W. H. Auden, Lay your sleeping head, my love

Chris Baldick (Goldsmiths College, University of London)

Ed. by Chris Baldick, Goldsmiths College, University of London
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.08: English Writing and Culture of the early Twentieth Century , 1900-1945.
Vol. editors: Chris Baldick (Goldsmiths College, University of London), Peter Childs (Birmingham Newman University), Louise McDonald (Birmingham Newman University), Andrew Radford (University of Glasgow)

Dates

First circulation or publication c. Mar 1937

Places

England (Country of Origin; Publication/ performance)

Genres and Modes

Poem

Resources

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“Lay your sleeping head, my love” (1937; titled “Lullaby” from 1958) is W. H. Auden’s most widely admired love-poem. For many readers it has come to stand as the exemplary modern love-poem in its anti-transcendental treasuring of the beloved’s mortal vulnerability. It offers in its forty lines a sober meditation on the fragility of individual erotic attachment in a world of imperfection and impermanence, and closes with a prayer-like blessing upon the beloved. Auden’s occasion for writing it was the final stage of a love-affair with a teenage boy, but -- as with nearly all his other love-poems of the 1933-37 period -- the poem carefully avoids specification of gender, so it has often been acclaimed as universally relevant to the feelings of any lover, irrespective of…

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2156 words

Citation: Baldick, Chris. "Lay your sleeping head, my love". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 12 December 2016 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=35846, accessed 19 April 2024.]

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