| W. H. Auden is the greatest English poet born in the twentieth century. So far, littleresearch on Auden has been done in China. Since the western researches on him began inthe 1930s, there have been many disputes among critics on his different beliefs andstylistic transformations. During a career that spans two continents and several beliefs,Auden's poetry has altered not only its characters but also its loyalties from time to time. Isit British or American? Is it Freudian, Marxist, or Christian? Every new style of his poetrytends to challenge what we thought we knew about it before. Therefore, the thesis isdetermined to firstly reclassify Auden's literary career on the basis of his ideologicalchanges. Secondly, the thesis will do researches on his stylistic transformations and findout the relationship between his poetic style and his beliefs.In the introduction, the thesis will briefly introduce Auden's literary career and the currentresearches on him, with emphasis on critics' different attitudes toward his changes inbeliefs and their disputes on the artistic value of his poetry in different periods. It willsummarize different kinds of division of Auden's literary career that major critics havemade and then give a new kind of division based on his transformations in belief. Thethesis is fundamentally a stylistic study. Modern western stylistics, derived from modernlinguistics, usually studies a literary work through examining its linguistic features,including phonology, diction, syntax, and figures of speech. But the thesis holds that theseaspects only consist of the linguistic style of a writer. Synthesizing Chinese and westernapproaches of stylistic study, the thesis proposes a new concept of style—expressive style,adding imagery and authorial tone to linguistic style.Chapter One mainly focuses on Auden's poetic style between 1928 and 1932, and analyzesits relation to psychoanalysis. In this period, the dominant features of Auden's poetic styleare obscurity and aloofness. Although Auden was unsatisfied with the contemporaryEnglish society, being a part of it himself, he found no way out, except revealing anddiagnosing it in his poetry in an obscure language and from a distant perspective. Thus, inthe first period, poetry served as a release of his inner neurosis.Chapter Two mainly focuses on Auden's poetic style between 1933 and 1939, and analyzesits relation to Marxism and social democratic ideas. In this period, the dominant features ofAuden's poetic style are plainness, an emphasis on order and softened aloofness. The1930s was an uneasy decade. Facing with a coming world war, Auden used to put greathope on Marxism and accepted its view of seeing art as propaganda. In order to present thecurrent situation truly to common people, he began to adopt a plain style in his poetry.However, the Great Purge in the former Soviet Union finally made him lose heart in thefuture that Marxism had promised. Besides, the Franco-British appeasement broke Auden'sdemocratic allusion of social reform into pieces. Thus, his poetry written at the end of the1930s all bear a pessimistic tone.Chapter Three mainly focuses on Auden's poetic style between 1939 and 1941, andanalyzes its relation to existential Christianity. In this period, the dominant feature ofAuden's poetic style is abstraction. Kierkegaard's division of human existence displayed adirect impact on Auden's poetry. His wide readings of metaphysics, philosophy andChristianity made his poetry more and more emphasize on abstract ideas rather thanconcrete objects and experiences.In the conclusion, the thesis on the one hand maintains that Auden's poetic style did changein accordance to his changes in belief, on the other hand further explores what hasremained unchanged in Auden—his tireless quest for a better society for human existence.Although he did not succeed, his spirit and his great achievement in poetry will always bein people's heart.
|
PDF Full Text Request