Write an essay on Auden as an anti-romantic poet.

Critics argue that all modern poetry including Auden’s is essentially Romantic. Do you agree with this view? If not, give reasons for your viewpoint.

Do you agree with the view that many of Auden’s views about the practice of poetry were reactions against Romanticism? Give a reasoned reply.

Can you agree with John G. Blair who calls Auden “The Anti Romantic Modern ?” Give reasons for your argument.

Do you agree with the view that Auden is basically all anti-Romantic poet.

Ans.

Auden-Modern in Tone and Temperament

Auden is not only a modern in terms of chronology, he is a modern in terms of his tone and temperament as well. When we read his poems we are struck by their modernity. His poems are unmistakably post-Victorian. Take for example the following nursery-rime limerick. “The aesthetic point of view” in which he speaks about death:

As the poets have mourn fully sung

Death takes the innocent young,

The roiling in money

The screamingly funny,

And those who are very well hung.

When we put these lines against Gray’s lines about death, the difference in tone becomes at once apparent. Gray in his famous “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” writing about death remarks:

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power

And all that beauty, all that wealth e’er gave,

Awaits alike th’ inevitable hour,

The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

Auden is obviously frivolous while Gray is in great earnest. These lines of Auden, however, reveal much more than mere modernity of the attitude of this modern pod of the thirties. These lines, in the words of John G. Blair, reveal “a tension central to Auden’s mode, a tension between moral seriousness and the inescapable amorality of poetic artifice. The poem has a serious moral implication, hut its admonition to those inclined to overvalue the aesthetic point of view is embedded in a form and style that do not even nod in the direction of serious moral contemplation.”

The Influence of Eliot

Auden was not an innovator; he was a second generation modern who inherited much from Eliot, the first generation modern. Even during his Oxford days he was a disciple of Eliot, who had by then acquired international fame as a true modern. He absorbed the theories of Eliot and took the principles further than his mentor. For the understanding of Auden as a modern we have to understand Eliot’s theories. For this purpose we can divide Eliot’s conception of poetry into three parts:

1.The problem of Tradition: Here we have to study Eliot’s conception of the poet and his relation to the body of existing poetry.

2. The problem of Personality: Under this head we have to study Eliot’s conception of the relation of the poet as a man to his poem as aesthetic creation.

3. The problem of Communication: Under this head we have to study the relation of the poem to the audience.

In terms of personality, tradition as well as communication Eliot is out and out a modern-an anti-romantic modern. Eliot revolted against the dominant poetic tradition of the nineteenth century which was basically romantic in tone and temperament. Instead of favouring self-generating originality, he put faith in orientation to the poetic tradition: instead of putting faith in inspiration (as Romantics did) he put faith in conscious craftsmanship. Auden’s attitude towards these things is still more anti-romantic than Eliot’s. Eliot’s disliked the tendency of critics to praise poets for those “aspects” of their work in which they least resembled others. He insisted on the consciousness of relationship of the new work to the existing literature. Auden was also keen to put himself in the poetic tradition.

Emphasis on Tradition

Auden laid great emphasis on tradition, lie consciously imitated the earlier poets However, he did not imitate or allude to the Metaphysical poets, and the Romantic poets. Excepting these two, Auden has imitated most other poets. John G. Blair writes that excepting these two major groups, Auden’s “imagination moves freely over the entire scope of English poetry, appropriating whatever it finds useful. He can paraphrase the Anglo-Saxon Battle of Maldon’, or turn a meter of Tennyson’s to a new use with equal felicity. He is equally adept at complex traditional forms like the sestina and simple fluid forms like the clerihew and the ballad. In addition, the knowledge of the poetic tradition exhibited in Auden’s reviews and anthologies is imposing. In every case of close parallelism between Auden poem and an earlier piece, he is almost certainly conscious of the precedent.”

Auden-No blind follower of Tradition

However, we must remember that Auden used his borrowings in making new things out of things borrowed. He is able to select allusions which will reinforce his own point of view or his dominant mood. Auden’s attitude towards tradition can be summed up in his own words. In an article published in the Kenyon Review he wrote: “In poetry as in life, to lead one’s own life means to relive the lives of one’s parents and, through them, of all one’s ancestors; the duty of the present is neither to copy nor to deny the past but to resurrect it. To a great extent Auden was able to bring about the rebirth of the past. While Eliot fell back on French and Italian sources, Auden went back to his Icelandic family background. It was this that led him to study Germanic literature. The Icelandic sagas had a tremendous influence on Auden. In 1928 Auden went to Germany where he saw the plays of Bertolt Brecht being staged. The plays of Brecht made a great impact on Auden when he came to write his plays. He also found Dante a source of constant inspiration. But his orientation was mainly Germanic.

Attitude about Impersonality in Poetry

The other attitude of Eliot, regarding impersonality, was also picked up by Auden. Eliot wrote: “Poetry is not turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality. Auden also expressed himself in similar terms when he said: “…the subject of a poem was only a peg on which to bang the poetry. A poet was a kind of chemist whom mixed his poems out of words, whilst remaining detached from his own feelings. Feelings and emotional experiences were only the occasion which precipitated into his mind the idea of a poem.” Auden believed in the impersonality of the poet. In 1954 he wrote: “Poetry demands that the poet piously submit his precious personality to impersonal limitations. Hence we cannot agree with Joseph Warren Beach when he says that Auden’s poems like “In Memory of W. B. Yeats” and “1 September, 1939” are “earnest, direct and manly” expressions of the personality of the poet. In none of the poem can we be sure that it is Auden who is himself speaking.