W. H. Auden, May with its light behaving

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 May 1935

Places

England (Country of Origin; Publication/ performance)

Genres and Modes

Poem

Resources

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“May with its light behaving” (1935; revised under the title “May”, 1966) is a 28-line poem by W. H. Auden, classified by him as a “song”. It treats the traditional subject of springtime renewal in a modernised manner combining Freudian motifs with an anxious historical and moral awareness, culminating in a restatement of Auden’s recurrent theme at this time, the pettiness of private loves in a world of injustice. By contrast with Auden’s earlier spring-piece, Part I of “It was Easter as I walked in the public gardens” (1930; later titled “1929”), this poem is notably impersonal, lacking as it does any lyric “I” figure, or any emotional response to spring’s arrival.

Auden seems to have written “May with its light behaving” in 1934, then to have held it

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2264 words

Citation: Baldick, Chris. "May with its light behaving". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 16 February 2017 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=35867, accessed 19 April 2024.]

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