Talk:W. H. Auden/Archive 2

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That Mann woman

Do you really believe that Erica was a more important person in his life than Michael Yates? Or that "Lullaby", the poem inspired by Yates, is essentially about aging?! I prefer my Auden with warts. Haiduc 18:17, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

The entry is correct as it stands; Erika was the only woman he married, and their marriage is listed in all encyclopedias and similar references, and requires explanation not to be misunderstood. There's a lot about their relation in Charles Miller's memoir, worth reading. You'll see that there's now a link to Michael Yates on the page, in a guaranteed neutral-point-of-view, verifiable, indisputable position, just as requested. Macspaunday 18:20, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

I can't find anything that says the poem is about "aging"? It says it's about the fragility and transience of personal love. That's exactly what it's about (not my opinion: see the standard authoritative sources; Fuller, et al.). Macspaunday 18:23, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Again, the balance of this entry is based as closely as humanly possible on the extensive printed sources. Journalistic and online sources are highly selective, with the special emphases that are standard to journalism, and Wikipedia standards (like those of any encyclopedia) are different from journalistic standards. There are a dozen of Auden's lifelong interests that go almost unmentioned here, for the sake of maintaining Wikipedia standards of balance and consistency. Macspaunday 18:41, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Here: "His last books of verse, Epistle to a Godson (1972) and the unfinished Thank You, Fog (1974) contain reflective poems about language ("Natural Linguistics") and about his own aging ("A New Year Greeting", "Talking to Myself", "Lullaby")" [emphasis mine]. Haiduc 18:53, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Ah! That's an entirely different "Lullaby"! I lazily assumed that any reader of Auden would know the difference between the early and late ones (because the two poems appear in entirely different books), but it was of course was a mistake on my part to leave in the possible ambiguity. Will clarify! Thank you, thank you!!! Macspaunday 18:57, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

And I've also changed the title for the later one to the title by which the poem is more commonly known, "A Lullaby"; it appeared under both titles, but recent editions seem to use the later title in order to distinguish this from the earlier poem. Thank you again. It might have taken months to catch this... This is the sort of correction that an editor is delighted to be able to make. Macspaunday 19:01, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps we should mention the first, the better to draw the distinction. Actually, I wonder now whether Auden meant the second poem as a closing parenthesis to the first, seeing that both were associated with Yates - one by address and the other by dedication. Haiduc 19:06, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps you actually haven't seen the second poem; it is absolutely not dedicated to Yates in any way whatever; it is one of twenty poems (many of them with separate dedications) in a book that is dedicated to Michael and Marny Yates. In the same way, the poems without separate dedications in his book About the House are not dedicated to the dedicatees of the book, Edmund and Elena Wilson; the poems without separate dedictions in his book Nones are not dedicated to the dedicatees of the book, Reinhold and Ursula Niebuhr; similarly with every other book; etc. etc. A quick glance at any of the actual books would have clarified this in a few seconds. This poem is no more "associated with Yates" than any of the other undedicated poems in the volume, such as the poems about archaeology, motorcars, chromosomes, English fog, and philosophical idealism. Macspaunday 19:11, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

To say that this poem was "dedicated to Yates" would be as ridiculous and absurd as saying that all the poems without separate dedications in Auden's Collected Shorter Poems 1927-1957 were dedicated to the dedicatees of the book, Christopher Isherwood and Chester Kallman. Or that all the poems in Another Time that have no separate dedications were dedicated to the book's dedicatee Chester Kallman, even though almost all of them were written before he met Kallman. I'm very glad to have had the chance to clarify this! Thank you again. Macspaunday 19:13, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Just to add another word of appreciation: This was a very valuable reminder to me about the need for the most precise clarity when providing information online to readers who may not easy access to the printed sources. The words that I originally wrote were entirely accurate, but they could be taken by a reader to imply something that is completely and demonstrably inaccurate - as in the old game of "telephone" where the original statement gets completely transformed by repetition. Will continue to work on this entry to avoid exactly this possibility (and in fields where I am not expert, to take extra steps to avoid drawing inaccurate inferences from accurate statements). Macspaunday 19:22, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

And to anticipate a question about the matching titles, even though the contents are completely unrelated: Auden repeatedly used the same title for entirely different and unrelated poems: "Nocturne" and "Aubade" are similar examples of titles used more than once without any connection between the poems, not to mention a dozen poems titled "Song". Macspaunday 19:36, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Just found two more examples of Auden using the same title twice for unrelated poems: "The Question" and "A Toast". Macspaunday 19:40, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

While we are busily appreciating each other I thought it fitting to compliment you on catching the fact that I have not even seen the second poem (along with much else of Auden's opus). It would be a wonder if I had any degree of expertise in any of the topics I have edited here. But I am beginning to familiarize myself with this topic, as it pertains to the culture of same-sex love that had its roots in the pedagogic Victorian pederasty (can a greater conflict in terms be imagined?) of the previous century. That is why it is not surprising to me that Auden should have fallen in love with a pupil, nor that he should have addressed love poems to him. The tradition of Uranian poetry was still strong, and from what I gather (you'll be sure to know whether it is true or not) Auden had some admiration for E. E. Bradford, a prolific poetaster of the genre. And I think that we need to be cautious, especially now on the brink of his centenary, that we not leave ourselves open to charges of cleansing his biography for the more comfortable perusal of the crowd. Which is what inspires my humble suggestion that we at least mention Yates in the article - his slighted ghost haunts us at every turn of the paragraph. Haiduc 19:58, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Ah - if (as you say) you're mostly unfamiliar with Auden, you may find that he will surprise you when you get to know him better, and that his attitudes are more complex and deep than the journalism may suggest. -- As you see, I thought again about your point about Erika Mann, and realized that the way to treat this correctly was not to throw in a half-dozen other relationships, but to move the reference to Erika Mann from a place in the page where it doesn't belong to a place where it makes sense in context (Isherwood was unwilling to marry her; Auden rushed in to rescue her with a passport).

About "addressing" love poems: it is certainly true that Auden did address love poems to some of the people in his life (notably Chester Kallman) in the sense that he both wrote the poems and put the poems into the hands of the person they were addressed to. But there are many other love poems, written at all stages of his career, that he never showed to the person about whom he was thinking when he began writing them - though, as he himself said in his "Squares and Oblongs" essay, he may not have been thinking about them when actually writing the poems, because, he said, if a love poem is any good, then the poet was not thinking about the beloved when he wrote it; if a love poem is incompetent poetry, then the poet may have been thinking about the beloved. But the quality of the poem is proof that the poet was thinking about the poem and not another person. This is one of the points that my phrasing tries to take into account, and which is part of the way in which I've tried to write an entry that emphasizes the special qualities that make Auden worth having an entry about in the first place.

About names that "haunt" the page - this reminds me that the page still doesn't mention some of the people Auden publicly and privately said had transformed his whole life in ways that had a more profound effect than any erotic relationship or non-erotic friendship, and whose importance would have been obvious even if he had never mentioned it explicitly. I just fixed the most obvious and egregious omission - Charles Williams - and will think hard about adding one or two more. Once again, your comments have helped to make it possible for me to try to make this page more accurate, balanced, consistent, neutral, verifiable, and otherwise up to Wikipedia standards. Macspaunday 21:39, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

About Bradford: Auden apparently thought of him as an unintentionally comic figure, whom he quoted (among friends) for laughs. If I find a source for this I'll let you know, but right now it must be treated as unsourced and unreliable and not Wikipedia-worthy. Macspaunday 22:01, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Notes and References

There has been a lot of work done on the page recently and it is getting to be a pretty good article. But to get any Wikipedia recognition, it needs in-line citations. I may add a few as I have time, but it needs a citation for every claim it makes.--Paul 17:06, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for the good words on the recent work, and for the hint about inline references. I've followed your example and converted a couple; will get to the rest soon, but I hope I can find a citation format for complex titles like the Auden Studies series, which have two editors. This shouldn't be hard to find. Thank you again. Macspaunday 21:25, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Take a look at this: Wikipedia:Citation templates. Use of the templates is not required, but I find them helpful. For instance, it is easy to add co-authors. Of course, you can also freely format the references if you wish.--Paul 00:15, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

That is exactly what I needed; many thanks for that link. Until today I've been rolling my own references, but a standard format makes things easier - and one of those examples is ideal for multiple-author works. I've begun to think that this is perhaps a reasonably well-done page (and I've taken into account that Wikipedia honors editors who cut excess material as much as it honors those who add), and I've been working hard on getting the balance right. The raw material was a bit of a challenge to work with, as you know. Thanks again for your help and encouragement. Macspaunday 03:55, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks again to Paul.h - I'm inserting a link below that can be used for easily bulding a book cite reference (the pub date needs to be filled in by hand, and the author's name needs to be broken up, but otherwise this gets the job done).

(Ctrl-click)">Book citation reference builder

Another tool:

(Ctrl-click)">Makeref web page

Thanks again. Macspaunday 16:09, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Have tried to add citations for all quotations and a few general statements; will continue to add more. Thank you again for prompting me to get to work on this aspect of the entry. Macspaunday 17:06, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Back to the missing Michael Yates

I am sorry, but now that I have let some time lapse and I come back to read the article from beginning to end I cannot help being struck by the insertion of a plethora of minor characters and details, contrasted to the glaring omission of a person with whom he spent two entire summer vacations, who was deeply important to him in his emotional and artistic life, and who featured in his social life for forty three years, until practically his last days. And in exchange we are treated to the names of casual roommates, apocryphal street addresses and punctilious details of his father's professional duties. This makes no sense. Haiduc 17:49, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Once again - that's an excellent point about the street address, by which I think you mean "Middagh Street" (which isn't apocryphal at all, but it certainly was obscure). I've now tried to clarify the importance of that shared house, which has had an entire book written about it (plus a series of poems by Paul Muldoon titled "7 Middagh Street", and a play, and a few other things). About important events and persons in Auden's life, I am constantly reworking this page in an attempt to get the emphasis right. Auden had a remarkably full life - spending summer vacations and long stretches of winter with quite a few people who were also the themes of many poems and who aren't included in what is intended as a encyclopedia entry. (John Thompson, the original of "Malin" in The Age of Anxiety is one glaring example; an even more glaring one is James Stern; also Margaret Gardiner and Anne Fremantle, with active connections extending from 1927 or 28 until Auden's death.) But I will certainly continue to work on this. The goal, it seems to me, is to make this page worthy of Wikipedia standards, which means getting the balance right. Please pay another visit in a day or two, and I'll see what improvements I can continue to make. Macspaunday 18:20, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

In mentioning people such as Thompson and Stern, I should of course emphasize that I'm quite confident that the balance of the page as it stands is quite good, and I don't think anyone who is reasonably expert on Auden and his works would have any serious dispute about the shape and balance of the entry. Macspaunday 18:38, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Later: once again, your comment has been exceptionally valuable, in ways that you may not have anticipated, but that's part of the beauty of Wikipedia. Your reference to "summer vacations" reminded me that Auden not only spent multiple summers with James Stern but he even bought a summer house together with Stern and that they owned it together - also that Stern was the recipient of more letters than Auden seems to have written to anyone else over the course of his life, and that the title poem of Auden's last book, Thank You, Fog, pays tribute to their friendship, and was even written in James Stern's winter home. Talk about relevance... Still, I think the way to handle this is to expand the James Stern page to describe their relation at length, as I've already been doing on other pages devoted to people in Auden's life. So thank you again for this - as the information I'm describing is fully documented only in printed sources, and isn't widely available online. Fortunately, I've now got essentially all the time in the world to continue to refine these pages, and am enjoying the whole procedure enormously. Macspaunday 19:23, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Also, that Auden and Stern collaborated for many years - in one of those collaborations that Auden had in mind when he wrote that collaboration had brought him "more erotic joy" than any sexual relationship had ever brought him. Thank you again for a comment that reminded me of all this. (Stern deserves a much more detailed treatment than I've given him, not only because he was so central to so many years of Auden's life and work, but also because he was important on his own, and in his relations with other major writers. What could I have been thinking of?) Macspaunday 19:57, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

And after more thought, I realize that your comment on "summer vacations" was absolutely useful in reminding me of James Stern, and helping me to confirm that my overall approach to this page is the right one, and that it guarantees a Wikipedia-worthy, verifiable, neutral-point-of-view entry. Thank you again. Macspaunday 23:07, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Glad to be of service, as always. I may pop in from time to time with my monomaniacal use of the "Yatesean bed" as measuring rod for striking out any details of less than passing interest. Haiduc 00:40, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Always welcome - and, if you've looked at the history of the page, you'll see that I've already taken the opportunity to remove some less-than-encyclopedia-worthy material. (Amazing how many things look less important in the cold light of the following week.) There's some more to trim, but I'll get to that tomorrow. Then off to expand other entries that at the moment look (in contrast) underdeveloped. By the way, you mentioned Uranian poetry in an earlier message - I assume you've looked at D'Arch Smith's book on the subject, which still seems to me to be the most knowledgeable (and perhaps still the only real historical study of the subject). Macspaunday 01:00, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. My dalliance with the Uranians is at the very beginning. Both D'Arch Smith and Kaylor are on my "to read" list. I am slowly making my way from Cory et Cie. Quite a complex character, and seemingly the mastermind of that epoch. Haiduc 02:01, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Just glanced at the Uranian Poetry entry, and I see there's a huge kerfluffle about the origin of the word "Uranian". I'm merely guessing, and have no direct knowledge of the 19th-century sources, but surely the word refers to the "Uranian Venus", meaning ideal love rather than merely physical love, and associated with the Venus born of Uranus (not from a woman). Every educated person in the UK at that time would have recognized the allusion to this idea in the "Symposium". (Not a Wikipedia-worthy point; just an assumption, but I would be astonished if it were mistaken.) Macspaunday 03:18, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Without a doubt. I have not worked on that piece extensively, but I am sure that once everything is properly cited things will work out. Haiduc 03:40, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Notes to self: sources needed

Having added many passages on this page, I now see that I need to provide sources for some quotations. The following is a list of notes to myself about passages that need citations, and where to find the citations, that I'll pare down as the citations get addded:

Rookhope as "sacred landscape" - from 1970s lecture to Phila. Psychoanalytic Society - done

Alter ego - letter to A. E. Dodds, quoted in biographies; marriage and honeymoon - letters to brother, quoted in biographies. - done

Sainthood of Charles Williams - Modern Canterbury Pilgrims essay - done

childish - quote from Bonhoeffer

If equal affection - cite poem - done

the only subject - letter to James Stern in Auden Studies 3 - done

dishonest poems - Preface to Collected Shorter Poems - done

family ghosts - cite poem - done

change of heart - cite poem - done

anarchist leg-pull - Edition of Plays - done and corrected

sacred importance - cite Protestant Mystics essay - done

Macspaunday 02:55, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Made a start on these... Macspaunday 23:56, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

And more... Macspaunday 02:47, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

One more... Macspaunday 14:46, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Two more... Macspaunday 14:51, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

A note on balance

This entry is now very carefully and, I hope, intelligently balanced in its coverage of Auden's life and work.

The page covers both his literary work and his private and public life, but focuses on his work, which is the reason he deserves an encyclopedia entry. The coverage of his life briefly describes the two most important personal relationships in his life, which are also (unsurprisingly) the ones that had the greatest effect on his work. His many other personal relations are not specifically described, but can be easily traced through the list of dedications near the foot of the page.

In applying this kind of balance, I have tried to avoid what might be called Irresponsible Editing, the kind of editing that produces the kind of imbalance that occurs on many existing pages elsewhere. By this I mean editing in which one particular facet of an artist's life is added to a page, leading to a situation where all other facets of a similar kind would need to be added also in order to avoid giving excess emphasis to only one; and when these other facets get added also, the result is that the artist's work gets a diminished percentage of the page in comparison with massive details about particular aspects of the life.

The goal here is to preserve a neutral point of view; a sensible balance that is consistent with the scholarly, historical, and biographical consensus; fully verifiable information; and with the central purpose of Wikipedia, which is to provide an encyclopedia, not a substitute for the detailed research that is distilled and concentrated into the form of an encyclopedia entry. Macspaunday 20:48, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

I should add that the paragraphs above build on (and partly summarize) this (Ctrl-click)">earlier discussion, and this (Ctrl-click)">additional discussion, of exactly the same point. In both cases the outcome of the discussion was to confirm the principles affirmed in the paragraphs above. Macspaunday 14:15, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

While I largely concur with your view, I am generally wary of a common tendency to cosmeticize articles so as to obscure a source of joy for many notable personages, namely their love affairs with boys. As Kaylor aptly points out in his work, "current scholarship employs four strategies that blatantly attempt to quell any meaningful consideration of ‘the paederastic’, strategies that attempt to forestall a ‘Uranian approach’: scholarship engages in absolute avoidance of this form of love, intimacy, and/or eroticism; claims its anachronism; heightens its ‘homosocial’ aspects; or disguises it as 'homosexual’." (Kaylor, 2006, p.xxvi) (Ctrl-click)">[1]

In Auden's case, his erotic attraction to boys is both reflective of his social milieu (Isherwood, Britten, etc.) and reflected in his work and his relationships. Even his love for Kallman has pederastic overtones, as is abundantly clear. So, while we all exercise editorial discretion, I cannot escape the conclusion that discretion here has manifested as a studious avoidance of this aspect of his experience. The omission is especially glaring in the discussion of his trip to Iceland. You make it seem as if he and MacNeice were prompted to visit by his desire to do a travel book. However, by Yates in his own account, it is crystal clear that it was Auden's excitement at hearing that he, Yates, was going to Iceland on a school trip that prompted Auden's decision to make the journey. The current phrasing is frankly misleading.

Now I would not at all be surprised to see you decide to remove that whole incident, on the grounds of its relative unimportance in the great man's life, and if you do I will not make a fuss. But if you don't, I think that it would be very responsible editing to put a word in there about this not trivial aspect of his life history. Haiduc 16:53, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Welcome back! I've looked at that sentence about Iceland, and have looked back at the very extensive documentation of Auden's Iceland visit, and I think the sentence is accurate as it stands, and that any attempt to define a single motive for his visit would be wildly and extravagantly distorting. Auden was of course deeply fascinated by Iceland from early childhood, and accepted his father's belief that he was of Icelandic descent; also, you probably know about his saturation in the Icelandic-saga world, the many paraphrases from the Icelandic sagas in his early work, and, in his later life, his many translations (including a whole book) of the Icelandic poetry that he loved as child. And, of course, as soon as he made plans to visit Iceland, he arranged with his publishers to write the book about it that he had always planned to write someday. The immediate prompting to do something is not necessarily the central or even most important reason for doing it, and, furthermore, as you know, Auden spent something like four times as much time traveling entirely alone in Iceland than he spent in the company of anyone else - which confirms the general points about his interest in Iceland that I made in the preceding sentences. Auden's connection with Iceland (and his two visits there - there was another in the 1960s, which might perhaps be worth mentioning also) make up an enormously rich and complex subject that affects his work and thought throughout his life, and perhaps the whole subject is worthy of a separate page on Wikipedia. But, as you can see from the work I've done on this page over the past few months, I've tried very hard indeed not to let any one aspect of Auden's work - even one as central and pervasive as Iceland - get an emphasis that would upset the very carefully maintained balance of the page.

The paragraph above is only a limited and highly selective summary of the arguments I could make on behalf of the balance of the page, but I hope it gives some idea of the thinking behind it, and the seriousness with which I've tried to keep to Wikipedia standards and maintain the balance of the page, even when I am tempted to emphasize matters that I am strongly interested in.

I glanced at your vast list of Wikipedia contributions, and I see that you have many irons in many fires, so I won't burden you with a lengthy statement of views (which I think you would agree with anyway). Suffice to say that I think there are many (entirely non-judgmental) ways of thinking about these issues (some of them apparently not widely discussed in the often heated arguments that seem to flare up with dismaying frequency), and that I'm reluctant to make what I am convinced is the mistake of favoring any one of them; also that, in general, in my editing as, I hope, in everything else, I've worked on the assumption that what is important between two persons is their generosity of feeling, not the identity or category of either of the two persons involved. But that is getting very, very far away from the question of how to edit a Wikipedia page. Perhaps we can return to these questions in a few months' time; and, meanwhile, I assure you (on the assumption that you will Assume Good Faith, as the Wikipedia guidelines put it) that I will continue to give them the most serious and sympathetic thought. Macspaunday 20:14, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Reading your comments I am persuaded that we see eye to eye more often than not. But minor differences remain, and in the context of this article they are not insignificant. I am absolutely in agreement with you that generosity of feeling (what an accurate and generous way to put it!) is the main point. But in building an encyclopedia we contend with its scholarly apparatus, and parse our articles accordingly - this one already has over twenty categories attached. However, I deviate.

More to the point, allow me to indicate an inconsistency in your argument. You assert - and I absolutely agree - that "any attempt to define a single motive for his visit would be wildly and extravagantly distorting." But then you commit that very crime by arbitrarily declaring that he traveled to Iceland "to gather material for a travel book." That may be an appropriate way to describe the event if we were writing Auden's résumé, but he is no longer seeking employment and this article ostensibly does not limit itself to his working life but includes all aspects. Yates leaves no room for doubt. As soon as he told Auden about the school trip, Auden "became excited," jumped into action, wrote his publisher, got the funds for a journey, wrote Yates to let him know he had pulled it off, timed it to match the school trip, joined the boys on their travels, and at the end kept Yates with him for another couple of weeks after the other boys and the master went home. As Yates says (as I am sure you know all too well) "this is the origin of the visit." Now I don't want to press the point any further, and do not want to split hairs on the difference between origin and purpose. Our actions have many purposes, but clearly what fired this particular enterprise was Auden's excitement at the thought of sharing his love of Iceland with Yates.

I think you err in shielding Auden from this facet of his existence. From everything I have seen, his relations with Yates were exemplary, and do him credit. Their love is an exceptional chapter in the life of an exceptional man. Auden himself seems to have seen it as an emotional high point. Certainly there is no room in such a short article for a paragraph on it, but not even a sentence, or a mention? I think you are selling Auden short. Haiduc 14:46, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Once again, you have prompted me to see something that belonged on the page, and I've added a "Translations" section to the bibliography, which includes an entry for his 1969 volume of translations from ancient Icelandic poetry. I'll probably create a separate page about that book that will provide a place for a discussion of Auden's lifelong fascination with Iceland - one of the few themes that is absolutely constant in him from early childhood to his last years. Thank you again. Macspaunday 20:50, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Later: I've spent some time trying to get in a brief sentence that would exactly characterize Auden's lifelong fascination with Iceland, but I'm going to have to continue to work on limiting the number of words that I'm adding. There's already a reference to his use of the sagas in 1928 in the Work section, and that might be the right place to add this; that or in the family history section, because of his belief that he was of Icelandic descent. Will probably wait a day or two before finally adding something that might upset the balance if not done right. Macspaunday 21:28, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

In reply to Haiduc's reply above (LATER: see the paragraph below, which supersedes this one): you are quite right about my inconsistency, and I have now fixed the sentence so that it accurately summarizes Auden's three months in Iceland in a single phrase. And of course my phrase is based on what is known about Auden's lifelong interest in the subject and about the fully documented accounts of the time he spent alone in Iceland - by far the largest part of his visit. (It is remarkable how Auden's gift for friendship led many people to believe that they alone were the origin or cause of interests or events in his life that had been gestating long before Auden met them; I could cite a dozen similar instances, but, to say the least, that would upset the balance of the page!) About the other issues you raise, I will certainly continue to think about them, and I can assure you that every point that you raise is one that I have thought about with the greatest seriousness and intensity for a long time, and that my position is based on this extensive thought and on extensive study of Auden's life and work. My position is based on what I hope is a demonstrated knowledge of the subject and a demonstrated care and competence in editing this page (and, as evidence of my bona fides, you will note my recent reduction of an entirely different instance of imbalance). Perhaps we can return to the discussion in a few months' time, when one's views may of course change. Meanwhile, I will continue to scour the article for the kinds of the problems that you raised, and my warmest thanks again for prompting what I am certain are further improvements in this article. Macspaunday 15:19, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Later - have already thought about it, and added a phrase about "unequal in either age or intelligence" which accurately describes his important relations at the time. Auden had another well-documented love interest in his twenties, about which his feelings seem to have prompted him to write a vast amount of poetry (and in fact a whole book project - something that never happened with anyone else), and the object was someone his own age (I think a few months older), but of quite different intelligence - and this was part of what he was referring to in his use of the phrase "world of the alter ego"; it was a pattern that recurrred throughout the thirties. I think this phrasing is the ideal solution to these issues, accurate, verifiable, NPOV, and fully consistent with the ideals of Wikipedia and accuracy in general. I'm again grateful to you for prompting me to find a solution that I would not have arrived at otherwise, and I am very glad to have brought these issues into clear focus in this way. Once again, I salute you for your energy and persistence; we may differ on the question of what are the most just and effective means by which injustices can be undone, but I think you will agree with my guess that we entirely share the goal of undoing injustice by serving truth. Macspaunday 16:12, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Unequal

Besides my usual quibble, another one, perhaps minor. While your description of his love interests at the time seems evenhanded, I question their reduction to "sexual relations." These appear to have been love affairs, at least one of which progressed into life-long friendship. I think it is a distinction that needs to be made, lest the uninitiated think we are referring to trysts in a tea room. Perhaps at some point you will countenance naming one or two examples of such relationships - the burden is minimal and people will want to know. But that is a different matter. Haiduc 16:58, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, will fix that phrase to be emotionally accurate. Actually, there are quite a few names throughout Auden's life, but I've followed Wikipedia principles on the recording of sexual relations, and have tried to prevent the inevitable bloat that results when names start to multiply. To be continued, perhaps in a few months. Macspaunday 17:17, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I hope my edits have not altered your intended meaning. Haiduc 17:43, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Not at all; I think I want to mull over "courtship" which sounds a bit Victorian, but I'm not sure I can think of an alternative. Whatever I do won't change the meaning. Macspaunday 17:53, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Removing links

Just removing links is not a polite way forward, why not discuss them first? The link I added this morning by Katheraine Bucknell (Ctrl-click)">In Praise of a Guilty Genius, The Observer, 4 Feb 2007 is an excellent well-informed article about Auden. why remove it? without such justification the arrogant unilateral removal of good material begs revert, thanks Peter morrell 12:08, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Oops, please ignore that; the link is still there! It seemed to have disappeared earlier but it has reappeared; profuse apologies for any implied mortification, kind regards Peter morrell 12:28, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

That link was never removed - I simply reformatted the entry to conform to the recommended style. Possibly it didn't appear in your browser because the browser cache confused matters. The article in question is indeed an excellent one! Macspaunday 13:57, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

And I just noticed that in reformatting the link I used the name of the site (The Guardian) in place of the name of the newspaper (The Observer). It's fixed now. Macspaunday 14:00, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Audenesque poem

To celebrate his forthcoming birth centenary The Independent published this (Ctrl-click)">[2] long Audenesque poem which MIGHT be of interest to readers of this article. It dates from December 2006. Certainly of interest to fans of his poetry. regards Peter morrell 21:26, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps you might want to suggest this link to the Auden Society web site, which has a much more extensive page of links than I tend to think would be suitable here. My own tentative feeling about this one is: not really suitable to an encyclopedia entry unless we're also prepared to include about fifty to a hundred Audenesque poems written between 1935 and 2007, and fill the bottom half of the page with links to poems that sound more or less like Auden. There were many such things a few years ago when the last "Night Mail" train ended its run, and you can find plenty of examples with a simple blog search - some of them very entertaining, but not really encyclopedia-worthy, I think! Macspaunday 21:48, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Tolkien and Auden

This very long paragraph (by an editor identified only by an IP adderess) on Auden and Tolkien seems far too long in relation to an encyclopedia entry, and focuses on Tolkien, not Auden, although it is not quite accurate (see below), it is certainly worth preserving, and perhaps should be revised to be part of the Tolkien entry. Here it is:

Auden became close friends with the Oxford academic and fantasy writer J. R. R. Tolkien. Auden was an emphatic supporter of Tolkien's writings, beginning with Tolkien's The Hobbit (1937) and later his renowned epic The Lord of the Rings (1954-55), of which Auden remarked: "No fiction I have read, in the last five years, has given me more joy." Although they met very rarely in their lifetimes, their love of Old English connected them deeply and they corresponded through letters for many years. In 1971, two years before both men would pass away, Tolkien was asked about his friendship with Auden, to which Tolkien replied: "I am, however, very deeply in Auden's debt in recent years. His support of me and interest in my work has been one of my chief encouragements. He gave me very good reviews, notices and letters from the beginning when it was by no means a popular thing to do. He was, in fact, sneered at for it. I regard him as one of my great friends although we have so seldom met except through letters and gifts of his works."

This is not quite accurate: Auden had nothing to say about The Hobbit in 1937, or, indeed, at any time; his writings about Tolkien were entirely limited to the Lord of the Rings trilogy and some references to Tolkien's work on fairy tales. Macspaunday 00:13, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Honors etc

I've moved the following from the main article, because it's one of very many honors and titles that Auden had over the years; because he never actually did anything as a chancellor of the academy except let his name be used; and because the page would become enormously unbalanced if all of them were listed (as they would have to be, if this one remained). For the record, here is the removed sentence:

For nearly twenty years, from 1954 to 1973, Auden served as a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets.

The sentence was added by user Mintmonkey. - Macspaunday 02:04, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Point taken. However, I didn't include it as just an example of his many honors, but rather I thought it was interesting because it represented not only his acceptance into the American poetry community, but his esteemed position in the U.S. during his lifetime -- that he was seen as an American poet. But I defer to your judgment on the relevance. Mintmonkey 04:11, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

He certainly was accepted into American literary society - he was a member of both the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the National Institute of Arts and Letters, and quite a few similar institutions. But I'm glad you agree that the page should focus on his life and work, and the information is now here on the talk page for all to see.... Macspaunday 12:15, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Auden and the Congress for Cultural Freedom

I'm doing some research into the CCF right now and Auden's name comes up but so far not directly. Anyone know anything on this?
--Nemesis1981 23:08, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

He attended a few CCF meetings in New York, but was evidently bored by them, and had no day-to-day involvement at all. Probably the best source on the CCF is a book called "Who Paid the Piper" by Frances Stonor Saunders; it has more or less everything there is to be known. (I think the title was different in the US edition, but it was the same book.) Macspaunday 23:34, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

LGBT Project

151.202.101.244 13:48, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

(Project tag moved to top -- Yamara 12:17, 10 June 2007 (UTC))

Images of Auden's work

A note on the images recently added to this page. Poetry tends to be falsified by visual images, and Auden always preferred plain typographic treatment of his works. All the images recently added to this page (except for the single portrait at the top) are illustrations of Auden's work: a film still that he apparently directed; the cover of his first book; a manuscript; an example of his typographic preferences. Macspaunday 14:53, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Possible addition

(Ctrl-click)">This article may be helpful in expanding the page. HornetMike 15:00, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Have added a brief account of this, with a link to that story. Thank you. Despite the big press this story is getting, there is almost nothing in it - and what little there is in it is already in the standard biographies, in more detail. MI5 thought Auden might have had something to do with Burgess and Maclean's disappearance, and he didn't. Macspaunday 15:30, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

NEW TOPIC - TELL ME THE TRUTH ABOUT LOVE (roop1940 1115 5 March 2007)

Is there a competent editor out there who will say a kind word about "Tell Me the Truth About Love" ?

The poem’s title is given its own Wikipedia page in the name of an apparently very bad film, while a Wikipedia search fails completely to locate the poem.

There is clearly a high-minded point of view that would discourage an extension of this sort, represented by recent discussion finishing with "some of them very entertaining, but not really encyclopedia-worthy, I think! Macspaunday 21:48, 9 February 2007 (UTC)" (Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:W._H._Auden/Archive_2007").

Like “Funeral Blues”, which is linked out of the page, "Tell Me the Truth About Love" has a demotic appeal. Set to music by Benjamin Britten, it is probably the most enjoyable (certainly the most heard) of a group of cabaret songs quite frequently heard on the Third Programme / Radio 3. Such collaborations are of interest to your readers.

The poem can be readily found by Google – for instance at

http://www.geocities.com/infinitum_poetry/otellmethetruthaboutlove.html if a link is appropriate. I am not sure that that text is the same as for the song on the radio this morning – if my suspicion is correct, the song seems to be the longer of the two.

Have added the title of the poem, though a proper treatment would need a separate page for it. Perhaps you would care to create it? I don't think there is any high-minded reluctance to include that wonderful poem; Auden wrote so many good poems that it's impossible to include every one of them in an encyclopedia entry, but this one is certainly appropriate here, exactly as you said. Macspaunday 12:20, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

signature

What is it with these W'pedia articles which, early on and therefore in a prime part of the article, tell us that W H Auden signed his work as (wait for it) W H Auden? One assumes he adopted this (what seems to strike some as wildly eccentric) practice because it was his name. What would one expect him to sign as? Gladys Wainwright?

Wystan Auden's friend Stephen Spender usually signed his name "Stephen Spender", sometimes "S. H. Spender"; his friend Louis MacNeice signed his name "Louis MacNeice", very rarely "F. L. MacNeice"; his friend Cecil Day-Lewis sometimes used "C. Day-Lewis" sometimes "Cecil Day-Lewis"; Wystan Hugh Auden could have signed his name "Wystan Auden" or "Wystan Hugh Auden" or "Wystan H. Auden" (and he used some of these before he settled on W. H. Auden), so it's probably worth specifying which variety he actually used, though the sentence does look a bit tautological... Macspaunday 01:16, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Printed sources

It might be useful to say something explicit about the sources for recent edits to this entry. This is implicit in the entry, but it's worth putting it on record.

This entry is now based thoroughly on verifiable information in authoritative printed sources that are in turn based on original rather than second-hand research. These sources include: John Fuller's W. H. Auden: A Commentary; Edward Mendelson's Early Auden and Later Auden and his notes and introductions to the four volumes published so far of Auden's Complete Works; Humphrey Carpenter's W. H. Auden: A Life (still unsurpassed for depth of detail); Richard Davenport-Hines's Auden; many chapters of W. H. Auden: A Tribute, ed. by Stephen Spender; Thekla Clark's Wystan and Chester; the three volumes of Katherine Bucknell and Nicholas Jenkins's series of Auden Studies (all packed with useful information); and of course the Bloomfield-Mendelson Bibliography.

The Wikipedia guidelines emphasize that much material is not available online and that the best Wikipedia entries will often be based on printed sources. In Auden's case, this is certainly true. When I compare the quantity and quality of the material in these and other books with the quantity and quality of the information on Auden that is available online, it's clear that perhaps 99 percent of the significant information about Auden is only available in printed sources, that virtually all available online material is at best second- or third-hand, much of it produced by hurried journalists who seem to have glanced quickly at the printed material or at someone else's versions of the printed material.

A few noteworthy exceptions to this are the online pages about Auden at the Swarthmore College Library and some pages about Auden and the North (both of these are linked from the main page and also from the links page at the W. H. Auden Society site); these sites contain original research that is also available in print; the online versions are almost identical to the printed versions, and nothing is second-hand or unsourced.

The back issues of the W. H. Auden Society Newsletter posted at the Auden Society web site, also include original material. But for everything else, by far the most authoritative and extensive sources are available only in print. Macspaunday 22:56, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

The page is now fairly thoroughly annotated with printed sources. Macspaunday 00:19, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

GA hold

This article is excellent. I believe that it can easily be brought to GA and with just a little more work be brought to FA.

For the article to pass GA:

• The lead needs to be a standalone summary of the article per WP:LEAD.
• Integrate the information on "Auden's character" into relevant sections of the biography. A person isn't the same throughout his whole life and the three paragraphs in that section are quite distinct from each other. It is an odd kind of section to have.

Suggestions for further improvement:

• There are no pictures to use of Auden for the infobox that don't have writing on them? I'm not even sure that the "fair use" argument works, but I'm not an expert on that.
• All literary works should have publication dates after them the first time they are mentioned (it is a courtesy to the reader).
• Some things need to be explained more. There are some sentences that hold out the promise of great things and then leave the reader dangling:

• Ex: Do we know more about how Auden lost his faith?
• Ex: What was Auden's "vision of Agape"?

• Explain who Christopher Isherwood is the first time you mention him for the uninformed reader. This is true for all of the famous figures you mention. Assume readers only know writers at the level of Shakespeare (sadly).
• I would have a good copy editor give the article a once over. There are just a few tiny things here and there that bugged me as I was reading.
• I assume that you have chosen to divide the works chronologically because that makes more sense than doing so generically. If so, please try to provide the reader with a little more of a coherent narrative about what ties the works in the period together. I know that this is incredibly difficult, but it is necessary. Right now, the sections seem a bit like a prose list. Awadewit | talk 05:23, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Thank you very much indeed for these extremely apt and useful comments. I will try to make all these changes during the next few days or weeks. Macspaunday 11:08, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

I've now made all the changes in the text that you suggested, and I think they've all improved the article considerably. Many thanks again for all these very detailed points.

You're welcome. I enjoy reading such well-researched articles. Awadewit | talk 10:51, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

About the photo, however: this has been a very difficult problem. All photos taken of Auden as an adult are in copyright in the US (because they were made after 1923). The only photos of him that WP policy recognizes as fair use are on book covers or record album covers, and these all have writing on them. (For the WP template that covers fair-use of book covers, see the page linked to the author photo.) I got the idea of using a book cover from other pages about twentieth-century authors (for example, Louis MacNeice), and until some other solution comes up, or a photographer releases a portrait of Auden into the public domain, it seems to be the only possible solution. Macspaunday 15:12, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

The British Library lists a number of photographs of Auden by "Photographer Unknown" Presumably these are in the public domain, but the photos do not seem to be available on-line. There is a Library of Congress picture of Auden with Isherwood (which is used as the infobox photo in the Christopher Isherwood article, but I think Auden should have his own picture. --Paul 18:58, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Agreed: the joint portrait is inherently misleading and a single-author portrait is required. Unfortunately, "photographer unknown" doesn't mean "photograph out of copyright" because the photographer could always show up and (not very likely) sue for a million pounds damages. The book-cover solution is fairly widely used, and seems to be the safest. But I can still hope for something better. Macspaunday 23:01, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

If this is a common solution, that is what will have to be done. Unfortunate, though, for such a major writer. Awadewit | talk 10:51, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Fair Use image

The fair use rationale on the book cover is only relevant to use in an article about the book. This needs to be replaced with a different image. LARA♥LOVE 19:22, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Assuming this is corrrect (and I have no reason to doubt it), then there is no fair-use image of Auden at an age older than 15, so I've commented out the image of the book cover. The Van Vechten photo of Auden and isherwood in the Library of Congress collection is availalbe under fair use, but a photo of Auden and Isherwood together is a misleading and distorting image to illustrate an encyclopedia entry about Auden himself; and the Van Vechten estate asks that his photos not be cropped. So unless something else turns up, the best solution seems to be to do without any photo at all. Macspaunday 19:50, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

On second thought, since essentially the same use of a bookcover to illustrate other twentieth-century authors seem to be widespread at the moment, I've restored the picture until a better one comes along. Will continue to work on this. Macspaunday 16:12, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:DanceOfDeathProgramme.jpg

Image:DanceOfDeathProgramme.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot 05:34, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Full rationale has now been provided; this material is absolutely and unequivocally accepted as fair use in WP, as described in the link in the rationale itself. Macspaunday 13:16, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Importance

Reassessed as Top importance, per Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Release Version Criteria - subject is a must-have for a good encyclopedia. Xn4 21:23, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Title of the article

Why W. H. Auden and not Wystan Hugh Auden?--158.110.140.221 12:04, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

It's the name he invariably used for publication; compare the pages for T. S. Eliot, H. G. Wells and E. M. Forster, for example (or A. R. Ammons or R. K. Narayan, and many others). William Butler Yeats sometimes published under his full name, but his entry should probably be titled W. B. Yeats anyway. Macspaunday 12:48, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject Biography Assessment

The article may be improved by following theWikiProject Biography 11 easy steps to producing at least a B article. -- Yamara 11:59, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Certainly thorough enough to warrant GA status. For anything above that, be certain every paragraph has enough unique facts to warrant inline citations, then provide them. The article might well be A-class by Wikiproject Biography standards, even as it stands now. -- Yamara 12:17, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Let me ask your opinion. There is a note on general sources at the head of each large section; anything that is not specifically annotated may be found in two or more of those sources. I'm not sure that anything is gained by annotating a statement like "Auden was in Brussels in 1938" when that information can be found in all of the sources in the headnote. Do you think it makes sense to clutter every paragraph with sources for facts that are in every printed source? (Later: I've added these references in order to avoid ambiguity about sources; I think this is getting fairly close to an ideal Wikipedia page at this point.)

If, on reconsideration, you decide that the page deserves a hiigher rating, perhaps you might consider changing the one you gave earlier? (That seems to be the general thrust of your comments.) Thanks again for your advice on this. As you can see, a great deal of effort has gone into building and refining this page, but of course there's always room for improvement. Macspaunday 14:54, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Lately I've been a Biography gnome, finding and rating unrated biographies. I was startled to find Auden without any Biography tag at all! I usually don't rate any biography higher than a B without a review by other editors, though it certainly warrants a GA, at least.

I haven't seen the use you put sectional hatnotes to, in respect to citations, though maybe I've been hanging out at the wrong biographies. It certainly look efficient. If you submit the article for GA review, I'd support it-- though be warned that I may not be at my computer much over the next couple days. --Yamara 14:15, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Agreed that this article deserves a GA rating. I'd support its submission for GA. --Paul16:30, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Very grateful for the good words about this. The sectional headnotes are based on some other pages, but I can't remember exactly which one. I'll be travelling for the next few weeks, but will certainly want to submit this later on if no one else does so before then. Thanks again for the encouragement!Macspaunday 16:48, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

No one else seems to have submitted it for GA, so I have done so. --Paul 02:42, 9 July 2007 (UTC)