A Discreet, Unsatisfactory Critical Analysis of Auden

W.H. Auden remarked once that he was "suspicious of criticism as the literary genre which, more than any other, recruits epigones, pedants without insight, intellectuals without love." A prolific reviewer himself, Auden identified four varieties of critic: the prig, "for whom no actual poem is good enough since the only one that would be is the poem he would like to write himself but cannot." Second, the critic's critic--"on the surface he appears to idolize the poet...but his critical analysis of his idol's work is so much more complicated and difficult than the work itself as to deprive someone who has not yet read it of all desire to do so." Third, the romantic novelist, whose "happy hunting ground is the field of unanswerable questions, particularly if they concern the private lives of the authors." Finally, Auden says, "jolliest of them all is the maniac. The commonest of his kind is the man who believes that poetry is written in cyphers... My favorite is the John Bellendon Kerr who set out to prove that English nursery rhymes were originally written in a form of Old Dutch invented by himself."

Classified in Auden's terms, Monroe K. Spears, author of Disenchanted Island, mixes the qualities of the critic's critic and the maniac. As critic's critic, Spears approaches Auden through close textual study, drawing information from all of Auden's work, from the writers and musicians that influenced him, and from the poet's life. As maniac be is intensely concerned with Auden's language and symbolism. Yet Spear's study of Auden, while exhaustive, intelligent, and scholarly, is also unsatisfactory --unsatisfactory for people who read criticism of poetry in order to understand the poetry's appeal more fully.

Accurate Analysis

Spears' book is, to begin with, the most accurate and comprehensive study that has been done of Auden. The author had access to biographical materials and manuscripts that have not been available to others, and he has read Auden unbelievably carefully. He had difficulties, however, which other critics and biographers do not share. His subject is far from dead: he is alive and still writing copiously. Consequently Spears had to ask himself how much biographical material he could judiciously include without appearing to pry at the poet's private life. Furthermore, if he wants to write another book on Auden later, he has to bear in mind what the subject's reaction to the present one would be.

As a result, Spears tried to compromise: he has written a study of Auden's poetry using biographical material where it was directly relevant to what the poet was writing. Otherwise Spears is silent about the intriguing life W.H. Auden has led.

If Spears book cannot be classified with the kind of critical biography Richard Ellman achieved in his brilliant "Yeats--the Man and the Masks," it equally fails to react with the alive sensitivity to the poetry itself that Reuben Brower demonstrates in "The Poetry of Robert Frost--Constellations of Intention." Spears has just as many cross-references as Brower, and he seems to know the poetry, just as well. But criticism of poetry, if it isn't dynamic and fascinating, makes some of the stickiest, dullest reading on the shelf. His cataloguing approach to Auden overwhelms Spears' writing from time to time. The comprehensive listings hopelessly obscure the spirit of Auden's poetry: nothing emerges except the critic's wide knowledge.

Quotations Confuse

The mire of quotations becomes particularly difficult in the second half of the first chapter, "Fantasy and Diagnosis," which traces the early influences on Auden's poetry and should be one of the best sections of the book.

The second chapter, on Auden in the Thirties, is heavily biographical and intriguing. The third chapter deals with Auden's "shift in perspective" and return to religion from which, Spears insists, he had never really departed. The fourth and final chapter has a lovely section on Auden's critical works. In the middle of the section, Spears reverts to plot summaries which add very little to one's understanding of Auden. The book ends with a brief, perceptive conclusion "for the time being" about Auden's work.

Readers who want to enjoy the many fascinating parts of this book are urged to approach the Disenchanted Island selectively. Read the beginnings of chapters, skip when it becomes boring, and read the end. Always read the long series of footnotes Spears has placed at the end of each section: they tell more about Auden than many of the chapters do. They indicate, for example, whom he travelled with, what he read, where he went, and whom he wrote to. The chronologies of Auden's life are equally intriguing: One cryptic note on page 76 reads "Earlier in the year Auden had married Erika Mann, whom he had never met, in order to provide her with a passport." That is the last we hear of Erika.

Spears is most successful in suggesting the breadth of Auden's interests, his wit, and the complexity of his thought. He is least successful in telling you anything interesting about the poet's life and in nurturing any desire to read Auden's poetry.

Primary Problem

This is the worst aspect of Spears' book: it does not compel you to refer to Auden's exciting verse itself. And even if Spears' reticence about the poet's life was conceived with a sense of decorum, the questions it leaves un-answered are much too big.

What was Auden's relationship to Christopher Isherwood, his collaborator with whom he travelled for many years? Surely no important critical biography of a psychologically-oriented poet can avoid this question. What was his relationship with his mother, with his wife, with his contemporaries? Spears says nothing.

If you have read widely in Auden's poetry and prose, The Disenchanted Island is helpfully systematic. The book is full of important insights, sunk in the tedium of unselective research. But for readers who have not thoroughly considered the poems and important essays, this book may push in the wrong direction. It might be better, instead, to continue reading the poetry itself.