A Study On Auden’s Thought Development Course And His Poetic Writing

Wystan Hugh Auden was a very important poet in British and American poetic circles in the 20 th century. It is generally acknowledged that his thought has experienced three stages of change in his career of poetic writing, among which the first one is mainly the psychological thought, the second one the left-leaning political thought, and the third one the Christian thought. With such critical methods as the new historicism, cultural study and psychological analysis, this thesis analyzes the main content, the root, and the reason for change concerning Auden’s thoughts in different periods. This thesis also expounds such problems as the contradiction, the connection and the continuity among Auden’s three main thoughts. On this basis, with abundant text analysis, this thesis discusses the specific manifestation of Auden’s thoughts in his works and the effect of Auden’s thoughts upon his poetic writing in different periods.This thesis mainly falls into five chapters. The first two chapters explore Auden’s diversified thoughts as well as their relationship, and the rest three chapters elaborate the relationship between Auden’s three thoughts and his poetic writing. To be specific, the first chapter expounds the concrete content and change process of Auden’s three main thoughts. Influenced by Freud, Groddeck, Homer Lane, Layard, and Jung, Auden formed his diagnostic view of art, regarding the art of poetry as a tool to observe human nature and a prescription to cure human heart. His political thought originated from the turbulent political situation in the 1930 s, in which he chose to observe the social reality on the side of the proletariat. He was profoundly influenced by Marx’s labor theory of value, theory of surplus value, and historical materialism, understanding the ugliness behind the bourgeoisie and expecting the communism’s saving the world. His Christian thought was rooted in his church family, and in his childhood he always obeyed his mother’s religious guidance, until in his adolescence when he knew a large number of scientific theories. Then he began to throw doubt upon religion and claimed to give up his original belief. However, at the end of the 1930 s when he started to study Kierkegaard’s Christian existentialism theory, he gradually understood the real implication of Christianity, and then renewed his church service attendance, acknowledging his return to Christian belief.The second chapter studies the two important characteristics concerning Auden’s three thoughts: blending and continuity. The blending is embodied in the three thoughts’ overlap and fusion in spite of their entire difference. Auden’s overall view of the world changes from Christianity to psychological analysis, to left-leaning politics and finally again to Christianity, which is a process of inheritance and accumulation. These thoughts are all based on Auden’s original intention to save man and the world. The continuity is reflected in the fact that the three thoughts exert a continuous lifetime influence on his writing despite their distinct stages. Psychology gives Auden the sense of mission to cure human heart and the scientific method of psychological analysis; Marxism teaches Auden an objective, historical and dialectical way of thinking; Christianity makes Auden pay close attention to love and show solicitude for man. All these three aspects are integrated into Auden’s thought of writing and are embodied in different stages of his poetic writing.The third chapter analyzes the relationship between Auden’s psychological thought and his poetic writing, and discusses the influence of Auden’s psychological thought on the contents of Auden’s poetic writing from the perspective of the sick personality, the shadow of death, self-dilemma, and the cure of love. Meanwhile, the writer points out that Auden’s psychological thought also influences the form of Auden’s poetic writing, and expounds it from two aspects: allegorical writing and poetic style.The fourth chapter discusses the influence of Auden’s left-leaning political thought on his poetic writing, and elaborates how he showed through his works his standpoint of left wing and his criticism against the bourgeoisie as well as his call for proletarian struggle. Meanwhile, in his works he also expressed his high attention to social problems, and made an attempt to call on the people to fight against injustice and tyranny and to conduct social reform through his poetry. This chapter also analyzes the influence of Auden’s left-leaning political thought on the form of his poetic writing from the perspective of eagles’ horizon and speech style.The fifth chapter expounds the manifestation of Christian thought in Auden’s poetic writing. We can find that his Christian belief is both pious and rational through the study of the poetry in his later years. His piety is embodied when he expressed his trust and respect in the Light of God through a lot of writings of ode and prayer and metaphors of religion, and he was rational because he had his own unique religious idea, and he praised religion mainly because he intended to realize his salvation belief of “loving one’s neighbour as oneself”.Based on the discussion above, this thesis draws the conclusion that there exist intersection and connection among Auden’s three thoughts, and these thoughts exert a profound lifelong influence on Auden. The greatest effect of the psychological thought upon Auden’s poetic writing lies in his diagnostic view of art, thinking that human beings’ sick soul can be cured with the help of the art of poetry; the effect of the left-leaning political thought lies in the fact that it makes Auden keep a watchful eye on the realistic society persistently, and learn to treat social problems objectively, dialectically, and rationally, and propose social reform; the effect of his Christian belief lies in the fact that it makes Auden believe firmly that “loving one’s neighbour as oneself” is man’s mission since he is born, and only when human beings are bathed in God’s halo can they obtain the habitat for their soul and acquire the placid paradise for their spirit, so as to live strongly and quietly in the desolate world.