W. H. Auden
W. H. Auden
Wystan Hugh Audenwas an English poet, who later became an American citizen. He is best known for love poems such as "Funeral Blues," poems on political and social themes such as "September 1, 1939" and "The Shield of Achilles," poems on cultural and psychological themes such as The Age of Anxiety, and poems on religious themes such as "For the Time Being" and "Horae Canonicae." He was born in York, grew up in and near Birmingham in a professional middle-class...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth21 February 1907
W. H. Auden quotes about
hope food cooking
A poet's hope: to be, like some valley cheese, local, but prized elsewhere.
reason
Those who will not reason, perish in the act. Those who will not act, perish for that reason.
inspirational funny helping-others
We are all here on earth to help others; what on earth the others are here for I don't know.
music art thinking
A verbal art like poetry is reflective; it stops to think. Music is immediate, it goes on to become.
responsibility machines bills
There are bills to be paid, machines to keep in repair, Irregular verbs to learn, the Time Being to redeem From insignificance.
parades ends novel
There are not many English novels which deserve to be called great: Parade's End is one of them.
insane world facts
A person incapable of imaging another world than given to him by his senses would be subhuman, and a person who identifies his imaginary world with the world of sensory fact has become insane.
responsibility aristocracy poetic
Every American poet feels that the whole responsibility for contemporary poetry has fallen upon his shoulders, that he is a literary aristocracy of one.