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Early Auden, Later Auden Early Auden, Later Auden A Critical Biography Edward Mendelson Pri n c eton U n i v e r si t y Pre s s Pri n c eton a n d Ox f ord Copyright © 1981, 1999, 2017 by Edward Mendelson This book includes the complete text of the work originally published in two volumes as Early Auden (copyright © 1981 by Edward Mendelson) and Later Auden (copyright © 1999 by Edward Mendelson), revised, expanded, and corrected for this edition. “Postscript: His Secret Life” first appeared in different form as “The Secret Auden,” New York Review of Books, March 20, 2014. Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work should be sent to Permissions, Princeton University Press Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540 In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 6 Oxford Street, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TR press.princeton.edu Cover images: (Top) Private Collection / Bridgeman Images. (Bottom): Courtesy of dpa Picture Alliance / Alamy Stock Photo Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reprint copyrighted material: The Estate of W. H. Auden: All previously unpublished writings of W. H. Auden appearing in this volume are used by permission. Copyright © 1981, 1999, 2016 by the Executors of the Estate of W. H. Auden. The Britten Estate: Quotation from Benjamin Britten’s diary. Copyright © 1981 by the Executors of the Britten Estate. James Nisbet & Co. Ltd.: Selections from The Changing Face of England by Anthony Collett. Random House, Inc.: Selections from Selected Poems of W. H. Auden edited by Edward Mendelson. This selection copyright © 1979 by Edward Mendelson, William Meredith, and Monroe K. Spears, Executors of the Estate of W. H. Auden. All Rights Reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Mendelson, Edward, author. Title: Early Auden, later Auden : a critical biography / Edward Mendelson ; preface by Edward Mendelson. Description: Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016034080 | ISBN 9780691172491 (paperback : acid-free paper) Subjects: LCSH: Auden, W. H. (Wystan Hugh), 1907–1973—Criticism and interpretation. | BISAC: BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Literary. | LITERARY CRITICISM / Poetry. Classification: LCC PR6001.U4 Z7584 2017 | DDC 821/.912 [B]—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016034080 British Library Cataloging- in- Publication Data is available This book has been composed in Minion Pro Printed on acid- free paper. ∞ Printed in the United States of America 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 Early Auden was dedicated to Barry and Valerie Bloomfield Later Auden was dedicated to Cheryl Mendelson Contents Preface to the One- Volume Edition ix Early Auden Introduction to Early Auden 3 PART ONE: THE BORDER AND THE GROUP (August 1927–May 1933) I The Exiled Word 15 II The Watershed 36 III Family Ghosts 53 IV The Evolutionary Defile 69 V Trickster and Tribe 86 VI Private Places 115 VII Looking for Land 132 PART TWO: THE TWO WORLDS (June 1933–January 1939) VIII Lucky This Point 151 IX The Great Divide 167 X The Insufficient Touch 196 XI Their Indifferent Redeemer 220 XII Parables of Action: 1 236 XIII Parables of Action: 2 257 XIV History to the Defeated 277 XV From This Island 297 Epilogue 325 viii Contents Later Auden Introduction to Later Auden 329 PART ONE: VISION AND AFTER (1939–1947) I Demon or Gift 339 II The Vision Enters 363 III Against the Devourer 389 IV Investigating the Crime 418 V It without Image 448 VI Imaginary Saints 471 VII The Absconded Vision 495 VIII The Murderous Birth 522 IX Asking for Neighborhood 557 PART TWO: THE FLESH WE ARE (1948–1957) X The Murmurs of the Body 589 XI Waiting for a City 615 XII The Great Quell 638 XIII Number or Face 664 XIV The Altering Storm 690 PART THREE: TERRITORIAL (1958–1973) XV Poet of the Encirclement 715 XVI The Air Changes 735 XVII This Time Final 755 XVIII The Concluding Carnival 783 Postscript His Secret Life 809 Notes and Index Reference Notes 821 Index 877 Preface to the One- Volume Edition Preface This book is a history and interpretation of W. H. Auden’s life and work. It reprints, with revisions, two books published eighteen years apart, Early Auden (1981) and Later Auden (1999). I have appended a postscript, revised from an essay I wrote in 2014 about Auden’s inner life. In revising the two books, I have added material that came to light since they appeared and have made minor adjustments and amendments through- out. I have trimmed some repetition between the two books, but I have not tried to reconcile their differences in tone and approach; each is still designed to be read as a self-c ontained narrative if a reader prefers. Early Auden was a young critic’s book about a young poet, Later Auden an older critic’s book about an older poet, and the tone of each still seems suitable to its subject matter. If I were to rewrite the two books today, they would be even more admiring of their subject than they already are. Auden had mixed feelings about biographical accounts of his life. This book records (in Later Auden, chapter 17) the many essays and reviews in which he claimed always to oppose biographies of writers, yet found a reason to make a special exception, he said, in that one essay only, and it notes the many essays in which he wrote detailed accounts of his life, either explicitly or lightly disguised in a way that made the autobiography unmistakable—as in his account of a “Vision of Agape,” which he describes as an excerpt “from an unpublished account for the authenticity of which I can vouch,” expecting his readers to know that only the person who experienced a vision can attest to having had it. He also took the trouble to write autobiographical records that he knew would be made public at some future time. For a young linguist whom he had befriended, Peter H. Salus, he marked a copy of his first book of poems with the initials of the lovers and friends who were the subject of some of the poems. For an academic critic of his work, Monroe K. Spears, he identified an anonymous contribution he made to an obscure magazine. In each case, he knew perfectly well that academics can be counted on to pre- serve historical documents for posterity. Auden divided his 1966 Collected Shorter Poems into four sections, each representing what he described in his foreword as a “chapter in my life.” His first two sections, dated 1927–32 and 1933–38, correspond to the two parts of Early Auden. The last two sections, dated 1939–47, when he was living in
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