W. H. Auden (2413 words)

Michael O'Neill (University of Durham)

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 (Newman University), Valerie Kaneko-Lucas (Regent's University London), Deirdre Osborne (Goldsmiths College, University of London), Judith Rahn (Heinrich Heine Universität)

Context

Dates

Life: 21-02-1907 to 29-09-1973
Activity: 1927 to 1973

Places

United Kingdom, England (Birth; Primary Activity)
Italy (Primary Activity)
Austria, Lower Austria (Primary Activity)
United States (Primary Activity)

Cultural Identities

LGBTQ

Activities

Playwright / Dramatist (Primary)
Poet (Primary)
Anthologist (Other)
Educationalist (Other)
Librettist (Other)
Literary Critic/ Historian (Other)
Teacher/ Professor (Other)
Translator (Other)
Travel writer (Other)

Other Resources

Related Groups

W. H. Auden, one of the very greatest twenteth-century English poets, was born in York in 1907. His father George was a doctor, who would become School Medical Officer and Professor of Public Health in Birmingham. His mother Constance was a nurse, musical and religious in a High Church fashion that left its mark on later Auden's self-ironizing love of verbal and intellectual display (“Mother wouldn't like it”, he would say in middle age); when he was eight, she taught him the words and music of the great love-potion scene in Wagner's Tristan and Isolde, so that they could sing the duet (Auden was Isolde). After school at St Edmund's, Hindhead, Surrey (1915-20) where he met Christopher Isherwood, and Gresham's School, Holt, …

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Citation: O'Neill, Michael. "W. H. Auden". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 07 July 2001 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=5107, accessed 12 May 2021.]

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