s a f e general* isation to say &ukt the premises on vhich any romantic po©» i s written are an &n©sti@ consc iousness of the i s o l a t e d creating self on the on# hand# and of a world unrelated, and possibly uninterested and hostile, on the other | and fee wish somehow to achieve a harmonious synthesis ef the two.1**

the next excerpt . i l l u s t r a t e s des iorlpt iy# l i m i t a t i o n s which

raay apply to *clftssiew and "romantic,M

Goethe tra.® one of the se w i se aftd rare »&© who ultimately prove too g r e a t for the narrow e&tegorl#,#

^Herbert Read, Pom Aft. Modern JPof try (London, 1953). JljP# 2

12Thomas Hardy, quoted in Barsun, p. 167.

^Albert Gerard, "On the Logic of Romantioism." Bssavs i& Criticism. VIX, No, 3 (July, 1957), 263. '

11,1 John Bayley, The Romantic Survival (London, 1957) , PP. 9-10. •

of the critics, and tense "classic11 and "romantic*

lose their fort?® when applied to hi»»15 .

When referring to literary periods seme critic# divide

Roasstnticistn into two separate types. Morse Feokhais make® a

sharp distinction between what he calls "early Romanticism*1

and "high Romanticism**1^ Pec&haia refer® to the former as

the enthusiasnt and sentimentalist of the late Enlightenment

period and the latter as the period of fulfillment of those

nineteenth-century writer# who were in revolt against the

superficialities revealed in the trench Revolution* Herbert Head rnakos a similar distinction)

• • « it is most important to remember that the tews "romantic" especially is often restricted to an art based on sentiment, which way fee typical of inferior classical as well as of inferior romantic periods, Te he quite clear, when referring to this type of fewantioisia# we might always ©all it "sentimental-romantic ism. "17

finally, a broad, textbook summary of the varied

manifestations of the antirrational1st revolt known later

as Romanticism should he statedi

, • . a turning from a satisfaction with sober reason to an indulgence in passion and sensibility} from a confidence in the universality of reason to an emphasis upen the diversity #f truth; from a compact, stable society to an unstable* revolutionary society! from a

1*Harry J*evln, & & figglKtft SSkOKk (Cambridge, 1931)» p. 15.

i^Morse Peekbam, "Toward a Theory of Romanticism* II, Reconsiderations^ gtudles .in Romanticism.. I, So. i (Autumn,

17Read# pp. 10-11.

10

concentration on tho general to a search for the minute and the singularf from an adherence to the agreed standards of the age to an eccentric, anti-sooial disregard of convention! from scientific meohanisni to philosophical idealiuraj from the Hewtonian world of science to the supernatural world of myth and mysticismj from a religion of comfortable deism to a religion of optimistic theism; from the uniformity of behavior to tho dlfferentness of men and their opinions; from tho civilixed and the modern to the simple, the rustic, and the primitive; from a preference for urban life to a lovo of country life* natural scenery, and solitudes; from preoccupation with human nature to a preoccupation with aesthetic and spiritual values of external nature$ from a concern with the specie® to a concern vith the individual; from traditional creeds 1

to Individual ©peculations and revelations; from the ideal of order to the ideal of expansiveness; from a distrust in originality to a faith in the validity of novelty} from an interest in the usual, the "natural" to an absorption vith the abnormal, the oocentric( and the peculiar) from imitation of classic authors to glorification of native tradition, especially the medieval; frora a leve of the simple and the direct to a preference for the complex and the fanciful| from tho conception that poetry is an acquired art to the conception that poetry is the gift of nature| from a poetry of prose statement to a poetry of image and symbolj from satire to lyricj from th# Augustan couplet to earlier ver#®-patterns and variation# upon ihemf frem poetic diction to oosaeton language! fro© indifference toward social problem® to a broad humanitarianismf fro® th# ascendancy of the reason to the ascendancy of the imagination*1®

l^Koyes, p. xxi.

CHAPTER XI

THE LITERARY REVOLUTION Qt 191%

Thus Romanticism m&y be characterized by extremes and

described, in terms of opposite®. Usually it represents the

free, unrestrained, spontaneous attitude in literature. The

Resiantle Movement began as a reaction to the excesses of

eighteetith-eentury rationalism and its aftermath of sersti-

mentalisau In th® writing# and experience of the early

nineteenth-century, individual feeling became on* of the

baeio. attitudes of searching for knowledge and insight.

The Roaantio Movement* like any other, has produced its

•**•«•••» and the strong reaction which set in against it

in the early part of the twentieth, eentury looks* to many,

like the culminating point of Ronantiels® and the beginnings

of another laoveiaewt,

At the present it is too early to tell just where,

or for that matter whether, the Romantio Movement ha® ended.

It is now generally agreed, however* among certain literary

orltie# and historian® that something very important happened

about 191** that resulted in new stirrings in literature,

particularly poetry and eritioiaia. In faot various oritios,

Graham Hough being one, have asserted that the 11 revolution of

19lVwas quite as momentous as the Romantic upheaval of over

11

12

a oentury before, but different.1 This reoent movement is

apparently still very much alive, though in recent years a

body of criticism has been mounting against, its short

tradition. A summary of this eventful, "modernistic" trend

will now be attempted*

David Daiches lias called th© poetic change which has

taken place the "Pound-Eliot revolution"2 and the change in

oritioisoi the "Hulae-Sliot tradition in criticism# This

poetic revolution took pla.ee roughly in Mi# decade 1912 to

1922, The was initiated by a group known a® the

Xmagists* fijsra Pound ha® referred to the Mteagistes»,M**

though the glroup is now called "imagists*M Zaaglsia was a

brief movement in Europe and America* Among those promi-

nent in England connected with the vogue wore Pound, Richard

Aldington, and others, including D, H. Lawrence, who in

retrospect seems anaiaalous to the group* Those poets

contributed verse to an Xmaglst periodical known as The

Egoist*-^ The best known Americans associated with this

J 0 " " " " fgRw.tefflg sa a U t m r o (Washington, D. C«, 19o0), p, 6.

(BloomiSgton^lSl)' 3 L|fyf i g^ ** MdAffe

%ough, p. 9*

5Baiches, P* 38.

13

group, excepting Pound, were Amy- Lowell and H, fi, (Hilda

Doolittle).6

The Imagists were in revolt against verbal to- '

preoision an<1 sloppy emotionalism In pee try, T. E,

Huloe1 a criticism, selections of which will be mentioned

shortly in connection with the new activity in criticism,

served as a basis for Imagiat poetry* ? He advocated a

precise and disciplined classic!am. Hard, dry visual

images were to be sought in poetry# Pound, speaking of

tli© Xmagiats, gaidt

• * * they are in opposition to the nwmercm® and unassembled writers who busy themselves with dull

^ ©fusions* and who seem to think that a aim can write a good long pmm before he

1 Hint tt *^*1* a **oA ®U&rt 0m* °r before he learns t© produce, a good tingle line. 8

During the period, numerous article® were published about

Imagism, mostly in the mileage magazine Poetry and the

English one ih#r0 arft A l < w s e v e r a l s^agi^t

anthologies in existence,

l&e poetic change and the, new movement in criticism

are closely related, 2h#. principal initiators of the

antl-aomantic attitude in criticism were T* B, Hula* and

?Balehe®t toast Isttf P* 27. 8m&- * P« 28« 9lbld,

Ik

T. S» Eliot* Possibly tli© two basic manifestoes of the

new attitude are £« B* Hulae*s essay, "Romanticism and

Classicism" and T* S. Eliot's ossay, "Tradition and the

Individual Talent,"10 Jroai these sources might be gleaned

some or the general theory of the "Hulwe-Ellot tradition,"

A few quotations from the two sources should be repre-

sentative enough to point the direction of critical thinking

in the new trend* Hulme began his.essay by predicting a

classical revival# A brief definition of Classicise and

Roman ticista from the essay follows, along with another

significant passagei

Put shortly, thea® are the two views, then* One, that man Is intrinsically g#«wtf spoilt by circumstancej and the other that he is intrinsically limited, but disciplined by order and tradition to something fairly decent. To the one party man's nature is like a well, to the other like a bucket. The view which, regard® man as a well, a reservoir full of possibilities, I call romantic* tee one which regards him as a ffjry finite and fixed creature, I call the classical,11

I object even to the best of the romantics# I object 3till mere to the receptive attitude, X object to the sloppiness which doesn1t consider that a poem is a poera u*sl##s it is Boaning or whining about some* thing or other, , . « The thing has got so bad now that a poem which la all dry and hard, a properly classical poen, would not be considered poetry at all, 2

Eliot's attitude toward emotional poetry is in agreement!

• « . the wore perfect the artist, the nor© completely separate in hint will be the man who suffers and the mind which creates,13 ' .

^Baiehes, Srltfaml History JUj, p, lllU.

llT» £. U«l»@, Blto?na»iiets® and Classicism,n Critic lam, edited by Mark Schorer and others (Mew York, 1958), p, 258,

12Ibid,, p« 26l»

^Bllet, quoted in flalches, Cx.it.loal History of EJL. 1 1 "1 h

13

* , «, the poet has, not a "personality" to express, but a particular medium, whioh is only a used!**® and not a personality, in whioh impressions and ©xperiences combine in peculiar and unexpected ways* • • »3X you cooapare several representative passage©. of the greatest poetry you aee How great is th© variety of types of combination, and also how completely ary se»l-ethical criterion of * sublimity" misses the mark* « • « Poetry ie not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from eraotioni it is not the @a^>r«ssio« of personality# but

• an escape from personality,*1*

Eliot was especially influenced by the laagists, the

wetaphysioal poets such as Bonne, Jacobean dream, the trench

Symbolists, and Gerard Manley Hopkins $ also, as a student at

Harvard, he was desirous of a classical d i s c i p l i n e ' When

his p»«*v The Waatf? Land* appeared in 1922, it stood out as

the most significant contribution to the new vogue.1**

A movement related with the twentieth-century literary

revolution is the *New Criticism" in America, One of its

purposes has been the close textual examination and analysis

of individual works of literature. It is characterised by

definitive, scholarly, though often pedantic evaluation of

particular works of literature. Some of the mere brilliant

American oritics belonging to this school are Robert Penn

Varren, John Crowe Ransom, Richard Blackmur, and Allen Tate*

l^Sliot, quoted in Daiches, Cri.tical a.istor , pp. 1114-1115»

15Dai«sh#s» tot* P* 29•

l^Herbert J. C, Orlerson and J, C. Smith, A Crltloal of, English Poetry (Hew Tork, 19^6), p. 558.

16

A&eordlng to & recent article, the era of the Mew

Criticism is virtually over, and its beneficial and harmful

results mtty now be ascertained to a large extent*1?' Hi#

article describos the praeti©© of the Bow Grltieisia In tlx#

following way i

The praotice of the Mow Criticism generally, at least in its epigonous manifestations, bears all the earmark®, aniTfttt&es the sti roata, of professionalism and scieatisia# There are the "continuous protestations of M©bjecttTityB<»>«»poetry constitute# a precise ' "scientific" statement about human ©.motions that the language of • science proper is too blunt* rationalistic, and abstract to make* tkere is the special vocabularyj there is the professional trajtsmisslem of the skill# to the next generation, just as the nineteenth«*century scholars, in avowed imitation of the methods of science, trained their successors? there is to® nar-rowing down of the subject to the short lyric* precisely and exhaustively described* just aa scientist® isolato for pragmatic examination small parts of largo problems | there la the tendency to separate th© subject, poetry, from all toman and historical, and thus variable, factors—*th© "intentional fallaoy**«-ag If poetry wore some bright, issolable gem, separable from its author and from history, to bo examined with a mlerosoope under a pur© whit© light} there is the sens© of the deep and intense cooperation between the various practitioners, accompanied by the air of expertise and contempt for the outsider and the unini* tiatod.l^

In recent year® there has been considerable criticism

of the literary revolution and it® results* One objection

ha# been that the type of critical tast® whioh Mew Critics

encourage has had too much influence in the schools* Another

*7John Henry Raleigh, "the Hew Criticism as an Historical Phenomenon, w Comparative Literature.. II (1959), 21.

pp. 22-23•

17

objection to® been raised toy G-rahasst Hough. He Is discouraged,

with tli© apparent fruitlessness of the movement. Sm® of his

comments m y be pertinent t

, , . But nothing ha# happened to dispute with their productions the title of raodern letters# Ho ayiyat^ai^d# has advanced any farther. There is no 2S2HSriiS&«

The new poetry was new in the twnfOTT S i t is still new* in th# sens© that w& have jsothing newtr#

A rich and vigorous body.of literature has • established itself, but has hot established & workable tradition«i9

Kenneth Rexroth*s rewarks concern other complaintsI

. . . from? the seventh-grade teacher who rolls her eye® and chants H« B# to the seven types of ambiguity factories, grinding out little Bonnes and Hopteinsos with hayseeds in their hair, everybody is out to do-poetise forever the youth of the land*

• . . Unfortunately Mr. Eliot*s poetic practioe and his thoroughly snobbish critical essay® which wed their great cogency to their assumption* usually correct, that his readers had never heard of the authors he disc«»sed»*»¥#biit«r> drashair,, or Lancelot Andrewea—• lent themselves all too easily to the construction of an acadeny and the production of an infinite number of provincial academicians—policemen entrusted vith the ©nforceraent of Or@sha»,a Law. 2 0

Herbert Read has complained of a moral attitude within the

movement. He believes that the '"moral ban" should male# way

for aesthetic standards in Judging the work of poets like

Byron and Shelley*2* Read takes exception to Eliot's

i^Hough, pp. W/»

20Kenneth Rexroth, "HisengagementI The Art of the Beat exoneration, * H p Beat generation and fogrv' Youns; Men* edited by Q-ene reldaan and Max Gartenberg (Hew York, 1959)» P* 361 .362.

2iaead, &&, 2l §2*£M &£&* P* l3°«

18

attitude that "literary critlolsia should be completed by

criticism from a definite ethioal and theologloal standpoint#"^

It should be mentioned that there are critics who doubt

the relevance of the term **literary revolution" as applied to

th® changes which took place In twentietli«eeniury poetry and

criticism, Referring to th® now movement, Herbert Grierson

says, *It was not wholly* nor own mainly* a literary

r e v o l u t i o n * w 2 3 u« describe® it generally aa a revolt against

Humanism. Monro# Spear** too, has suggested that "revolution"

is a misleading tern as Graham Rough has used lt»2**

There is another somewhat curious attitude held by

certain orltlos which should bo noted. This idea is that

th# Ramantic Movement has remained prevalent, or at least

has continued to manifest itself in an important way in this

century* Morse PecMuaa looks upon Romantieism as a con-

tinuation of the Realistic attitude sine© it led to Sickens

and Balzaci

« * • I still believe what I said twelve years ago and what is now# in fact, becoming alasott a platitude, that modern art is the triumph of Romanticism, that modem culture, lit its vital areas# is a Romantic culture, and that nothing has yet replaced it*.«, * * Bemaatieigis is a remarkably stable and fruitful orientation* for the past 165 years the Romantic has been toe tough-minded

a s , I M i M f J t e &£ H a t o a &£l* p . i 3 « .

23Grierson, p« 5*M5.

2%onr»e E't Spears. "Auden in the fifties! Rites of Homage,« gewanee Be view* LXXX, flfo. 3 (Summer, 1961), 397*

19

man, determined to create value and projeot order to male# feasible the pure assertion of identity, determined to assert identity in order to engage with reality simply because there is nothing els©, and knowing eventually that his orientations are adaptive instruments and that n# orientation is or can be final* The Romantic artist dues not escape trtm realityj lie e-acapea into it*^

Ivor Winters l»s even-called, the Modernist ileaders .Romantics:

» # • Winter* s principal attack upon rowwitic poetry is that the fueling in such poetry is vague and an«* controlled* and t&ufct the modern poets, including Bliot, Pound, and Hart Crnne-»-»ineurable Romantics that they are, -whatever their modern or classical pre tens i#ns—*&re guilty of chaotic and unmotivated emotions#2**

It should also be noted that the twentieth -century han

produced several "Romantic" critics# Utevld Baiehes refers

to two of these*

• . . It is true that tho terms wOlas®ieoltt and "romantic" are too loose to be useful, but if w# aean by roo&ntic criticism that which eiaphasise* the transoendental nature of the truths oowminioatod by great poetty or that which emphasises the element of self-expression in literature* then two at least of the important critics of our tin* oan be called romantic—.John Middleton Murry and Herbert Read*2?

I^en, there are twentieth-century movements which m y

be closely related to Romanticism# Without elaborating,

on® could point out that Existentialism, Cubism, ourrealism,

and the recent aotivity of the "Beat Generation" in America

all relate to Hotafentlc ideas • According to Stephen Spender

25Peckhamf "Reconsiderations,M p. 8,

2^Cleanth Breaks, "implications of an Organic Theory of Poetry, * j-i mA • Hoi iff, edited by M. II, Abrasas (Nov York, 1958), p. 60,

2?Bai«h«s, f m a i i £m* P* 1*1 •

20

the Beats are noo-Romantics, and this is probably subject to

wide agreement«

It Is certainly difficult, if not impossible, to arrive

just yet at any very set conclusions regarding the modern

period of literature. It would «©#», however, that the

basic change whioh was brought about in the early twentieth

©oittury represents a shift, however brief# to a ©lassie (or,

perhaps pseudo-classic} mod® again* Without oversimplifying

the matter, referenee will be made to a recurring historical

eyole in literature* Probably it can only servo as a

reminders

* • • the transition from the organic type to the abstract always coincides with the transition from a period of stress and energy to a period of satiety and solidity; and that is the historical distinction between romantic and classical periods * And it is quit# d e a r that the classical and romantic periods are related to each other in a "life-eye!#11 which is the recurring cycle of the growth, maturity and decay of culture.29

^Stephen Spender, "The Iimaigratlon in levers©," t»mm quarterly. IV (1961), 16.

29Headt 2SUE& fgfe,g? imkEX> P* 10«

CHAPTER III

THE NEW CRITICISM

Further attention to the phenomenon called the Hew

Criticism, Mentioned in the previous chapter# appears

necessary. Hie principal literary work of the first half

of the twentieth century may well toe in literary criticism.

Graham Hough*® oonaaent that no working tradition ha# been

established from the new poetry was mentioned in Chapter II*

Others hare referred to the present as an Age of Criticism*

According t© Bat-id .Batches, "Literary criticism has assumed

an importance and a stature in the present age beyond

anything it had achieved earlier*"1 Another writer has

praised especially the contribution of the New Critics t

• * « My view is that the Mm Critics and their followers and associates* by bringing an experimental underground, literature above ground and giving it® practice and study an urgent human importance and seriousness* created* or recreated, the dominant Anglo-American literary culture of the past half century*^

Too, since the "return to the text" resulting in "analysis'*

has com to be a stock procedure of modern criticism, something

should be mentioned about how this attitude ewe about*

3-Daiches, *• X19«

2flichard foster, The Mew Romantics (Bloomington* 1962), p * 10 *

21

22

It la perhaps significant that the critic just quoted,

Richard Poster, has gone so far to assert that the 3?ew

Critics are actually romantic In their style and sensibility,

regardless of their anti«*roaanti© apprea#h#-^ f©star's ideas

will be discussed at the end of th® chapter.

Ih© beginnings of th® lew Criticism have been found in

both th© United Stat©# and England. Th© firat seeds of the

movement in America have been traced to the work of th©

critic Joel Spingarn, whoso essay "The lew Criticism*

appeared in 1910.** He was influential in objectifying the

work of art for the analytical examination of the critic by

ruling out historical and circumstantial faotors and the

critio1s own emotional sensibilities. Although he did not

actually engage in detailed analytic criticism, his views

prepared the way for Eliot, Ransom* Tat#, Blaokmur, and

others.

According to David Daiches, however, the influences

which resulted in the Mew Criticism were British, stewalng

from the work of Eliot, I, A. Richard?, William JEtapson, and

f# R, Leavls.- He suggests that th® movement ha® had a:

peculiar sort of development, having traveled back and forth

across the Atlanticj

!

3]foster, p. 21.

^Robert S. Spiller and others, Literary History of the United States (New York, 19^8), XI, H55,

^Salohes, Present Age, p. 138.

23

« » • What is fascinating to the British reader is to not® that the American "New Criticism" was originally born out of influences that came from England, but that| soon developing a full and healthy life of it® own, it has recently coae back to Britain as a purely American movement and as such is having considerable influence among a net# generation* 6

Rene Wellek has pointed to two reason® for tfee stimulus

of the Mew Criticism!

, * * According to Vellek, there were "two groups t those who have wore and wore brought to bear on literature all kinds of knowledge—psychoanalysis, Marxism, and recently anthropology| and those who have tried to study literature as an aesthetic fact**7

Whatever its origins, it would appear that contemporary

criticism {whioh is almost synonymous with the New Criticism}

has repudiated its nineteenth-century legacy of the Romantic-

Victorian tradition for something that is both less

Impressionistic and less academic#1^ Impressionistic criticism

refers to the discussion of a work of art in a relaxed, con-

versational manner using autobiographical references, usually

in the context of the particular age in which the work was

produced. Academicism, at least in this sense, refers to

tab® amassing of factual details about works and their authors

which have m relevance for the evaluation of those works and

the inclusion of practically everything produced in the past,

however minor, because it represents some phase in the history

%aiehes(! te,11,11 M&* P« 139.

^Raleigh, p« 21.

SSaiches,, Present Age. p» 121.

zh

of literature and of literary taste. However, sine® tlx©

lew Criticism has been institutionalised in the universities*

the term "academicism* often refers to the practice of

extensive literary analysis *

Some of the results of the new attitude in criticism

should now be mentioned. One result came about with the

attempt to eliminate impressionism» Hie discussion of

literature in the context of the history of ideas, &s a

key to the thought of the past, has given way to a tendency

to treat every work as though it were contemporary and of

value only of itself, separated from its author and time

and the conditions which brought it about. Part of the

material quoted from Eliot's criticism in Chapter II points

to the emphasis on the medium of poetry. The claims of the

artist's medium, the intensity of the artistic process,

emotion which has its life in the poem and not in the

history of the poet, to paraphrase Bliot, cam® to he of

paramount Importance.9 These ideas not only are linked to

Eliot's poetry, they are also associated with the modern

drive against the "vatic" view of poetry—tho view that the

poet has a special wisdom and that in his vers© h® cohu&uw

nicates this to his fellows

This view put forth by T. 3, Eliot is shared by V. II.

Auden and reflects to some extent the influence which Eliot

9&alcshe»* Present Ag®. p, 12^,

*°Ibld.. p. 125.

25

has exerted on M m . Auden, writing in 1<J%8# expressed the

idea in the following ways

"Why do you want to writ® peetry|w If the young nsan answersi "I have Important things to say," then he is not a poet# If he answersi "I like hanging around words listening to what they say,* then maybe he is going to be a poet,11

The Hew Critics are as subject t® misinterpretation as

any other writers who are allied with a movement* and there

have been frequent objections to some of their critical

practices• ferhaps some of the followers of the raoveraent

have employed the critical outlook of New Critics too

narrowly, excluding other sehools of criticism* the weakness

of a tendency previously mentioned of treating literary works

separately has been pointed out in a recent bookt

• * « So far as Kierkegaard is concerned, the fact that he regarded himself as a religious thinker must never be obscured* yet it does not follow as a oorollary that his categories from the very beginning had not a far wider than Christian significance* Whatever his in-tentions may have been (and they certainly were anything but clear out), the historical Kierkegaard is ne mere theologian. Like Pascal he ha® entered the main stream of Western thought, hence is subject to the vicissitudes of history* The Kierkegaard of Rome or of the "New Wittenberg" |B&sel) embodies a truth as 14«ited as the Kierkegaard ©f Heidegger or Sartre* That so many artic-ulate minds in the twentieth century have been sincerely convinced of finding in Kierkegaard's writings whatever they were looking for, is in itself highly relevant to their "contemporaneousness#w m e influence of such a »iml should not be equated with the destination of a sealed railroad ear# The no longer wneww critics

1:lAuden, quoted ta B&ich©®, Present Age, p. 125,

26

eneeuraged this nonsense in setting out to "exhaust"

a text once and for all.12

Another result at lew Critical standards lias to do with

an increasing conformity in contemporary poetry* A hint of

this Is suggested in the following epigram by Peter Vier&ek,

%o,» .Ml,#,. Sublime ,to t #, M@tlon3.otts in four Stages t

BAKTSi We were God1 s poets* BVRKSt We were the people's poets, HAIXAElBili We were poets' poets*

TOBAY {preening himself)? Alt, but gg, are critics1 poets*^

It has beoome obvious that it is not difficult to write

vers® whleh will stand up to the methods of the analytical

critic in a favorable way A vh&l® poem can beeOme a

series of nonessential phrases, Ttim analyst often select® for

scrutiny a difficult phrase because of its pu««le»ent# before

asking whether it is enjoyable or has poetie worth. As John

Bayley comments, *The danger of analysis* then, is that by

ignoring the old oonoeptlon of taste* natural or acquired,

it may cons© more and more to accept what one might oall the

riohly mediocre «nl-'

Similar views have been expressed by W, H* Auden and

Bavid Daiches in a joint article which inoluded their

separate views on British and American poetry* Auden1s

commentary evidences his cognisance of some of the dangers -,r>xn\1Zae0f?TBy C1±T** 13*#. Re .iat|e Enlightenment (New York, *9^0/} p* 11t

^Viereck, quoted in Bayley, p* 68*

l^Bayley, p. 69. 15lbld.. p. 70.

27

of modern criticism. In a footnote to Ills article, ho

write®,

The undeniable appearance In the States during the last fifteen years or so of a certain literary conformity, of & proper and authorIced way to write poetry, la a new and disquieting symptom, which 1 cannot pretend to be able to explain fully. The role of th® American college as a patron of poets has been discussed a good deal boti* here and in England. Those who oriticlae it, often with aone reason, fail t® suggest a better alternative* It would be nice If the colleges oould ask n® more from the poets in return for their keep than oc-casional pieces* a Commencement Say masque or an elegy on a deceased trustee; if that is too atuoh to ask, then the poet® themselves should at least demand that they giro academic courses in the litera-ture of th# dead and refuse to have anything to do with modern literature er courses in writing* There has been a vast output of critical studies In eon-temporary poetry, some of them first-rate, but I do not think that, a® a rule, a poet should read or write them.

The opinion stated in the last sentence above seems to

imply a contradiction with the remark Auden made which

referred to poets merely lovers of words. There Is at

least a suggestion that poets might rely en intuition or

inspiration, and not critical studies. The vision of the

poet oust surely accompany the marvelous lines in great

poetry. In the selection by Baiches, this thought is

touched oni .

« * • There are, perhaps, two ways of approaching poetry I Milton's w&y, which was to start with the idea of a noble message and then spend most of one's

1%. K* Auden .and David Baiches* "The Anglo-American Difference! Two Views," & & A n ^ y Review {New York, 1955)# MQ* Xf 217*

23

life perfecting an Instrument for conveying It, only to find in the end that the nature of the medium transformed tt*o message! &ndt say, Keats'a way, to begin by being fascinated by ike resources of language, to exploit them as richly as one oould, and in the process to acquire a new vision of life* In practice the®# two extremes fade into owe another# and most • pomtB probably land up by working both ends against the middle • . But if to the poet language is way of .exploring expe ieirc® father'^lhan oF announcing on«rj» ^igfOTeries, it may fee safer to concentrate on the discipline of the poetic craft rather than on the cultivation of the poetic state of mind* To that extent Modern American p##t» are playing safe, there is less bad poetry written in America than in Britain today, American poets are almost irritatingly grownup? they know all the trap® to avoid, the Immature attitudes* the dangers of depending on passion.'!7

This conformity to set critical standards* then,

appears to lead to much "well written" but mediocre poetry.

John Bayley believes th^t the romantic poet who expressed

himself innocently in terms of Mystical apprehension was

less taken in than is the contemporary analyst with his

mechanical approach to verse.18 Daichos believes that the

Americans and Britains are divided generally into two

classes* He feels that the British are naturally disposed

toward inspiration but that Americans depend mostly on a

Hspecial kind of control over language«,fl3

Another result of the Hew Critical attitude was an

attempt to confine criticism to critics and professionals*

^U&lohes,, "The Anglo-American Differences Two Views." PP» 232-233.

l^Bayley, p. 71.

19j3aiehest p» 233.

29

The idea was that only those ©quipped with special critical

tools could really appreciate art# as though art were

created for the special few, or for the expert to inform

everyone just what is and what is not art. As might be

expected, this led to certain arbitrary conclusions* The

following description illustrates this t

• . . For no natter what qualifications he may make, the analyst involuntarily assumes, in employing his technique, that the poem is a finite, a reducible objeotj that its component parts can be taken to pieces* shown to be either good or bad, and that a general verdict about the poem oan be reached in accordance with these findings,2®

This somewhat literal approach has received its share of

criticism, especially its role in the teaching of pootry*

Vh*n certain poems are praised and others damned because

the poems do not satisfy modernistic notions* and then

those findings are overgeneraliaed, suoh attitudes as say,

''Sonne's poetry is good, Shelley's bad," may be taught*

W. H. Auden has talked along theso lines while on the

subject of the apprenticeship of poets*

Presently the curtain rises on a. scene rather lite the finale to Act II of JPie Me is tors ing® r. Lot us call it The Gathering of the Apprentices. The apprentices gather together from all over and discover that they aro a new generation; somebody shouts the word "modem" and the riot is on. The New Iconoclastic Poets•and Critics are discovered—•when X was an under* graduate a critic could still describe Mr. T. 3. Bllet, a. M,t as "a drunken helot"—the poetry which these new authorities recommend becomes the Canon, that on which

20Bayley, p. 69.

30

they frown ts thrown out of the window. There are gods whom it is blasphemy to oritioize and devila whose names may not be mentioned without execrations* The apprentices have seen a great light while thoir tutore sit in darkness and the shadow of death*

Really, how do the dons stand it, for I'm sure this scene repeats itself year after year* When X recall the kindness of ray tutors* the patience with whioh they hill the ir boredom, J, am overwhelmed by their sheer goodness. X suppose that* having arrived there, they knew that the road of exeess can lead to the palace of Wisdom, though it frequently does no*»21

It is interesting that in the last sentence above, Auden

paraphrases Blake» This idea of Blake1 s is a very

characteristic Romantic precept*

Another Xew Critical practice has boen a tendency to

read a poem as though there were only ftne meaning presented.

The mysterious aspect o*" poetry, the thought that there is

a sense of wonder, or multiple associations which might

come to light—these ideas are discarded. Robert frost*s

famous statement, "The poet is entitled to everything the

reader can find in his poem,"22 represents the opposite

of this critical dictum*

Most of the foregoing criticisms are summed up in

the following verse by Myr& Buttle ("my rebuttal"), one of

the more militant anti-2iodern commentators *

SLY, H» Auden, "Making, Knowing and Judging*u The ffim'A S£2& *fl& 9Mtr (New York, 1962), p. 39,

22Prost, quoted in Ray B, West, Jr. and R. ¥, Stallman, Sfefc 2t SM&SE i M M m CSew York, 1959), p. vi.

31

But what has happened to Letters, with Sweeney as High Critic?

the answer lst his followers have brought the system analytic

To the acme of perfection, A poem is now 'placed VIthin the Great Tradition, its pedigree is traced Like that of bloodstock, and biographic chit-chat is

effaced. They tell a well-bred lyrio by its whinnies, And prove that its grandsire won the Thousand Guineas• The verdict nowadays is absolute And one that none dare challenge or refute, For* unllice all other man-made things, Analysis Is free from human jealousies and malices And quite devoid of formal fallacies, And since a modern poem is a rigorous totality, Emancipated from "originality," The product of a highly specialised technique Of which the h^rejshants alone can speak By virtue of "their r ubr ics, amended once a week And Issued sec re tly In Bit t ite and in Oreek, A process academic, sacerdotal, ©scterie. It follows that each practitioner must be a cleric,23

Some of the more favorable results of the lew Criticism

should now be noted. It was mentioned earlier that Richard

Poster believes that modern literature has been enriched by

this movement, Defending this position, he writes.

What if Eliot had written no criticism? Vhat if there had been no Hansom, Tate, Richards* Brocks, Qlackmur, jsjj, al. to irritate, with their esotericism, cultishness, Jargon, and reaction, the official literary culture of their time into attention to the new writers and new modes that have since become classic? Vithout recent criticism—principally what is called the wM#w Criticism"—we would have had, I think, a different, and probably much less rioh, various, and free recent literature•

. , , Nearly every major college English department has its share of New Critics or Younger Critics# and there is hardly a professor any more, this side of the linguist and bibliographer, who does not encourage

23Myra Buttle, tfoe Sweenlad (New York, 1957)# P» 62.

32

skills of "analysis" in bis students and. cherish notions of critical prowess in himself.21*

Robert Lowell expresses a mixed opinion, but

essentially affirms the Now Critics1 contribution*

Analysis doesn't make for interesting reading , , , . Analysis is necessary for teaching poems, and for student papers.

Dullness and the sad, universal air of the graduate sohools hare descended on close literary criticism. I can remember when the early essays on The tf&ste Land. tho first editions of the Brooks and Warren 'Understand! Poetry* and Blackmur's pieces on Stevens and Marianne Moore oarae as a revelation* Tho world was being made anew. Nothing, it 0©««ed» had ever really been read. Old writings, onoo either neglected or simplified and bowdlericed into triteness, were now for the first time seen as they were. . . . A glow seems to be gone, but perhaps this was just my Illusion, Perhaps there never waa a glows more likely, it is atill there and yearly seines new writers and new critics. . . . X will never quite disbelieve that the world is being remade by the new ways of writing and careful reading. . .

A summation of the value of the lew Criticism seems

appropriate here• It is still probably too early for a

complete assessment of the movement, but John Raleigh1s

summation is suggestive i

In tho long run, I believe, tho Stew Criticism will appear to be a curious and paradoxical blend of two great and supposedly antithetical forces--art and science, or, more precisely, aestheticism and scientific method* The Sew Criticism was a salutary, illogical, mistaken, and fruitful union of the two forces, which had been split sinoe the Renaissance•

life1 "oster, pp. 9—lk.

25ftobert Lowell and others, "The Poet and His Criticsf Z 1I U MS3L V M M VrAtPm <»•* York, 1962), So. 20, 206-207.

^Kaleigh, p. 22.

33

Among the adherents of most any literary movement there

those who differ on vsrious points« All Kew Critics t

courge, hp-ve not approved, of so®© of the foregoing radical

attitudes • Literary movesrents tend, to reach an oxtresie

point or frenzy until fcho pendulum reverses itself and balance

is restored. Much of the Kev Criticism was institutionalised

before some of its grosser aspects were refined. More recent

attitudes, such an Lowell*s quoted above, are often less

one-sided. In fact, T. S. Eliot's essay, "The Frontiers of

Criticism,M is something of an apology for the movement.

Eliot has doubtless received ranch undeserved praise and

blame in ocnnoction with his contribution to the I w

Criticism. That he is aware of many of the unhappy results

of the movement is evident in the essay Just referred to.

Some of hi* comments are excerpted belowt

The first danger is th&t of assuming that there iaust bo Just one interpretation of the poem as a whole, that must be right. . . . as for the meaning of the poe» as a whole, it is not exhausted by any explanation, for the meaning is what the poem mean® to different s ens it rive readers.

. » , And sometimes explanation, v.s I have already hinted, can distract us altogether from the poem as poetry, instead of loading as in the direction of understanding.

If in literary criticism, we place all the oiaphasis upon understanding, we are in danger of slipping from understanding to siere explanation. ¥0 are in danger even of pursuing criticism as if it was a sciences, which it never oan be.'"

27t, S. Eliot, The Frontier* of. Critic{Minneapolis, 1956), PP. 15-19.

Eliot, however, mmd® it known that ha still holds to certain

previous ideas about modern criticism and looks upon it as a

fruitful contribution to literary criticism!

• . • But 1 do not want to leave you with the impression that I wish to condemn the criticism of our time. These last thirty years have been, X think, a brilliant period in literary criticism in both England and America* Xt way even cop to seeai, in retrospect, too brilliant* Who knows?20

Then, just as the poets of the twentieth century hare

been referred to by a few as Romantics, so have the lew

Critics in a recent book. This thesis has been brought

forward by Riohard foster, a critic referred to earlier in

this chapter* He admits that the typical lew Critic derived

araoh of his assumption and prejudice from the Hu line-Eliot-

Pound sources, but that in spite of certain classicist

principles and ideas, within their criticism is to be found

a viewpoint or sensibility that is romantic in kind* The

real identity of the New Criticism as a literary movement,

he thinks, is to be found in this Romanticism of viewpoint

or sensibility*1^

Foster points to the interesting paradox that probably

the largest share of the pieoes that have become classics of

modern critioism have been 'essay*""<"seiBi—poetic revery and

personal ±isprc8slonisia~-rather than 'analysis' "3C Sioted

2^Eliot, p* 20«

29jroster, p« 21*

30lbjdt» p. 15.

35

also io the fact that raarsy of the New Critics have had

praise for Tennyson, Wordsworth, Seats* Coleridge and others

of the Romantic-Victorian tradition, This has been dbserv#4

before. Even She H o y , who is oftea seen as an arch enemy,

has rocoived a kind t?or<1 now '.tnrt then from 'modern critics.

Foster refers to another paradoxical eleiaent characteristic

of Now Critics * that its, that their "succcss as literary

revolutionists is closely related to the style of their

persuasiveness, the pow»r of their conviction.M31

The spirit or sensibility in the writings of the Hew

Criticsf them| suggests to Foster a P.onantlc outlook. The

sensibility to bo found in much of V, II. Attden's poetry is

of a Hoaantie type, and Foster* g analysis of this paradoxical

attitude to be observed in the New Critics* writing is

analogous to Auden's poetic prectic©. Auden shares many

Nov Critical notions of poetry, but his basic sensibility

Often seema to be a Roxaantic one.

31yostor, p» 28.

CHAPTER IY

TVBNT3E11I-CE2JTJRY ROKABfTICISM

low a look should be taken at the other side of the

picture to observe the extent to which the spirit of

Romanticism survives in modern poetry. First, however,

a onething must be said of the confusing use of literary

labels* especially those pertaining to Romanticism*

It was noted in Chapter 111 that literary movements

are subject to misinterpretation and also that differing

and conflicting points of vie* are evident among those

who are strongly identified with a particular movement.

It is noticeable too that some writers do not associate

themselves with contemporary movements but prefer to

follow their own bent or direction, which usually results

in taking a traditional path. When literary terms are used

to describe historical periods, the use can be unjust to

oertain individuals, since there are almost always person-*

alities who cannot be categorized neatly within the prevailing

pattern. The following definition of "neo-roraantioismH

illustrates this pointt

The history of twentieth~oentury European literature is marked by a curious revival of romanticism, which stands in direct opposition to the mainstream of realism in the period. The authors who participated in this romantic revival shared an interest in the exotic or unusual as opposed to the prosaic or ordinary, a certain

36

37

flamboyance or preciosity of language, a liking for fantastic, heroic, or superhuman characters, and an inclination toward fantastic plot material. The movement included a number of European author® of first-rate importances Maeterlinck, Loti, Cocteau, Saint-Exupery, Rostand, Christopher Fry, Stefan G© org**« In American literature the moTement is not as important, although a number of authors already treated <Jack London, Elliot Paul, Thomas Wolfe, lilla Gather) demonstrate certain romantic qualities "*hloh_ t o ^d±fy their basically realistic ap. proach to literature. James Branch Cabell, however, xs an anomalyt a complete and total romantic, an es-capist, and a dealer in fantasy who perversely insisted o n "writing romantic novels in the age of Hemingway and Far roll and succeeded in making a best-seller out

, -l9ast o n e of" them. ItiZften not only achieved a popular success but caused one of the great literary sensatxons of the post-1918 era, A writer like •vabell demonstrates the fallacy of thinking of literary history in terms of neat periods * neo-classicism, romanticism, realism. The Stendhals and Cabells of literary history show us that such tenas represent types of lxterary personality rather than historical periods, and that an author who sincerely and capably

V S t y l e W h i cf is n a t u r a l to kim Will achl«T0 acceptance in any age,1

W, II. Auden also has commented on the unsatisfactory

ways in which writers are classified:

^ Reviewers laay justly be blamed* however, for fiJiJ ° f J a b o li" e a n d Packaging authors. At +* critics classified authors as Ancients, that is

rreek and La tin authors, and Moderns, that is ® evfrjr F°3^-"Classical Author. Then they classl~ fiod t.ieja by eras, the Augustans, the Victorians, etc

iSf-iX-,?' J * e t C* V e r y soon, it seems, they will be labeling authors, like automobiles, by the ?#L

decade classification is absurd, for it suggests that authors conveniently stoo writing »t ag© of thirty-five

1958) 1JSS&aJi IsiteiaES. < »» York,

2W. H. Auden, Tgte flyer's Hand, p. 12.

38

Auden1s reference to the decade label is obviously a

personal annoyance. Critics have almost always associated

him with, the poets of th© 'jQ's, Auden*s work has con-

tinued to develop and mature since then, and the delimiting

aspect of a decade label is obvious in describing his work.

In the twentieth, century, as a result of the anti-

Romantic reaction, the word "Romantic" usually refers to

the natural temperament or particular sensibility of the

writer. Perhaps Romanticism will eventually become »®r©

descriptive as a result of its application to modern

writers who are anomalous to the mainstream of writing.

Twentieth-century Romantic poets appear to be a minority,

but there are still influential voices singing some kind

of Romantic melody* Some of these English and American

poets will be discussed briefly. .Examples of complete

poems by each of these poets will be found in the Appendix.

By general agreement the last "completely" Roman*io

poet in England is Walter de la Mare (1873-1956)• His

poetry is traditional, characterised by simplicity, mystery,

and idealism. His lyrics are eften hauntingly beautiful.

De la Mare is probably the best example of a p®et whose work

defies the prevailing modernism. He is a true Romantic

peet, yet his pee try has received recognition in the present

day, especially more recently. A reoent summation points to

his acclaim?

• . . His /""Be la Mare*&JJ mastery of delicately shaded moods and music, his susceptibility to the thrills from

19

nature and to the trenors in tho heart, hits tenderness and his discretion* his fervent idealism, are merits that were long undervalued; they are again esteemed at their worth. These qualities of charm and inwardness should be left oat of no survey of present-day English poetry.3

Besides Be la Mare, at least ono other outstanding

Romantic talent, A, "•. Housman (1859-1336), flourished tiurlng

the early twentieth century. Commenting on Housman and

De la Hare, Bay ley states »

. . , At first sight no.two poets could appear more different. Housman the classical scholar, whose taut, neat verses with their stoical and Horatian overtones challenge, as II. W. Gar rod has remarked, the romanticism of his critioal utterances; and Valter de la Mare, whose poems, although singularly varied in their moods of Joy and disquiet, have always the same longing behind them for

A beauty beyond earth1s content, A hope—half memory. . , ,

But both, with their extreme narrowness of range, seem engaged in keeping alive the last flicker of the ideal flame> neither can accept what they see In the world, with its horrifying abundance and complexity.

Louis Untermeyer says of Housman that » Far from being

a classic poet, Housman was an instinctive romanticist who

managed to put romantic and even sentimental concepts into a

seemingly classical form.n5

William Butler Yeats (I865-1939), an early modern Romantic,

was the most outstanding poet of the first part of the

3Snslle Legouis and Louis Caeamian, A History of English Literature (London, i960), p. 139.9,

^Bayley, p. 78.

5LouJ-s Untermeyer, Lives of t ^ Poets (ivew York, 1 9 5 9 ) ,

P * 610 *

Uo

twentieth century and perhaps the greatest poet of the

century. Yeats began by writing Romantic poetry and turned

later toward a highly intellectual kind of poetry, David

Xteiches describes this change I

• , . The change ir; Yeats—attributable only partly to his having come temporarily under itw Influence of Pound and his frien.'s—-was tuosfc striking. He had begun as a dreamy romantic, seeking in a beautiful world of vords compensation for th® drabness of a wor^d in whioh. science had killed traditional values.0

All his life, Yeats was in search of a satisfactory

language of myth and symbol which would serve to convey

his ideas in poetry* He w s also looking for a mystical

philosophy which might take the place of orthodox religion*

which for him had been destroyed by the scientific influence

of Huxley and TyndallDaiches has noted that Yeats'£

poetic development to a large extent exemplifies the history

of twentioth-century poetry*® Though Yeats1s work shows a

modern influence, his individual talent nevertheless stands

out, possibly over and above the importance of all external

influences. Kis later poetry manifested his genius in

brilliant lyrics written in a magical kind of language.

'the poetry of Bylan Thomas 1191^-1953) also shows both

Soman tic arid Modernist affinities« The following description

^Baiofces,

7Ibid.,

Ms.* P* 30,

kl

is an indication of the extent to which Thomas' a work mad© a

Romantic impressiont

* • . In his all too brief lifetime lie /Plhom&sJ^ was regularly taken to represent the antithesis) of Eliot and of the cerebral orderliness of the 1920s and the 1930s# an exanrplo of & wild and whirling irresponsi-bility. 9

On the* other hand, Thocias1 s greatest influence way have b««R

Gerard Manloy Hopkins, who, though showing some Romantic

traita, io usually considered on© of the principal ancestors

of modernist verse.10 Thoms.3, however, is usually thought

of as a Romantic* Ilia poetry is highly lyrical, displays a

wild freshness, is powerfully suggestive and musical, though

it is frequently obscure and seemingly illogical. His themes

relate to the biological cycle of lif©» birth, oopulation,

death* The wonder of man, the changing generations and the

link betwoen then, these subjects and their cosmic associations

&r® treated in his poems.

Iheri, John Bay ley and others have pointed to the Roman-

ticIsm implicit in V. E, Auden's poetry. In Bayley's Th®

Survival» studies of the work of Yeats, Auden, and

fhoiaas are undertaken, Sayley asserts that these three

writers "constitute the greatest and most Interesting

exponents of a new sort of romantic revival,"!1 Bayley's

9Baich.es, Present Age, p. 57.

l°Untermeyor, p. 719.

l^Bayloy, P. ??•

study of Audon,a Romanticism will be considered In a later

chapter«

It is perhaps of no ssall significance to this thesis

that the two poets most often associated with Audon's group

or school, Stephen Spender and C. Day Lewis, are poets of a

Romantic turn. Lawrence Durrell has cosaawnted accordingly}

spender arid Day Lewis were both gifted with a rowanti© sensibility and a feeling for the Mea»©tiv@M

value of words. They took over, in a most brilliant way, the romantic equipment of Teats* and turned it to good aocount by marrying up symbols like "rose" and "steam-engine"} we might say that in them the romantic symbol was renewed and controlled. Ihey presented in their poezas a happy marriage of old symbols in new forms.

There have also been tventieth-oentury American poets

whoso work is marked by Romanticism* Brief mention will

be made of sotae of these. Perhaps the first poet thought

of in this connection is Robert iProst (1675-1963). Partly

because of his relatively high stature today, Frost is

difficult to classify* but his work certainly exemplifies

the spirit of Romantic individualism. He has been called

a Realist, & Classicist, a Kegi&nalist^and a Romantic.

Tver Winters has referred to Frost as a Romantic t

ffrosfc has been praised as a ©lassioal poet, but he is not classical in any sense which 1 can understand. Like many of his contemporaries, he is an Emersonian

12Lawrence Burrell, 4 Ke& M Modern British goater (Norman, Oklahoma, 1952), p. 1857

13Unterxaeyer, P. 632.

k3

Eoamntie, although with, certain aau tings and modifi-cations, * . and he has labeled, himself as such with a good deal of oare

As u poet i'rosfc has "gone his awn way" to a considerable

extent| ho is a careful craftsman, and his poems often

imply a srviri j of optimism toward life. One of his

critical utterances strikes very much a note of iiomanticisrai

A poem is nevur a put-up job, so to speak# It begins as a lump iu the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness» It is never a thought to begin with* It is at its best when it is a tantalizing vagueness• • .

Kdua St. Vincent Hillsy (1^92-19^0) w&s a Hoiaantic

writer who expressed intense feeling in her poetry; however,

she modeled her verss on the Eli&abethuns and seventeenth*

century poets. Her pootry has been eouparcd to HouaMaan* s

because of its lieiaantic ideas which appeared in a Classic

f orra.

Elinor itfylie (1385-1928) wrote poems which exemplified

"pare" Romantic aensibili iy, but her poeiaa were also modern

intellectual ones.

E» E, Ouuraings (13.94-1961) was an outstanding Amor loan

Remantic pool". Kis eccentric experiments with punctuation

are well knownj hia poetry is often satiric, written in

varied tempos, but not lacking in sentiment.

l^Yvor Winters, m?. Smarten at. Criticism (Denver, 1957), P. 159.

^5?re»t» quoted in Untermeyer, P* 633.

w*

Other twentieth-conbury British, and American poets have

also written Roraantio verse« Those mentioned above ar© some

Of the more notable writers* However, in a summary of this

type the minority* of poets who are in some way "Romantic" is

striking* The so-called twentieth-century revolution has

obviously had its effect, even if some of that effect only

appears on the surface. Practically all the poets mentioned

have been influenced by the vogue•of writing initiated early

in this century. But does the far-reaching effect of a new

vogue necessarily obscure the writer's own particular

sensibility? Is Romanticism necessarily inconsistent with

present-day poetic practice? These are considerations

presently to be observed in the poetry of W, H» Auden.

Auden's poetry may provide an example of and a clue toward

understanding the spirit of present-day Romanticism*

CHAPTER ¥

CRITICAL VIEWS Of f, H. AUDEN

¥. H. Auden ©am» to prominence in the 1930fs| his

first volume, Poems. appeared in the year 1930* Auden soon

became the unofficial leader of a school of English poets

w&loh has been called, among other naa.es, the "Leftist

group of poets• Other names for the oase group of poets

ar® "Thirties Group," the "Pylori School, " the "Auden

Group,*2and the "Oxford poets,"3

The Auden Group consisted principally of a trio of

pootgj Auden, 5t«ph#« Spender, and C. Bay Lewis• Another

poet, Lou is MacNieoe, is sometimes included in this sane

group. The first anthology in which all these poets

contributed, Stomfajre.f, appeared in 1932,^ The

subject natter of this anthology was very largely social

oritioism.

T h e A u d e n shared for a time common ideas, but

its members soon scattered to continue their development

separately. Contacts among these poets were limited, but

Auden *s close association with its members, in retrospect,

iUntermeyer, p. 681»

^Richard Hoggart, g, Aud^n (London, 1957)* p. 1^.

^Legotiis, p. 1397» ^Darrell, p p, 182-183.

*5

leaves him soroewh&t Inseparable from thecw Auden's

apparent sensitivity, mentioned in Chapter !Y# to some

reviewers* practice of classifying arid packaging authors,

appears to be justified# Except for the sake of con-

venience, the decade label is mostly inadequate» It is

still too soon for any final judgments pertaining to

Auden1$ poetryi he is alive and has continued to be

productive. Writing in 1961, Monroe Spears commented on

Auden1s place %

• . « though he has been an important poet for raore than thirty years, he is still comparatively young, by the standards of this age of long-lived and long-eareered poetsj he is still capablc of major surprises* and therefore not yet to be pigeonholed. Critics he. 'e always yearned to dispose of him prematurely; but it remains n dangerous pastime#5

After the Auden Group separated, Auden*s direction

proved to be the United States, whore ho moved in 1939t

later taking- American citizenship. He said of America$

The attractiveness of America to a writer is its openness and lack of tradition. . . . You are forced to live here as everyone else will be forced to live. There is no past. No tradition. No roots-"-that is, in the European sense. • . * But what is happening here is happening everywhere."

The change of country may eventually be an important faot

in the assessment of Auden's work. Auden is usually

treated as an English poetj however, his later work may be

^Spears, "Auden in the fiftiest Hites of Homage,M p. 39^,

^Riohard Hoggarfc, Auden. An Introductory Essay (New Haven, 1951), p. 137.

1*7

connected principally with America. David Daiches hold#

this opiniont

t , , By this tiiae he was an American poet, however, and even though American and English poetry had been developing along similar lines since SIlot first started writing, some significant different** remained, and th® American Auden, while he never altogether lost his English accent and his English kind of aaslo hall comedy, belongs to American poetry.?

Auden*s poetic techniques are varied* He has always

been intellectually open to experimentation in corny Vers©

forms. He has displayed a dazeling virtuosity and is

adept at many traditional vers® fona§» Auden is noted

for this ability of expressing himself in many verse forma»

Lawrence Durrell has described this versatilityt

Auden was the best of these poets» and the ®ost original from every point of view* He seemed at home in every medium—lit the short, four-beat rhythm of cabaret j&sss, in the ballad, and in the laabic metre with its dependence upon vowel—sounds• Even his earliest work is positively protean in its range of techniques, and the fearlessness with which it used the available ©en-temporary subject-matter • For Eliot the introduction of a sfeam~en«itt# or a oity typist had been a matter of irony and disgust* Auden was less inhibited and enjoyed a greater range of human sympathy* He tried hi# hand at everything, from Jaa«—lyrics in two-four time, to free verset and all his productions were stamped with authority and a feeling of mastery over his ssedluia.

Auden has written effectively in auch forms as terga rfljqa,

the vlllanelle. the sestina. and the b a l l a d e * 9 ne continues

7Daiches, Present Age, p* W

^Durrell, p. 182.

?Hoggart, W» S. Audqn. P« 3.

48

to be open and experimental in his later poetry* searching

for continued technical mastery*

Much of Auden* s poetry is obscure j there are, however,

humorous lyrics that are rich in simplicity and include

scan© very memorable line#. His tone is often extremely

self-confident, touching the point of arrogance, especially

in his earlier poetry. In his later work, there is more

depth of feeling, human warmth, and often a religious tone

of humility. His method is eclectiot h© uses various nodes

of developing his ideas, such as suggestion and delineation,

and the reader must be prepared to respond flexibly.

Auden is a very well-read poet, and his vox*, reflect®

aaany influences• Chief among early influences vere Marx

and Freud5 later ones include Reinhold "iebuhr and

Kierkegaard*

The most usual faults attributed to Auden include

*uoh traits as a superficial, cleverness, a lack of seri~

ousneas—too nuoh readiness to clown or joke^ and uncertain

*nd divided aims in his poetry.

Sine® this paper deals with. Romantic aspects of

W* H» Auden'a work and airaco h® is not usually taken for a

Romantic poetk sonao of the r• sponaIble critical asiosatnts

of Auden Which ar® typical should be observed. These

critical views havo to do with Auden* $ "classification1* and

importance• It might be mentioned, in this connection* that

tfa» th®sis of this study is not so much that Auden is

k9

principally to be classified as a Romantic as to demonstrate

areas whero JUnnanticism is exemplified in his work and to

point to the relative influence which has been exerted through

both the tradition and the lodernistic revolution.

Monroe Spearg, who has followed Auden' s work olosoly,

sees Auden primarily as a satiric poet i

• • • Though Auden lias written some brilliant lyrics, he is not primarily a lyric poett his work belongs to a with a different purpose and tradition* and it ®an be properly understood only when It is ap-proached in terms of this convention. for Auden is , dominantly a satirist, and his poetic strategy is more like that of Dryden and Pop© than like that of Yeats or Eliot*10

Spears, however, has a different conception of satire lu

reference to Auden'a poetryI

• • • Satire is always didactic and usually topical; the satirist is typically a man with a keen sense of publio responsibility, of "social consciousness«" Yet, though satire often calls for specific reforms, the satirist, being realistic, has usually little hope of reform through literature; his purpose—or his compulsion—is to unmask,. to reveal swim to themselves arid to their fellows as they are., not as they pre tend to be. Probably what the great satirists hope for (when they hope for anything) is ultimately a spiritual and individual reform--in th© much maligned phrase, a change of heartj they hope that men, forced to see themselves in the mirror of satire as they are, will dislike the sight enoagh to become something different,

Auden aeesas always to have conceived of poetry as essentially satire. . . .

Since, to write his kind of poetry, Auden desperately needs to attain lightness through attitudes h® can share with a possible audience, and needs common standards to serve as norms, frames of referenoe, for

10Monroe Spears, "late Audent The Satirist a# Lunatic Clergyman, g»yanee Review, LIX, No, 1 (Winter, 1951), 51,

50

his satire, his vhole career nay be described as a search for beliefs, both for himself a*t<i as "metaphors for poetry***3-!

Elisabeth Brew considers Auden1a satire a negative

expressions

. » , Auden1 s satire is often very {jood fun, but it is eonoerned almost entirely with externals* it is super* ficial and crude. To be effective, satire must spring not from negative but from positive standards of value• It mist be sure of itself or it bocomes tho aggres-siveness which Is a defense against & sense of personal insecurity. It must not only diagnose sickness, it must envisage health* **

Richard Hoggart, discussing* Auden's satire, says,

Auden, then, is vigorous and constructivej he looks towards "the directed calm, the actual glory*" But he has never thought social ambulance work sufficient. He is, finally, a moralist, concerned with the problem of human guilt, » . . The fact that Auden largely fails as a satirist, though not as an ironist, may be attributed to this insistent practical sense, He is so anxious to effect an Improvement that he is disabled for the more violent kinds of satire*

He sees society as sick. . • he addresses himself to sick creatures of a sick society (he, too, is a sick creature)« This special quality of the relationship between artist end audience determines the manner of most of his vork# 3

Several critics hav© poiated to what they feel is a

disturbing division in Auden1s thought. Elizabeth Brew,

writing in 191*0, expressed this criticism!

Auden still gives the impression of a splintered personality unsure of itself, and lacking fundamental convictions—that element which gives direction and

1 1 Spears, ".Late Auden: The Satirist as Lunatic Clergyman,M

pp. 52-56,

^Elizabeth Drew, Directions in Modern Poetry (New York, 19^0), p. 106. "" '

^Hoggart, Auden, An Introductory Essay, p, 3k.

51

permanence to th® 21 lot of Ash Wednesday, to D. H„ Lawrence or Yeats, or to smaller poets like Frost and Marianne Moor®. It is the quality which In the last century belonged in different ways to Wordsworth, Keats. Shelley and Browning, but «hieh Byron lacked, Auden1s admiration for Byron is significant. Ho has some of the saa© cynical wit, the same hatred of shams, the same patches of genuine feeling and enthusiasja«***th©se updraughte of the spirit which whirl him out of "the malady of th# quotidlon"--«th® same streaks of Irre-sponsibility and bad taste, the same fertility and iridescence, the same lack of eontrality and resort-# power."

In attempting to assess Auden1 s work, Joseph Warren Beach

has a similar Tordiot to Miss Brew's, Ho espressos high

regard for Auden*s poetry, but h« s«©@ Auden as a poet who

lacks a unifying, central philosophy in his works

• • . Audon impresses ro® still as tho most gifted of the poets who hare boon so often br&oketed with him a® constituting a school of radical writer®. And among contemporary poets in th© English language he stands very high for tho daring originality and brilliancy of his imaginative and linguistic offsets,15

In a work of art, as in a man, we are best satisfied when wo are confidently awax© of a whole-ness, or integrality, that underlies all the diforse and oven conflicting elements. And we are a©at satisfied when the re is a consistent thread running through th# whole course of a man*® life or the whole^ body of an artist*s work# , '

In tho ease of Auden, it is our doubt on this point that makes us hesitant to class him with writers in wh©» wo have this son#© of wholeness or integrity. V© do not tfik# in his work tho confident satisfaction that^w® do In the work of a Toltalro, a Swift, a Mollere, a Wordsworth, a Keats, or a Browning*1**

l^Drew, p. 106.

iti": srst.3* ^ *• l^Ibld.. p. 253*

52

Richard Hoggart lias commented 011 this s&m# aspect in Auden,

tewt tli© problem is seen by Hoggart as a symptom of Auden1 s

quest for moral ordert

. . . the intellectual unsteadiness seems t© be a function of a yet deeper forces of a profound desire to come to ordered moral terms with life, and of a profound difficulty in doing so, « . » Throughout his career, but with special force in the period before he became a professed Christian, Audon seems to hare been an unusually divided stent searching for a belief towards which he could be truly humble, and finding: humility difficult? questioning constantly the tensions within his own nature as both fallen man and creative artist, tfor Auden is primarily a purposive and moral writer.17

David Saiches is disappointed in Auden's overall

performance but acknowledges admiration for his work*

Daiches states that Auden "has never quite fulfilled the

expectations he aroused, though lie has written some of the

best lyrics of cur time*

Despite adverse criticism and mixed critical opinion,

suoh as that of Batches' above, Auden has received much

acclaim from both sides of the Atlantic, including numerous

prizes and awards• Geoffrey Grigson said of Auden,

tte salute in Auden. . . the first English poet for many years who is a po#t all the way round. fh@r# are angles from which Mr. Eliot seems a ghost and Mr. Yeats a gleam, . « . But Auden does live in a new day. He is solid enough, poke him vhore you will, not crumbling like fudge * He is traditional, revolutionary, energetic. Inquisitive, critical and intelligent.*9

^Hoggart, W. J|. Auden. p. 9.

l®I?aieh*s# Present Age, p. V?.

^Origson, quoted in Drew, p. 103.

53

And Edmund Wilson wrote in 1956,

. , . Xrt metrics, In arehi£ect onics, as well &s la handling of language, ha AudenJ is, of course, ait incredible virtuoso—the most aecomplijshed poet in English since the great nineteenth-century masters! Tennyson, 3rowning and Swinburne. . ,2®

Richard Hogg&rt stated in 1957«

. « , the result £~of Auden1s poetvyj is a consid-erable body of memorable speech on our times and problems, an example which contributes toward the civility Auden so much admires, and a commitment which claim® our respect and admiration. This commitment and his recent practice in the poetry of symbolic landscape make Auden—at fif ty—still the most variously promising poet now writing in English,,2*

And, lastly, an assessment from Francis Scarfe1s book on

Auden, published in 19^9» is pertinent. Scarfe, like

Spears, considers "classifying" Auden somewhat irrelevant*

• . . Those, however, who arc always longing to know "where Auden stands,M miss the drama of his work, which is precisely its restless evolution, its refusal to adhere to a formula. His marxism never convinced Marxists; his psychology was always incomplete and wayward; his Sxlstentialisa is only partial, and still tinged with rami n i~s c encos of Mars and Freud * His Christianity is still too tinged with satire to amount~¥o"^eek acceptance. What is interesting, however, is the gathering synthesis of all these elements.

. • . Auden has not been a great innovator so much as a great reviver; he has dono aore than anyone in the past fifteen years to remind us of the wealth of metres and rhythms at our disposal in English. . . . The faet that Auden is the most adventurous and provocative, and occasionally the raost sensitive and -.nost skilled young poet writing in English tod|£, sets our eontem« porary poetry in its perspective.

^Bdmund Vilson, "W. II. Auden in America,M New JUS (June, 1956)« 659.

21Hoggart, £• H. Auden. p. hj,

22Francis Scarfe, V. H» Auden {Monaco, 1949}, p. 69,

CHWPTE» vi

AODEIi AID MODERNISM

¥. 3. Auden has assimilated many influences in forming

the subject xaatfcer and technique of his poetry. Among these

contributors to Auden1s development are Langland, Skelton,

Spenser, Bryden, Tennyson, Wordsworth, Byron, Blake, Samuel

Butler, Hardy, X). H* Lawrence, Andre G ide, Hosier Lane, Freud,

Jang, Groddok, Tolstoy, Chekov, Henry Jaiaes, Kierkegaard,

Marx, iiilko, Safka, Reinhold Xiebuhr, Yeats, G-orard Manley

Hopkins, T. 3» Sliot, Wilfred Owen, Robert Graves, Laura

Riding, and Emily Dickinson, If ~ cosaplete list were possible,

it would likely prove to be a staggering one, for Auden

has continued to read prodigiously over the years•

0* Day Lewis has referred to Auden as the type of poet

whose method of writing depends largely on other sources I

• • • Poets may bo divided into two classes; those who assimilate a number of influences and construct an original speech from thorn, and those whose voice seems to come out of the blue, reminding us of nothing we have heard before. Auon^st the younger present~day writers, Auden is obviously of this first class, Spender of the second. Eliot'5 poetry iu an extreme example of the former; Lawrence1 s, of the latter.3-

Besides the numerous and varied influences, Auden has

been especially influenced by the twentieth-century

lo* m y Lewis, A Hope for Poetry (London, 1$*7), p. 7*

5k-

$5

"modernistic" revolution in poetry and to some extent by th*

American Sow Criticism# Of the Eulae-Sliot-Pound trio,

Eliot has been the principal impetus for Auden's poetic

practice. Hi© most recent impetus, however, for the poetry

of the Auden Group has come mainly from three sources•

C. Day Lewis# speaking of tihese influences, says, "Post-war

poetry w&s born amongst the ruins • Its immediate ancestors

are ^lopkins, Owen and Eliot. . , n 2

Writing of Hopkins influence, Lewis states;

One of Hopkins' most striking innovations is his frequent u^e of what he calls "sprang rhythm." It is not perhaps quit© accurate to terra it an innovation, for it approximates to the rhythm of Piers Plowman and the old nursery rhymes. But to all intents and purposes it is revolutionary. ¥ordsvorth aimed at simplifying poetry, bringing it nearer to common speeoh* he-- affected thl-s by a radical change in the use of words, not by radical changes in prosody, Hopkins was not working on any such theory of commu-nication, but he produced in fact a result the opposite of tfordswor.thi by him the language of poetry was removed almost as far as possible from ordinary language—it becomes incantation againj while his prosody swings to the other extreme, for it is based on the rhythm of common speech. We find in post-war poetxy a tendency to combine these two results, to use common speech rhythms together with a mixture cf simplified, superfieially un-"poetical" language and highly poetical incantr.tory language*3

Wilfred Owen contributed a spirit of sensitivity to

the plight of evil in people's lives, mostly as a result of

war and xtt, aftersiathi also, Owen'e technical innovation—

the us© of alliterative assonance as an end rhyBie-~w&s an

^Lewis, p. 2.

, p • 9 •

5*

lttportftnt feature ©f the poetry of the Aud6n (Jpoup» I»ewis

says of OwenJ

» » • Owen commends himself to post«*war poets largely because they fee1 themselves to be 1» the same pr©-dlotsMnt) they fool the same l&ok of a stable buokground against which th© dance of words may stand oat plainly, the same distrust and horror of th© unnatural forma Into which life for the majority of people is being forced.*

Where Auden is concerned, Eliot has been an important

conveyer of Modernism to th# younger poet* Richard Hoggart

mention® an interesting ©Tent which happened in Auden's

student days, Hoggart writes that M. , . Nevill Coghill,

Auden's tutor at Oxford, says that Auden announced one day

that he had torn up all hi® poems because they were based

on Yordsworth and that henceforth Eliot would be his model

Acoording to Hoggart, "Auden's most characteristic

manner is the conversational.Toward the development of

this manner, there are numerous possible contributors, but

among these, Iliot provided th® most contemporary models.

Th© more sophisticated aspects of this conversational

manner, however» were learned from Byron. Hoggart, in

defining it, says,

What one means to indicate by ^conversational" Is largely a matter of the manipulation of speech rhythms to produce a distinct tone of voice in the

^Lewia, p. 15.

^Hoggart, Au<ien, Agi Introductory Essay. p„ k6.

6Ibid*. p. 50,

57

verse, a ton® which may he raoy, persuasive, cool# dramatic, easy, unfussed and unhurried, but is always there•7

Another device Auden ha® often used is the "objective

eorrelatire,tt which was initiated by Eliot* This method

results in some memorable, epigrammatic lines in Auden1s

verse. Hoggart explains Auden1s use of this device as a

search for a way in whioh to express modern life symbol~

icallyt

« . » If a poet is to find symbols, he must have a vide knowledge of the scattered phenomena ef modern life, and must male© so careful and significant a selection that he is able to elevate everyday items and particular instances into the general and symptomatic. , « .he must turn his concepts into images of force and immediacy} the ordinary must be heightened and shown to embody a way of life, a system of values.®

Another characteristic that is common to Auden1s verse

and has been used freely by Eliot is the special use of the

definite article. The following example demonstrates Auden*s

emphasis of this method:

The boarding-house food, the boarding-house faces. The rain-spoilt picnics in the windswept places, The camera lost and the suspicion, The failure in the putting competition. The silly performance on the pier. . . ,9

Hoggart, commenting on the above passage, says,

• • « A kind of knowingness between writer and reader can be implied; this Is not just Ma" certain and

7noggart, Auden. An Introductory Essay, p. 51.

8Xbid.. p. 6U.

9Auden, quoted in Hoggart, Auden, An Introductory Bssay. p. ®9«

^8

particular camera lost, it seeras to say—it is 11 the" camera which is any lost camera and yet all emiieras lost in such circumstances, to those of us who have the eye for such significances*1®

Attden9* use #f this device is not always a auecessien of

articles* line by line, as in the passage cited, It is

used fairly often, sometimes in alternating lines, though

usually with restraint.

Very important, also, in the development of Auden and

other younger poet® of his time was Eliot's example ef how

Terse might be used to talk about their times and problems,

Bliot "found the language for the crime," Auden wrote in

his poem for Eliot's sixtieth birthday.11 The social themes

so prevalent in the poetry of the early part of the twentieth

century, however, hare their origin in former periods,

Hoggart states:

The sense of social commitment, the conviction that "we are conscripts to our age," the belief that today many people lead lives which are, for all kinds of reasons, unnecessarily restricted^these views are by no means peculiar to Auden and his contemporaries* Blake is one of their most important ancestors here.*2

Babette Deutsch, contrasting Day Lewis and Auden with Hopkins,

relates this social feeling also to a Romantic ancestryt

» » • iTfcten they £ Auden and L e w i s ^ look away from the rain of the old order toward the glorious commonwealth promised by faith in social revolution, they write almost with the vague fervor of romanticism. They have a nearer kinship with Shelley than with Keats,

^Hoggart, Auden, An Introductory Sssay. p. 69,

11lbid., p. 112.

12Ibid.. p. 111.

59

to whom Hopkins, acutely aware of the actual, wag closer than lie knew.1-*

Indeed* the sens© of "ancestry" appears to be strongly

felt by the Auden Group. If Bliot and the Imagista had

looked to tli« French Symbolists for technical Ideas, Auden

and Lewis looked to the* poets of their own country for much

of their tiuidfcnoe. this attitude, in spite of Eliot'a hold

over Auden, is evident in his workj Auden, Lewis, and

Spender rely greatly on the English tradition. Mis® Deutsch

has noted this dependence:

Technically, their £*Audlanfs and Lewis's^ debt is to the poets of their own country, rather than, as their predecessors' was, to the poets of France« • , * they travel back sow® six centuries to take lessons from Langland, and find in his homely Anglo-Saxon verse a suitable form for their address to the plowman's modern counterpart, Mot that the English laborer would understand the idiom of Lewis or Auden, but the vigorous rhythm arid marked alliteration of Piers Plowman appeals to these poets for its summoning qualities. Like Hopkins, they are in too great haste to get the thing said to wait upon grammatical usage| like him, they constantly play upon words, revel in puns and knottier ambigu ities.1**

It should be stressed, too, that though Auden ha®

followed Jiliot (or seems to have followed him) considerably,

the poetry of the two is often sharply contrasted. One suoh

example was seen in Grigson's appraisal, cited in the previous

chapter. Lawrence Burrell has also contrasted the two poetst

. * • Auden1s influence freed us from the feeling of chilly formalism and logic-chopping which we felt so

1 Labette Beutseh, fhls Modern Foe try (lew York, 1935), p. 18U.

^Ibid.. p. 21*1,

60

strongly in the criticism of Eliot and the polemics of Lewiss h© increased oar feeling for the possibilities of language, showed us that poetry ean be written in any form, and taught us to consider everything from the nursery-rhyme to the jazx-lyri© as a proper object of study and experiment.15

Karl Shapiro thinks that Auden's attitude toward Eliot's

ideas amounts to eom©thing of a compromise. Shapiro, too,

points to Auden*s Admiration for the English poetic

tradition and suggests that Auden's connection with th«

twentieth-century literary revolution is really anti-

thetical to his poetic practicet

Auden*s disinterest in unseating Eliot and the things which Eliot symbolises is one of the chief factors in the continued pre-eminence of Eliot as a critic. Either Auden failed to see the profoundly reactionary quality of Eliot1s poetics, or he was content to compromise with them. The latter is probably the case. In the long run, as we all know, Auden beeatae completely magnetized to the Eliot position and is today only a satellite spinning around him. Hie fact is that Auden never did develop a poetie* of his own, as one would expect the author of so much criticism to do. Baden's poetics are inclusivet they comprise .the- sum. total" of'poetry" in"" the English 'tongue, "from' RfewmliL.through. the young poets he chose to appear in . the YaleJjj&gsgiM?. _ serleiL. " fhis" is "quite"©; different thing from Eliot's "Tradition" which excludes practically everybody in English poetry—and includes almost no living poets. Auden's rejections are dislikes L rather than^pjriiiclplm^ When nia«er"»t John HIT ton says, "Go I" Hilton must be gone. When Auden, on the other hand, tells us that Shelley is loathsome, we feel that this is more of a personal than a literary matter. Auden is the editor of the best general anthology in English poetry, among his other numerous anthologies, and he knows the tradition in a true sense, and loves it. He is part of it; he is heir to it.lo

l^Durrell, pp. 183-18^.

l%arl Shapiro, "The Retreat of W. H. Auden," In Defense of. Ignorance {Sew York, I960), p. 119.

61

Indeed, Atiden's interest in traditional English poetry not

©My contrasts with Eliot's view—it seems antithetleal to

the modernist resolution in literature. Monro® Spears has

commented on this differences:

. . , Auden is a thoroughly traditional poet# Graham Houghi in his Reflections on a Literary Revolution, seems to toe unaware that Auden has been a counter-revolutionist in this sense for thirty years• «

Auden* s relationship to the American New Criticism

is another area where Eodernism hao influenced his work*

This is often seen as an extension of £liot's influence!

for example, -Shapiro refers to the "counterrevolution of

T. S'« Eliot," seeming to imply that Eliot represents

modern criticism, per aq»^0n the contrary, Eliot himself.

has tried to minimise his own efforts in this direction,

•while pointing also to the variety of critical opinion

the Hew Criticism stands fori

• . . The term "The Sew Criticism" is often employed by people without realising what a variety it compre-hends; but its currency does, I think, recognise the fact that the siore distinguished critics of today, however widely they differ from each other, all differ in some significant way from the critics of a previous generation.19

1 h&T« been somewhat bewildered to find, from time to time, that I am regarded as one of the ancestors of modern criticism, if too old to be a modern eritio myself. Thus in a book which I read recently by an

17Spears, "Auden in the fifties! Kites of Homage," p. 397•

l^Shapiro, p. 123.

19siiot, The frontiers of Criticism, pp. 3-k,

62

author who is certainly a modern critic, I find a reference to "The lew Criticism,M by which, he says, "X noftti not only the American critios, but the whole critical movement that derives from X# S• Eliot." I don't understand why the author should isolate m# so sharply from the American eriticsi but on the other hand I fail to see any critical uovesaent which ean be said to derive from myself, though I hope that a« an editor I gave the New Criticism, or aome of it, encouragement and an exercise ground in T&e Criterion,20

Similarly, the Modernistic Revolution and the New

Criticise have been treated separately in this thesis.

Perhaps the two movements 3hare a basic attitude to poetry*

There are surely overlapping ideas common to both} however,

there are many differences of opinion among modern critics,

British and American*

Auden*s connection with Hew Criticism is difficult

to ascertain. Two expressions of Auden* s antagonist to

the movement have already been indicated in Chapter III#

Mot only this, but there is the question whether Auden

himself has exerted as much or mors Influence on American

poetry in recent years as any nucleus of poetic criticism.

Richard Hoggart, writing in 1957# stated that Auden "has

been the strongest single influence on Amerie&n poetry

throughout the last decade *"21 Edmund Wilson has recently

suggested that the American influence has not affected

Auden such;

20Eliot, the ^rentier® of Criticism* pp. 6-7.

21Hoggart, £. H. Auden. p. 39.

63

» • * this Influence of America dues not seem to me in the laut to have diluted th® Bnglishnes® of Auden or to have changed its essential nature, Auden's genius is basically English**-though in vayi which, in the literary world, seem at present rather out of fashion*22

Some critics feel otherwise, however. Daiches comments to

the effect that "the American Auden. • . belongs to American

poetry," were in Chapter V. Batches also conjectured

that at times Auden has displayed wa mere cleverness with

patterns of symbolic meaning which perhaps derived front his

hobnobbing with the American 'New Criticism*'"23

Monroe Spears, on th® other hand, has indicated that

Auden is not approved of by many Xew Criticst

. * * The lew Critios generally {1 us® the term in the Ransom, not the Hyaan sense) tend to think him /AudanJT too much committed to ideas, too didaeti© and impuref h© is th© poet of Reason rather than the Coleridgean Imagination*21*

Spears' statement suggests again the variety of views#

sometimes conflicting, among Sew Critics* A variety of

poets, too, practice certain idea®, though differing here

and there, that ai*e common to Hew Critics* According to

Donald Meiney, MTh© Hew Criticism is chiefly an American

movement, although such British poets as Auden, Spender,

Thomas, and Edith sitwell share with it certain concepts

of poetic theory.

22Wilson, *V* H* Auden in America," p. 658,

23jjai«hes, Present Age, pp,

^Spears, "Late Auden1 The Satirist as Lunatic Clergyman," P* 51«

2-%@iney, p. 569,

6h

To summarise, it is possible to conclude that And.#** has

etrtftlnly bean affectod by Modernistic crltloiaa, lifts improved

upon it, but has lost something valuable as well• Shapiro

has noted that H, , . it is Auden more than any other poet

vho has sta.E!j>od the modern poem with a style. To Auden

belongs the honor of having brought to perfection what

©verycm© nowadays calls the Academic Poem.*2**

But Audea1®'greatest loss, or rather his principal

lack of development, appears to be the development of his

gift for lyric poetry. This is probably due to the

Modernistic influence on Auden* Hia Romanticist® 1# perhaps

most apparent in seme of the early lyrics. Some critics

even feel that the lyrical passages in some of his plays are

the only lasting parts. Randell Jarrell is among these vho

are critical of this result in Auden1s poetry*

Auden wished to male® his poetry better organised, more logical# more orthodox, more accessible, and so ; onf with these geniunely laudable intentions, going : in the right direction from his early work, he has managed to run through a tremendous series of changes so fast that his lyric poetry has almost been ruined, . , « Many of the early poems seem produced by Auden1® whole being, as much unconscious as conscious, necessarily made just as they are? the best of then have shapes {just as driftwood er pebbles do) that seem the direct representation.of the.tore** that them. Most of the later poems represent just as directly the forces that produced them? the head, the head,, the top of the head} the correct, reasoning, idealistic, sentimental Intelligence*^7

Shapiro, p, 126.

27Randal.l Jarrell, "Changes of Attitude and Rhetoric in Auden1 s Poetry," Southern He view. VII, No. 2 (l9fel~I»2), 3U7-348.

S3

Complementary to this view is Shapiro's t

* • • Auden is essentially a lyric poet but lyricism was frowned on by the inventors of Modernism. . * People used to speak of Dylan Thomas as a great lyrie" meaning that they liked his work but

didn't think It would produce much intellectual aftermath* It didn't| but it produced the first spontaneous audience for good poetry since the moderns ruled out audiences as immaterial, Anders own lyrio talent has been subsumed under his owr intelleetual talent* Auden, in fact, has created a genre, the intellectual lyrio. . » .28

Mumerous orities have commented regretfully on this

lyrical decline and compromise of Auden with Modernism*

Among them are Batches| Scarf®, /ho associates the loss

with the move away fro® England?2^1 and Richard Hoggart.

In conclusion, Heggart's opinion follows, whioh does

acknowledge a continuance of fin® lyrical verse by Audent

L Z * "den's appeal to the ear is sensitive and skll** ftjl. There is no doubt that much of the early admiration of his arose from this, although it was not often mentioned as one of his outstanding qualities» if# hare become a little ashamed to admit our response to the poet as a singer• • » . It is true that Auden has written a fair number of ly:rles-***attd continues to write therau • * predominantly about lore or friendship and very gentle in their manner. But he ha® developed his fine lyric gift less than he might have done, had he not been so gripped by the conviction that his period :

demanded more critical attitudes of the poet*30

28Shaj»iro, p. 131.

2%carfe, p. 35.

3©B®ggari, Au^en, An introductory Essay. p p. 93.94.

CHAPTER VXX

AUDEN'S ROMAHTICISM

Francis Scarfe has written of Auden that his "family's

association with Iceland aooeunts for a oartain nordic

Romanticism and nostalgia which characterises Auden*s work,"1

Whatever the caws®, Auden's sensibility is often strikingly

romantic. Critics have noticed this characteristic in

Auden, and seme hare gen# so far to speak of his poetry as

Romantic poetry. Day JLewis was an early commentator on

Auden*s romanticism*

• . . the effect ©f mystery, of untold implications, which the romantics achieved by the Juxtaposition of words in such a way as to soften their outlines and make then fuse into each other, Auden achieves by constantly introducing phrases flat and precise on the surface yet suggesting mystery below* Take# for examples

lights come bringing the snow, and the dead howl Under the headlands in their windy dwelling Because the Adversary put too easy questions On lonely roads. • • •

In the first two lines "headlands" and "windy" derive value from their own connotations, in true romantic styles but in the last two lines every word, even ^lonely* is precise# and the mystery*— the poetical meaning—is generated by the phrase as a whole.

More recently, John Bayley has written of Yeats,

Dylan Thomas, and Auden a® writer# "who constitute the

• Scarfe, p. 8.

2L*wis, pp. 69-70.

67

greatest an# most interesting exponents of a new sort of

romantic revival,w3 In Tkm. Romantic Survival, Bayley

concludes that Auden is principally a Romantic poet,

Btyley't position will now be considered in part*

Referring to a well-town poem in Audon's first 193©

volume |Mo* 22, tf&et there if you can and see the land you

ono« were proud to own"), Bay ley describes the personal,

human attraction of the poem to the readerJ

* . , Staring out dully at the rain evokes at one© all the rich futility of nostalgic recollection. Every-thing la hopeless and the country is going to the dogs* hut to think this, while staring out at the rain, is somehow no inconsiderable pleasure# Th® attitude gives uat in some obscure way, a sense of mastery, "Man ha® the refuge of his gaiety.w Or^th# refuge, at least, of a purely porsonal reaction,

. . . The human attitude resides in the poem's effective pleasure in the monstrous corpse of industry* in the accusation at one *s betters that they don't really tew what Life is| and in the complex gesture of nostalgia and self-acceptance which is mado in the childhood image of watching the rain fall on the sea*5

But if the effect of Auden1s poetry is often Romantic,

this fact, to hia, is relatively unimportanti

• « « the vhol® tenor of Audeti's critical pronounce-ments oxs po«try ha® been to imply a separation between the poet as Poet, and as a responsible social being commanded to love his neighbour and behave properly, and do what he oan to establish what Auden calls The Just City, the poet can indulge in all the romantic attitudes» the man must conform to the classical moral pattern. Although this dualism would

%ayl@y, p, 77*

**Ibid«, p. 130.

5lbid.. p. 13^.

68

hare been quite intelligible to Bacon and Plato, it tuns never been »© abruptly stated by a poet* Auden male®® til® distinction again and again, mi til we are left rendering if his oba©s«iog with it indicates

sow© uneasiness of conscience.

It in interesting to note tliat Byron# to whom Auden is 00

often compared, expressed a similar attitude toward writing

poetry. On® expression of Byron1® attitude follow®, quoted

from a letter supposedly written to Dougla* Kinnaird*

. . , I shall not the less continue to publish, till I have run ay vein dry. You say it is not profitable— be it sot X shall do so for nothing! till, indeed, it becomes, actually a loss* and this, because it is «MI „ occupation of wind, like play, or any other stimulus.f

Eayley points to this central attitude of Auden*s, that is,

that poetry is H* game which it does not matter whether you

play or not," but that "the rules of life" have to be

obeyed.8 Disagreeing with this position, Bayley asserts*

. . . Auden is surely wrong in maintaining that because of the "gratuitous" nature of poetry it has nothing to teach us about life and can only do harm if it tries« . » . The distinction is surely too simple. If poetry is not religion aust it therefore be a gam©7 * , • Manners, customs, all the sane ceremonial of living, could easily be called a game according to Auden*s definition: yet they occupy an important place in life, and poetry as a part of them surely deserves to be considered, to as# an old-fashioned phrase, as a civilising influence?-*

Bayley then exaasples Auden * s "endearing" but incon-

sistent approach to his critical theory. In the following

%ayley, p. 135,

7Jacques Bareun, 2&S. Selected Letters g£ ]*££& iSXffi (New York, 1 9 5 3 ) , pp . 222-223*

8Ibid». p , lfcl. 9Ibid., pp . Ilt2«lifr3.

69

p a s s a g e , Auden s u g g e s t s that a f t is a c t u a l l y therapeutic i n

i t s effect a f t e r all*

* . . ait who should never be allowed to listen to W a g n e r f The unhappy, the disappointed* the politically ambitious, the self-pitying, those who imagine themselves misunderstood, the tfagnerians» And to whom should they toe coarpelled to listen?—» t o M o & a r t a n d B e e t h o v e n # 1 0

B a y l e y e o a w e u t s *

tfhat has happened to music a s pure oontraption, as a b s o l u t e gift? And M o s a r t emerges a ® t h e m u s i e i a n of social graoes and g a m e s , of civilised and happy living, who is therapeutic in effeot for precisely thin reason.11

Another somewhat surprising attitude of Auden*s is

quoted by Bayley» S

No a r t i s t # not e v e n S l i e t t c a n p r e v e n t h i s 1

work b e i n g u s e d as ® a g l c , f o r t h a t i s w h a t all o f ' u s , h i g h b r o w a n d lowbrow a l i k e , s e c r e t l y w a n t Art i to be.

O o w m e n t i i i g , B a y l e y s t a t e s ?

T h e shaiae of Hagic is t h a t I t s o l v e s e a s i l y what in life oan only be solved partially and with continual effort. And this consciousness of the possibility of poetry being used as an incantation, as a quick way to a satisfaction of the feelings* haunts Auden, perhaps because the "magical" power of his own poetry i s s o o b v i o u s - a n d s o i m p r e s s i v e *

John Bayley1 a position nay be suasnarized in the

remaining quotes*

« • » Auden has followed Teats in showing how the i n t e n s e p r i v a t e world o f s y m b o l i s m can b e brought r i g h t out into t h e o p e n , e e l e c t i c i s e d , a n d p e g g e d d o w n to every point of contemporary interest and everyday life,

10tbld.. p. 1*3* lxIbid.

12Bayley, p. lt&. 13lbid.

70

while remaining none less In a pi"irate and ©Ten a substitute vorld. Auden is an emancipator of Romantic Symbolism, but it is in this tradition that his roots lie, and it is by the criteria applied to suah poetry that he should ultimately be Judged• Attacks on Auden are invariably based on his lrre-sponsibility » M s unfounded pretensions to intellectual power and weight, and his enjoyment of the private joke or absurdity for its own sates» etc., and all these strictures lose their force if his poetry is read for what it is# ami not for what his eriiies-** misled by the poet's ambiguous attitude—-have supposed it is attempting to be,1^

« » * In fact, as with Dylan Thomas, the range of his ^Auden's^/ poetic effects is almost bevilderingly variedt w© rnst not expect either poet to be always one thing or the other, cerebral or incantatory, romantic or intellectual-—and wo must read Audeit in the way we read Svinburne as well as in the way we read Donne or Clevelandt his fflecticisa is one of his most outstanding features.

This eclecticism Bayley speaks of is characteristic of

Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, and Seats. There

was considerable experimentation among all the great

Romantic poets. The long narrative, verso drama, the

sonnet, the short poena, and other forms were represented.

There was no special decorum as to form. The Romantics

were in revolt against rigid, set Keo-Classic ideas of form.

Auden1s poetic theory has been touohed on at several

places in this thesis; that is, his critical comments have

been cited to show his relative position about poetry. As

Shapiro has pointed out, hot/ever, Auden has no formal

poetics such as Eliot has. His poetlos is to be found in

numerous, random essays and published interviews, and the

existence of contradictions like those Bayley has pointed

» VP* 2-55-156* 1%ayley, p. 163.

71

to are riot altogether surprising. There seems to bo a

fairly consistent alignment with Bitot's ideas, but In-

consistencies there appear also, for Auden, the practice

does not seem to cohere with the theory consistently.

Another look at Auden*s critical stance should help to

oall attention to part of the difficulty#

David Daiohes, comparing Auden1s theory with that of

John Crowe Ransom, a New Critic, states s

• » • Auden's view, though by no means identical. . • is in the same general class, the class of poetic theories which see the distinguishing nature and value of poetry in the way it handles words and the way reality is explored through, the exploitation of certain potentialities of language,16

Auden is often voicing such. an opinion as the following)

Thirty days hath September, April, June and November

is valid because nobody doubts its truth. Were there, however, a party who passionately denied it, the lines would be powerless to convince him because, formally, It would make no difference if the lines rant

Thirty days hath September, August, May and December.

Poetry is not magic, In so far as poetry, or any other of the arts, can be said t© have an ulterior purpose, it is, by telling the truth, to disenchant and disintoxicate.A'

Or,

A poet is, before anything else, a person who Is passionately in love with language. Whether this

David Baiches, .feiMoal Ap®i^a.©hes to. Literature (Englewood Cliffs, 1956), p. 160.

17Auden, T&c Dyer's Hand, pp. 2<S-27.

?2

love is a sign of his poetic gift or the ^ift itself**-* for failing in love is given not chosen—X don't know, bat it is certainly bhe sign by which one recognises whether a yeung men is potentially a poet or not.1®

Yet, Auden also is capable of such statements as I

• . . Must a work be censored for being beautiful by accident? I suppose it must, but a poet will always have a sneaking regard for luck because he knows the role which it plays in poetic composition* Something unexpected is always turning up, and though he knows that the Censor has to paass it, the m&mory of the

i lucky dip is what ho treasures.

A nd«

Whatever its actual content and overt Interest, every poors is rooted in imaginative awe. Poetry oan do a hundred and on# things, delight, sadden, disturb, amus^t Instruct—it may express every possible shade of emotion, and describe every conceivable kind of event, but there is only one thing that all poetry must do| ii taust praise all it can for being and for happening;.

"Imaginative awe" seems to emphasise much more than

aero "language" or "priv^a gajaas, M wliieh Auden has

referred to so often. Taken together, the latter cwo

excerpts do not seea so far from Wordsworth's statement

that "all good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of

s 2^

powerful feelings. . • *n Tho sense of absorption in

poetry thai; !,aust praise all it can for beingn seems

similar to Coleridge's description of poetic activity* 1R

Rudolf Arnheim and others. Poets at Work (lew York, 19^8), p. 171.

19Auden, 0£. clt.. p. ¥7* 20Jbid., p. 60.

^ J* B* °*en* ed*t g.^r.daworthfs Frefa.ee to Lyrical (Copenhagen, 1957) t P* 116*

73

The poet, described In ideal perfection, bring® the whole soul of man into activity, with the sub-ordination of its faculties to each §§*»** according to their relatire worth and dignity.

However, any point-by«point comparison. of Auden1 s ideas

with those of Wordsworth or Coloridge would show obvious

differences. That the critical utterances of Auden have

considerable range» though, is the point which should be

mad®*

Richard Koggart has spokon of Auden*s apparent attonpt

to ©era® to terms with his personality*

» . . very often Auden seems to be fighting his own personality! the struggle Is objectified la those frequent discussions on the relationship between the simple and the exceptional, or @n the relative claims of Intuition and Intelligencet or on the secondarlness of art. J

Lawrence Durrell has succinctly described Auden'c attitude

toward sentimentalityI

Auden may have been a romantic as far a® his ideas are concerned, but his poetic technique always has been almost Aristotelian la its austerity. If you will forgive the Metaphor* he strum# on a very dry, a very highly strung, banjo. Spender and Day Lewis on the other hand are faced with the problem of subduing and giving shape to sensibilities whioh are primarily romantic—to judge by the way in whioh they use words# Auden has never run the risk of being sentimental *

This "personality* struggle may be almost characteristic of

Audenj it has certainly received considerable comment from

o , <!J' 8 5 * y " ? ; * i S i " * . H t w m * * St h .

Coleridge. Vol. XX (Oxford, 1907)» 12*

2%oggart, Auden> A& Introductory Essay, p. 215.

Durrell, p. 188*

7k

his oritlos * Ag Burrell has suggested, Auden does not

oar® much for bad poetry, that is* poetry thai is overdone.

A statement of Auden1s, out of context, hat pertinent,

expresses this thought. "Nothing," he says» His torse

than a bad poem which was intended to be g r e a t • A u d e n

ha® also stated*

• • * T# witness an untalented act like a clumsy man wrestling with a window»blind or a bad line of poetry makes on® laugh (if no serious suffering is involved), Indeed there are few better ways of spending a hilarious evening than in recalling the worst lines in English poetry.

These statements of Auden1s might readily explain his

preference for a "classic" verse structure, or use of

precis© language. He appears to desire a tight control

over what h® says at all times. Yet, Auden has indicated

that h© is interested in all forms of verse, and h© has

experimented successfully in many foros* Boggart mentions

that Auden *has also said he opposes all notions of

artistic decorum and of * correct * style."27 Shapiro has

said that Auden would really prefer to burst out with song,

but is somehow too civilised*

• . . Auden has no poetic direction} his tho@ry as ; well as his practice of poetry reverts t# play* he develops a kind of self-defeating technique which prevents even his followers fro® making him the

2*Auden, Z£l Pyftf'ff p. 37 2^Arnhe isa, p t 170 •

27Rlchard Hoggart, ed., Auden1 A Selection (London, 1961), pp. 29-30,

75

©enter of a poetic cult. Me would Ilk© to be as dogmatic as Blatee, for instance, but cannot} as flauaboyant as Byron (or Dylan Thomas)j or as desperate as Rimbaud• But ho is in fact too mn&h a poet of debts and obligations* too happy with books* and too civilized a nan to kick over thg card catalogue and run howling to his Muse. °

Joseph Warren Beach has also coamented on the Clash

of attitudes in Auden*s poetryt

. » * The net result * # . in his poetry in all periods is an ambiguity which does not necessarily •weaken the poetic effect but does male© peculiarly precarious the attempt of a critic to give a clear exposition of meanings and intentions. But the poetic vision is ever* like the life process, incorrigibly- beset frith contradictions. And seme- ; times one is inclined to speak, with Mr. Spears, of

tensions operating at all periods between anti*» : thetical a11ltudea in the poetry of Auden. "

The above commentaries, however, do not necessarily imply

that since there are inconsistencies in Auden's theory

and his verse is often Romantlo, that S£&SL* Auden is a

Romantic* The commentaries are intended to be in line

with the central topic of this thesisi the impact of

Modernism on traditional poetry, as seen in the poetry

of a contemporary poet} the relative interplay of two

movements reflected in the writings of an important

twntleih-eerttury poet.

It is possible that Auden's work may eventually

represent, along with that of others, writing which is

characteristic of a transitional pericd in literature.

2®Shapiro, p. 124.

2^Beach, pp. 232-233.

?c

He Is one poet among several. Including Yeats and Thomas, I

vfoo have attempted to synthesize roodernistic poetio ideas !

and traditional ideas in poetry.

In conclusion* sons of Aaden's ovn comments should

indicate sufficiently that he is not the least avaro of the

difficulties of consistency in criticism and versef

A poem must be a elos*d system, but there is something, in ray opinion, lifeless, even false, about systematic criticism.-'4'

I am always interested in hearing what a poet* has to say about the nature of poetry, though X do not take it too seriously. As objective statements, hxc definitions are never accurate, never complete and always onesided, Not one would stand up under a rigorous analysis.-31

Concerning D. H« Lawrence1s poetry*

• • • Waen a poet who holds views about the nature of poetry which w® believe to be fal#© writes a p&wn w# Ilk©, we are apt to thinki "This time he has forgotten his theory and is writing aoeording to ours.n B„t what fascinates mo about the po®mS of Lawrence' s

L « ^ *tt«i admit lie could »#T#r hwre written them had he held the kind of views about poetry of which 1 approve•^

Finally, a frank admission about hi® pontic praotiee«

1 * w r i t © first and us© the theory afterwards to a b o u t p 0 B t e y ta 8 # n « "

3®Audon, £fee MSM* p. xii«

» p* 5^•

^2Xbid., p. 278.

ou rg^2:» r;: £ t t e Auden" Tllc «• «—«•

CHAPTER VIII

AUBBN'S ROKAHTICISMt SELECTIONS

Auden's conscious intentions in pootry have almost

always been allied with Eliot*® critical ideas and other

Modernist aims. Nevertheless, Romantic qualities, though

thought by soma to be antithetical to modem or conteapiwry

poetry, appear often in Auden's poetry. Perhaps these

characteristics enter into his poems indirectly as a

natural manifestation of his love for great traditional

English poetry. Possibly they appear as an unconscious

expression of Auden * s real "feelings. * It is veil known,

after all, that artiatio creation Involves a reliance on

subconscious forces within the creator. Poets* too, not

only use language differently, they have a "language of

their own.n

The foregoing is suggestive only. The reason® for

Auden *s Romanticism are probably of little significance*

His ambivalent attitude toward criticism and poetry,

quoted at the end of Chapter V2I, suggests his own

puzzlement. Auden*s Romanticism, however, exemplifies

more than the mere presence of "Freudian slips." Auden

seems too subtle for this. His candid admissions concerning

theory and practice indicate an awareness of seeming

77

78

Inconsistencies. As a poet, he must not to® surprised to m m

ambivalence in human nature# It ia perhaps ironic that one

of his sped*! poetic themes is eonoerned with the double*

minded man.

The following commentary is eonoerned with certain

Romantic qualities in Auden*s poetry. Selections from

Auden's poetry are taken from his shorter poena with the

exception of two, one from lew Year Letter and one from

gpr tfte Tlae Being. This discussion is meant to be

somewhat random, rather than exhaustive* though some

"analysis" is attempted. The purpose is to indicate some

of the Romanticisms appearing in Auden*a Modernistic*

Oerebral Terse#

An example of a mysterious* Romantic passage in an

early Auden poem is the ending of "In Praise of Limestone•"

The lines follewi

• • . Dear* I know nothing of Bither, but when I try to imagine a faultless love

Or the life to coia©, what I hear is the asurmur Of underground streams, what I see is a limestone landscape

The tone here, as in most of the poem* is pessimistic. The

beginning of the poem even suggests a laok of faith In

Mother Nature1s regard for her offspring, though her seeming

car© is also indicated. It might be noted hero that an

ambivalent "view of nature is sometimes expressed in nineteenth"

century Romantic poetry.

% . H. Auden* A Seleot.lon by the Author (London* 1958)* p. 131.

79

The ton© in the linos quoted remain# consistent with,

the whole poem, but a sense of mystery is evoked which adds

richness to the poem, In the last lino two metaphorical

images are employed vhioh represent the abstraction#, love

and immortality. The associative meaning of these lines is

enhanced by the direct sensual use of hear. and seo« The

mysterious quality of human love is imaged concretely as

the purity of underground streams Ia favorite image of

Coleridge and Shelley), which human beings can never really

see. They can only hear the murmur of such a distant

purity* Auden seems to suggest here the mystery and wonder

which Btight be contemplated concerning pure love. Under-

ground etreams may suggest also the rare psychological

insight vhich exemplifies purity of heart, but often only

"murmurs" to consciousness•

the limestone lands cap© seeias to suggest a landscape

which is vast and indefinite like the indefiniteness ef the

life to come» Th© word l1iaiesf8Mt.g seems to refer symbolloally

to a constancy In nature which is lacking in human beings.

The point to be made concerning these lines is that there is

a Romantic richness implicit vhich lends power to the poem,

suggesting multiple meanings as well as single meanings•

Aaden frequently uses human love as a central theme, and

his poems often end, like the above poem, in some comparison

to love. "Law like Love" is an example. The final quatrain

follows i

so

Like 1 ov© w don't know -where or titoy Like love w© can't comp©! or fly Like love ** often weep o

Like love we seldom keep.*-

The poem is concerned with the meaning of the abstraction

lav in human life, Numerous definitions of lav are put

forth, all biased ones which confuse the issue. The poet

then offers the comparison of another abstraction, lore,

as a wfcy to define the elusive thing called lav. The

implication of this final verse is that the meaning of

these terms is too various to be pinned down; human

eajierienco is the witness to a hint of meaning in these

words now and then, Auden seems to say, but love Is mostly

unpredictable fend too undependable an experience to define

perfectly. The suggestion that human beings merely touch

the surfr.ee of love calls forth nostalgic wonder of what

is so often aliased. Love calls forth wonder, oven though

the humanizing "we" in the lines naturally points to

limitations.

Another theme that recura in many of Auden's poems is

the tragedy of the repression of the heart, the drying up

of life-giving emotional springs in man. This is a Romantic

trait, an obvious emphasis on "feeling," The attitude

probably derives in part from B» H« Lawrence, a modern

Romantic, <ind from modern psychology, Wordsworth's influence

seems obvious here, too; this expression is especially notable

H, Auden, A Selection by the Author, p, 77,

81

in his sonnet, "The World Is Too Much With Us." An example

Qf Auden1 s expression of this idea appears in "A fro# Ons" t

The song, the varied action of th® blood Would drown the -warning from the iron wood Would cancel the inertia of the buried* » .

And, similarly in "Walks,"

The heart, afraid to leave her shell, Besi&nds a hundred yards as wo11 Between my personal abode }

And either sort of publio road. , .

Again, in "Precious Five," modern man's reluotanoo to

commit his heart is illustratedt

. , , this undisciplined And concert-going age* So lacking in conviction

Zt cannot take pure fiction. . » .-5

The latter two lines of the last selection might even

be taken as a rebuff to our modern "age of criticism*w More

reliance on imagination (fiction) is suggested as a healthful

antidote to a eonfused age. This emphasis on fantasy or

imagination seems to be a Romantic quality* A similar

expression appears in "Three Breams," where Auden seems to

be reoorasiending the possibilities of the lighter and freer

side of man in a serious and repressed ages

3aichard Boggart, editor, V» H, Auden. A Selection (London, 1961), p. 80.

**Ibid*. p. 163.

5w. H. Auden, A Selection by the Author, p. 1^8.

82

Bending forward With stern faces, Pilgrims pwff Up tlb® steep bank In huge hats.

Shouting I run In the other direction. Cheerful, unohaato, With open shirt And tinkling guitar* **

The ending of one of Auden' s best knovn poeras, ttIn

Memory of ¥. B, Yeats," is somewhat Romantic. The poea is

for the most part somber and realistic, but the last three

verses seem to ring forth Romantic optimism!

Follow, poet, follow right To the bottom of the night, With your unconatraining voice Still persuade us to re^oicef

With the farming of a Terse Make a vineyard of the curse, Sing of human nnsuccess In a rapture of distress j

In the deserts of the heart Let the healing fountain start, In the prison of his days Teach the free man how to praise.?

The "unconetraining voice" of the poet refers probably to

Yeats's spontaneous. Romantic bursts of poetry whioh are a

constant source of joy. In the following verse a pastoral

image compares the healing aspects of Yeats's poetry with

order in nature—»or man's ordering and bettering his situation

through nature. The rapture of Yeats*s poetry contribute#

% « H* Auden, A SelectIon by the Author, p. 128.

7"Ibid., p. 6?*

@3

joy and a sens® of order to life in spit® of the distress

which prompts it#

The last quatrain makes use of qualities already

mentioned. Water, a favorite symbol of Wordsworth* Coleridge,

and Shelley, again represents the source of healing and

purification, as it often does in Auden's poetry. Also,

the "deserts of the heart" need healing so that man's

emotional life might become more expressive.

Another quality which might be called Romantic is

represented by some latter lines in "Precious Five":

That singular command I do not understand, gi£&SL tel. .ffiksfcl M. im> MM&*

Which has to be obeyed. . 7°

This affirmation is voiced often by Auden, and it soems to

eoho a thought in the following climactic lines from

Coleridge' s "Ancient Mariner" i 0 Happy living things f no tongue Their beauty might declarei A spring of love gushed from my

heart,

And I blessed them unaware. * *9

Of course the act of the mariner blessing the water-snakes

is connected to the theme of spiritual renewal which pervades

the poems but the expression, "0 Happy living things 1" is

suggestive of the sense of affirmation Auden declares in

% . H. Auden, A Selection b£ £he Author, p. 151.

9fifoyes, p . 3 9 6 .

8%

"Bless what there is for being#" this same line of Auden*s

is similar in attitude to some of Blake's poetry* On©

example is the last line of HA Seng of Liberty,'1 which reads,

My©r every thing that lives is H o l y . A n o t h e r example is

from the last verse of "The Divine Image"t

And all must love the human form. In heathen, turk, or jewj Where Mercy, Love & Pity dwell There G-od is dwelling toO.H

Auden writes too of the need for spiritual renewal in

man. There is perhaps no Romantic connection heret but the

following lines from the last part of for the Tim# Bairns

compare to a call for renewal similar to the impulse within

the Wedding Guest in Coleridge's "Ancient MarinerMJ

* . « Once again As in previous years we have seen the actual Vision

and failed To do more than entertain it as an agreeable Possibility* once again we have sent Him away,

Begging though to remain His disobedient servant# »

A familiar Romantic subject, childhood innooence~~the

purity of the childTs imagination, which is seen especially

in Blake and in Wordsworth1 a Lucy poems-"*seems evident in

the following selection from Auden1s lyric, "0 who can ever

praise enough"t

l°Hoyes, p. 216.

11Ibid., p. 202.

-*-2W. II. Auden, The Collected Poetry of W, H. Auden (New York, 19^5), P* ~

85

0 who oan ever praise enough. The world of M s belief? Harum-scarum childhood plays In the lae&dows rm&r his hosa©,

In his woods love knows no wrong* . .*3

Another Romantic theme is sonetimes expressed in Auden1 a

poetry. The following line from lew Year Letter exemplifies

this thought t

• * « Becoming and Being are the same

Auden oclebrates the idea that man is never complete, that

he is continually in a state of change, hardly ever in a

state of being. Romanticism is an orientation in which

experimentation and dynamic change play recur. There is an

example of this ftxpression in Shelley's Quae en Hab* Yet, human Spirit, bravely held thy

course. Let virtue teach thee firmly to

pursue The gradual paths of an aspiring

change. » .15

Recurring patches of what might bo termed "Byronic

cynicism" are to be found in Auden1s poetry. For example#

Byron's sympathetic treatment of young love in Don Juan

and the seemingly inevitable negative aftermath of passion

which follows is similar to the way in which Auden often

treats the subject of love. Auden' s s,0n© Evening" is full

13Aud*n, C.ollect.ed Poetry, p. 226.

*^Hoggart, ¥» g. Auden. A Selection, p. 17%,

^^Thooas tlutchinsdn, editor, The Complete Poetical Works S£. Shelley (London, 1927), p. 789.

86

of images forecasting disappointment toward the lover's

Attitude in the poera* Tw© verses are sufficient to show

this li»e Of treatmenti

"In the "burrows of the Nightmare . Where Justice naked is. Time watches from the shadow

And coughs when you would kiss.

"In headaches and in worry Vaguely life leaks away.

And Time will have his fancy Tomorrow or to-day» . . .16

Another theme of Auden's, tfhioh has been mentioned, is

that of the "double-minded" man, the division within man

•which sets hi® at odds with himself# Auden sometimes

oontrasts the innocence of animals with this division in

man* This kind of treatment possibly derives from Bl&ke.

An example is Auden1 s poem, "Their Lonely Betters'1!

As I listened from a beach-chair in the shade To all the noises that my garden made. It seemed to me only proper that words Should be withheld from vegetables and birds.

A robin with no Christian name ran through The Robin-Anthem which was all it knew. And rustling flowers for some third party waited To say which pairst if any, should get mated*

Not one of them was capable of lying, There was not one which knew that it was dying Or could have with a rhythm or a rhyme Assumed responsibility for time.

Lot them leave language to their lonely betters Who oount s#m© days and long for certain letters! We, too, make noises when w© laugh or weep, Words are for these with promises to keep.17

^^Auden, A Selection by the Author, p. 33*

i^Hoggart, W. H. Auden. A Selection* p. I83.

87

This poem also lias tnuoh in common with Shelley's "To a

Skylark" and Keats*s "Ode to a Nightingale.M It is

suggestive too of Hardy's "The Darkling Thrush." Auden1s

contrast of animal and human life is, however, oast in

more obviously moral terns,

One of the poems of those Auden ealls "Bucolics" ends

with a special demand for natural beauty. "Woods" is

perhaps suggestive of Vordsworth and the American Remantio,

Henry David Thoreau * Th© lines follow*

A small grove massacred to the last ash. An oak with heart-rot, give away th© showi This great society is going smash} They cannot fool us with how fast they go, How much they cost each other and the gods I A culture is no better than its woods.*"

finally, an example of Auden"$ fine lyrical verse

should be given to illustrate his simple, forceful wmagi©M

in poetry. The moral play in "Lay your sleeping head, my

love" even enhances the overall affirmation of the ooom.

The first verse is sufficient to illustrate this:

Lay your sleeping head, my love, Human on my faithless armj Time and fevers burn away Individual beauty from Thoughtful children, and the grave Proves the child ephemerali But in my arms till break of day Let the living creature lie, Mortal, guilty, but to mm The entirely beautiful.19

Auden, A gelection by the Author* p. 16**,

1 9 S M « » p. 35«

CONCLUSION

In conclusion it may fee observed that while Romantic

poetry appears to have declined sine® the Modernistic trend

began in the early twentieth century, such poetry has not

been absent completely. The literary revolution of the early

twentieth century has had far-reaching effects in poetic

taste| still, the spirit of Romanticism is pervasive in

some oontemporary poetry.

tf* H, Auden represents an important example of a

twentle th-oentury poet who has developed hi® style and

technique under the Influence of traditional and modernistic

ideas. Though Auden*s poetic stance is a modern one, he

is an interesting example of a contemporary writer whose

fascination for Romanticism is reflected in his work.

Audenr like other important contemporaries, may later

be viewed as a transitional writer between two major

trends in literature# Like Congreve, writing during the

clash of ideas in a changing period and keeping pace with

both., Auden has synthesized effectively elements of two

major trends.

Auden's contribution suggests that perhaps the

modernistic trend is not necessarily antithetical to

Romanticism. His poetic approach seems to indicate the

inadequacies of literary labels such as "Fcosaaritic" and

88

89

"Clasaio," ©accept when these tanas are used to describe

traits of individual •writers.

Auden'3 work suggests too that Romanticism is more

than a temporary movement in literary history or the

history of ideas• Romanticism may represent a continual

response in the thought of »an, in spite of what literary

fashions seem to dictate from time to tine• This idea,

though by no means new, has been expressed succinctly in

a recent book, The Romantic Bnllghtment t

• • • Th® ruptures and divisions in modern conscious** n«ss *hich often oontinue to be associated vith nineteenth-century Romanticism were just as charac-teristics of the eighteenth century, although differently expressed. Romanticism and Enlighten* raent must be seen together not merely as negations of each other, nor as dialectiaal opposites, nor as cause and effect in time, but, metaphorically speaking, as ego and alt@r ego in the same nerson&litjr classically defined by Pascal. As the Romantic com-posers adored Gluck's operas, Voltaire, Hume, Kant, and Rousseau (the great enlighten®**®) direotly con-, tributed to the emergence of ,f fee ling81 a® a genuine alternative to explanation.

XClive, og>. cit.. p, 20.

APPENMX

Hi© following poesas ©xeatplify some Semantic charac«»

teristics In the work of the poets discussed in Chapter IV»

Walter d© la Mare

A WIDOW'S WEEDS

A poor old Widow in her weeds Sowed her garden with wild-flower seedsf Hot too shallow, and not too deep, And down oasis Apr il«—drip—drip—drip, Up shone May, like gold, and soon Green &.s tin arbour grew leafy June* And now fell susmer shd sits and sews Where willow-herb, comfrey, bugloss blows, Teasel and tansy, meadowsweet, Caaipion, toadflax, and rough hawksbit} Brown bee orchis, and Feals of Bellsj Clover, burnet, and thyme she smellsi Like Oberon's meadows her garden is Browsy from dawn till dusk with bees. Weeps she never, but sometimes sighs, And peeps at her garden with bright brown ©yes| And all she hfts is all she needs— A poor aid Widow in her weeds.

A, E. Hausiaaii

WITH RUE MY HEART 13 LA0BJ?

With rue my heart is laden For golden friends I had,

for many a rose*»lipt aiaiden And many a lightfoot lad.

By brooks too broad for leaping The lightfoot boys are laid)

The rose-lipt girls are sleeping In fields whey© roses fade.

90

91

William Butlor Yeats

STEVER G O T ALL THE HEART

Never give all the heart, for lore Will hardly seem worth thinking of To passionate women if it seem Certain, and they never dream That it fades out from kiss to kiss; for everything that's lovely is But a brief, dreamy, Kind delight* 0 t;ever give the heart ontright, for they, for all smooth lips oan say, Have given their hearts up to the play. Arid who could play it wo 11 enough If deaf end dumb and blind with love? He that made this knows all the cost* For he gave all his heart and lost.

Dylan Thomas

IE MY CHAFF OK 3ULLEH ART

In ray craft or sullen art '> Exercised in the still night r-When only the moon rages And the lovers lie abed With all their griefs in their arm*,r 1 labour by singing light >> Not for ambition or bread <. Or the strut and trade of charae >.< On the ivory stages '• But for the oommon wages •' Of their most secret heart, t>.

Mot for the proud man apart *. Fro:® the raging moon I write I-On thes® spindrift pages * lor for the towering dead u With their nightingales and psalms-e But for the lovers, their arms ;:

Round the griefs of the ages, c. Who pay no praise or wages " "or heed my craft or art * n

92

Stephen Spender

THE VASE OF TEARS

Tears pouring from the face of 3tone, Aug#Is from the heart, unhappinoss From a owe dream to yourself alone— Lot dry your eyes with these kisses* I pour Khat comfort of cotoaionplaces I cant faint light upon your light alone» And then we siaother with caresses Beth our starved needs to atone.

Cold fac© creased with human tears• Yet Something in w& tender and delicate Reads in those oyes an ocean of green water And one by one these bitter drops collects Into ay heart, a glass va ;e which reflects The world' s grief weeping in its daughter.

Cecil Day Lewis

COME, LWU tflTH ME AjfB BE MY LOVE

Come, livo with me and be my love, And will all the pleasures prove Of peace and plenty, bed and board, That chance employment may afford•

2*11 handle dainties on the docks And thou shalt read of summer frocksj At evening by the sour canals Vo111 hope to hear some madrigals*

Car<ss &n thy maiden brow shall pat A wreath of wrinkles, and thy foot Bo shod with pain; not silken dress Bat toil shall tire thy loveliness *

Hunger shall asaks thy modest zone And ohefl t f ond death of all but bone-»~ If these delights thy mind may move, Ihen lire with tae and be my love,

93

Robert frost

PSXXXt THE POET

Seeds in a dry pod, tick* tick* tick* Tick, tick, tick, like sites In a quarrel-faint iajabios th«it tlx® full breeze wakens <*» But tii® pin© tree makes a symphony thereof , "Triolets, villajselles, rondels, rondeaus, Ballades by the score with the same old thought! The s notes and the roses of yesterday are vanished^ And -what is love but a rose that fades? Life all around me her© in the Tillage t Tragedy, comedy* valor a»d truth, Courage, constancy, heroisaa# failure—* All in the loom* and oh what patterns I Woodlands, meadows* streams and rivers— Blind to all of it all ay life long* Triolets, villanelles, roiidels, rondeaus# Seeds in a dry pad* tick, tiek* tick, Tiok* tick, tiek, what little ianbies. While H®«©r and 'Whitman roared in the pines?

Sdna St* Vincent Millay

SOflSST XIV

Hl» not the golden fang of furious heaven* Nor whirling Aeolus on his awful vh«*l» Nor faggp specter raiming the swift keel, Nor flood* nor earthquake, nor the red tongue even Of fire, disaster's d0g***iiin, hist bereaven Of all save the heart* s knocking, and to feol The air upon his fac©i not the great keel Of headless For©# into the dust was driven# These sunken eities, tier on tier* bespeak How ever from the ashes with proud beak And shining feathers did the Phoenix rise, And sail, and send the vulture from the skies* . . That in the end returned) for Man was weak Before the unkindness in his brother's eyes#

91*

Elinor Wylie

LAVISH KXHDNES5

Indulgent giants burned to crisp Hi® oak-treea of a dozen shires Adorning thus a will~o'-th«-irisp With momentary pomp of fires#

til# waters of an inland sea Were »agi«Je«d to a mountain peak Enabling dwindled pools to be Cool to fc single swallow's beak*

But whether prodigies of waste* Or idle* or benefieetit. Such deeds ar® not performed in haste And none has fathomed their intent#

£,, 1# €J«w«ings

THE MOON 13 HIJ3I» IN

the moon is hiding in her hair* the lily of heaven full of all dreams,, draws down*

cover her briefness in singing elos© her with intricate- faint birds by daisies arid twilights Beepen her» Reolfce upon her flesh the rain's

pearls singly-whispering.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books

Arnheim, Rudolf artel others, ff.QjO.fcs.. &£, ISSS» Y o r k* Haroourti Brftce and Coapftny, 19^8.

Auden, W. H., Th# golleMM Poetry a£ ¥. H. &M8M.* N«* Y o r k* Random House, 1 9 ^

Random .* & & aw»;?.« gfeB& fiM S i t e Hona®, 1962.

Heir York,

» H Selection by the Author. London, Penguin .." u,r.»»ngj«£ r, £ Tj 1958 ,

Auden, ¥« H. and Baiches* David, ,;The Anglo-American Differences Two Views," %fa». Anchor. KeviftW. No. 1, edited by Kelvin J, LaskyTKev York, Anchor Books, 1955.

B&rxuit* Jacques, Ol gjsie* Romantic »»j| Mydyrn, Mew York, Anchor Books, 19617

, editor, l*he Selected Letters of h m & Byron* Nev York, Farrar, Straws and Young* Xnc.» 1953*

Bayley, John, The Romantic Survival., London, Constable and Co., L t d , * 195?%

Beach, Joseph W&rrera, Making #£ J^g. S&iM, £**&&> Minneapolis, University of Minnesota- Press, 195? •

Brook®, Cleanth, "Implications of an Organic Theory of Poetry,11 Literature, and Belief, edited by M, BU Abrams, M@w York, Colwi^bia U n i v e r s i t y Press, 1958*

B u t t l e * Myra, The Sw»»nl»d. lew York, Sagamore Press, 1957*

Campa, A* L,, "Manane. is Today," Southwestturners ffrite* edited by T. M* Pearce and-A. P. Thoatason, Albuquerque, University of .New Mexico Press# 19&6U

Clive, Geoffrey, the Rowantio Enlightenment* Meridian Books, Ino., I960.

95

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