W. H. Auden: Tell Me the Truth About Love

Biographic Notes

Wystan Hugh Auden (1907-1973) was born in York, England. He moved to Birmingham during childhood and was educated at Christ Church, Oxford. At Oxford his precocity as a poet was immediately apparent, and he formed lifelong friendships with two fellow writers, Stephen Spender and Christopher Isherwood.

As a young man, he traveled through Germany, Iceland, and China, served in the Spanish Civil war and in 1939 moved to the United States, where he met his lover, Chester Kallman, and became an American citizen. A prolific writer, Auden was also a noted playwright, librettist, editor, and essayist. Considered by some to be the greatest English poet of the twentieth century, his work has exerted a major influence on succeeding generations of poets on both sides of the Atlantic.

Dark Night of the Soul

In 1952, Auden and his life-long companion moved to an apartment at 77 St. Marks Place in New York’s East Village. It was, more or less, Auden’s permanent home for the rest of his life. During the initial years, Auden lived, however ambivalently, actively engaged in social and political interests, as well as enjoying his status as an internationally renowned poet. In his later years, Auden became increasingly withdrawn and lonely.

This was profoundly reflected in his writings, through which he deliberately attempted to discard much of his own public dignity, a significant sign that indicated the painful depth of his feelings of personal isolation. Many of his last poems spoke to, rather than about, silent objects and people who were either absent or dead. Ruminations about “night” (the darkness and ending of one’s day/life) dominated his writings in 1972, and particularly in his poem Lullaby that was addressed to himself. In that poem, writing about sleep was framed by the language of finality: “Let your last thinks all be thanks,” anticipating a time of final endings, completions and a state surpassing all feelings of resentment.

On another note, Auden’s life-long anxieties about his seemingly paradoxical wishes to maintain a clear sense of autonomy, versus his strong needs for attachment, were perhaps no more clearly presented than in his book of poems, About the House, inspired by various rooms in his home. Writing about groups of people visiting in the “living room”, Auden’s thoughts turned to the impact of the size of such rooms upon the internal experiences of psychological boundaries versus a lack of boundaries.

If the room was too small, he believed that, “…people can’t forget at will that they’re not alone.” In other words, they can’t remember that while together (or part of a “we”), they are also alone, instead drowning in a sense of enmeshment, lack of personal identity, autonomy and achievement.

At another extreme, if the room was too large, it would encourage people to engage in ever-more strong efforts to make contact with each other, with intensively forceful attempts to achieve a sense of attachment, along with heightened wishes and strivings for nurturing dependency.

Near the very end of his life, Auden’s poem entitled Loneliness purported to convey his prediction that his intense feelings of solitude would be relieved on the following day, when his companion, Chester Kallman, was to return. In fact, the poem only addresses in the first person his own terrifying image of Loneliness itself, the “Gate-crashing ghost, aggressive / invisible visitor.”

Concluding this brief commentary, we return to Auden’s feelings of the dark night of his soul as the end of life approached, best captured in his poem entitled Lullaby

Lullaby

First stanza
W. H. Auden (1907-1973)

Lay your sleeping head, my love,
Human on my faithless arm;
Time and fevers burn away
Individual beauty from
Thoughtful children, and the grave
Proves the child ephemeral:
But in my arms till break of day
Let the living creature lie,
Mortal, guilty, but to me
The entirely beautiful.

Kenneth Granham Reads W. H. Auden’s Lullaby

W. H. Auden: Tell Me the Truth About Love

Tell Me the Truth About Love is a BBC documentary film looking at the poetry of W. H. Auden, revealing how it came not just from inspiration but from a rigorous personal analysis of love itself. When he died in 1973, he left behind some of the greatest love poems of the 20th century. Most of his unpublished material was destroyed, apart from two short journals and a series of jottings, containing diagrams and notes about the nature of love.

W. H. Auden: Tell Me the Truth About Love

Photo-Gallery: W. H. Auden Through the Years

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Samuel L. Jackson: “Wake The F**k Up!” And Vote Obama (NSFW)

Academy Award Nominee Samuel L. Jackson, with his booming voice and imposing presence, was the perfect choice to  record last year’s audiobook version of the bestselling children’s book for adults, Go the F**k to Sleep!.

In a new, unconventional ad for President Barack Obama that hit the internet on Thursday, Jackson improvises on that title in his political video, Wake the F**k Up!. Have you been thinking about just sitting out this election, or maybe even considering voting for Romney just for the hell of it? You may want to think twice about that!

Jackson may appear out of nowhere to give you a profanity-laced nursery rhyme about the dangers of voting Republican this November. In this video, Jackson magically shows up in the homes of seniors, young people and other disaffected voters to exhort them with his very salty language to start paying attention. Disparaging Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney in rhyming verses, Jackson says:

“Sorry, my friends, but there’s no time to snore.
An out-of-touch millionaire has just declared war.
On schools, the environment, unions, fair pay.
We’re all on our own if Romney has his way.
And he’s against safety nets, if you fall, tough luck.
So I strongly suggest that you wake the f**k up.”

The video was sponsored by the Jewish Council on Education and Research.

Samuel L. Jackson: “Wake The F**k Up!” And Vote Obama (NSFW)

A Charming Little Bedtime Story: Go the F**k to Sleep!!

Go the F**K To Sleep is a wonderful little book by Adam Mansbach, probably the best children’s story since the classic Goodnight Moon. The story only gets better here, when it’s read by Hollywood favorite Samuel L. Jackson, who says in the introduction that in his own experience reading stories to put kids to sleep just doesn’t work. Jackson said he used to say “Go the f**k to sleep!” to his own daughter when she was growing up. He says, at some point, she would look at me when I would come in her room, and she’d say, “Go the f**k to sleep, Daddy?” And I’d say, “Yeah, go the f**k to sleep!“

A Charming Little Bedtime Story: Go the F**k to Sleep!!

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