To oversimply quite severely, Auden in the 1930s was, like very many of his contemporaries, a committed anti-fascist and quite sympathetic to Marxism–attitudes that are reflected most famously in “Spain,” That’s how Hospitality House W. H. Auden was, throughout his career, very much a civic poet. As Auden saw it, there would be plenty of time for guilt and politics later, “But today the struggle”: Today the deliberate increase in the chances of death, The conscious acceptance of guilt in the necessary murder; To-day the expending of powers. Auden grew up in Birmingham, England and was known for his extraordinary intellect and wit. But she asked him, and he said, “Delighted,” like he’d helped out Dorothy Day. English poet, playwright, critic, and librettist Wystan Hugh Auden exerted a major influence on the poetry of the 20th century. Like Mandelbaum, and Louis Simpson, Auden knew better. Chorus: We must love one another or die Ross Altman presented this essay as the special guest at Uncle Ruthie’s Poetry Plus at Southern California Arbeter Ring/Workmen’s Circle on August 29, 2019. “September 1, 1939”. Part of Springer Nature. He arrived just in time to write about the beginning of World War II. © 2020 Springer Nature Switzerland AG. We are on the eve of an important day of his life—the 80th anniversary of his greatest poem, September 1, 1939. Who knows how many soldiers Take control of the means of news production. This attitudes, which grew more forceful over the course of the 1940s, seemed in Auden’s view part of an important doubtfulness toward the threatening force of state power and the ideologies that supported it. Ross Altman has a PhD in Modern Literature from SUNY-Binghamton, belongs to Local 47 (AFM), heads the Santa Monica Traditional Folk Music Club, writes for www.folkworks.org . To Auden the issue was more personal: “We are going to die anyway,” he finally realized, and thus the line was indefensible in his own aesthetic. When I see truth in front of me it has a terrible appearance.” Thus spake Mandelbaum, sitting on the bench. We must love one another or die “A Political Writer.” In, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26917-3_5, Palgrave Studies in Animals and Literature, Literature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0). Were saved by a poet? “We must love one another or die.” That is the line Lyndon Johnson used to end his famous campaign ad from 1964, in the race against Barry Goldwater. Our world in stupor lies; Of a low dishonest decade: Friendship and Verse: The Poetry of Marianne Moore and Elizabeth Bishop, A New Kind of Newspaper: Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. and “The People’s Voice”, The Little Man and the Big Clock: Two Crime Dramas and Totalitarian Theory in the Age of Anxiety, Reactions to the Rise of Abstract Expressionism, “The Preservation of Disunity: Confronting Pain in The Company She Keeps”, An Invented Life: The Harlem Brand Emblazoned on Stories of the Wild West, The City of Noir: A Performance of Fantasy and Reality in Three Films, The Noir City: A Performance of Fantasy and Reality in Three Films, Paul and Percival Goodman’s “Master Plan for Manhattan”, Tragedy and Politics in the Plays of Arthur Miller. American poet Louis Simpson had much the same attitude in a poem called “OK for Keats,” who “Should have known better” in equating beauty and truth, considering he had TB: “Keats said that truth is beauty—I say just the opposite. German troops take Polish civilians prisoner during their invasion of Poland in Sept. 1939. Auden had became a devout Christian, and could no longer condone murder, necessary or not. Two years later he wrote his most famous poem, which turns 80 years old this week. Auden was the greatest English/American poet of the 20th century, born February 21, 1907, and died September 29, 1973. He lived it like he wrote it Palgrave Studies in Animals and Literature. His friends warned the Spanish Republic, he was the worst driver they ever saw. He went to Spain in 1937, to drive an ambulance in the war. Then she looked at the piece of paper and couldn’t believe her eyes: Auden,” that begins with a reference to the Catholic Worker Dorothy Day: With his nicotine-stained fingers/he looked like an unmade bed Waves of anger and fear Two years later he wrote his most famous poem, which turns 80 years old this week. It saved her life, she remained his wife, he told his gay friends to do the like. Show an affirming flame. Eliot. This service is more advanced with JavaScript available, Literature and Meat Since 1900 Auden’s poem begins before the Holocaust, but even here, he’s no fool for Keats: I sit in one of the dives