CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, NORTHRIDGE
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF ELIZABETH MAYER
IN W. H. AUDEN' S NEW YEAR LETTER
A thesis submitted in partial satisfaction of the
requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Arts
with Honors in
English
by
Robert D'Amato
August, 1982
Received:
Chairman,
Committee on Honors
Approved:
W. H. Auden's "New Year Letter" 1 is a poem which was written as an
epistle to his dear friend and fellow exile, Mrs. Elizabeth Mayer.
The
poem is best understood in the light of what Auden said in a note which
he sent to Mrs. Mayer on January 1, 1940 after he had spent the Christmas holiday with her family at their Long Island home:
"1939 was a
very decisive year for me and one of its most important events was
meeting you.
I'm not going to say you can't imagine what peace and joy
you give to me every time because you know it very well • • • I must
stop now and do a dreary chore of a review, when I want to start my
poem to you."
2
Mrs. Mayer, who became Auden's confidant in 1936,
provided him vrith the feminine friendship and the maternal affection
which was an aspect of his homosexuality--Auden's brother, John, notes
during this period that ~-1rs. Mayer strongly resembled his mother3--and
she was soon to become, in "New Year Letter," the central focal point
around which Auden would harmonize the various feelings and thoughts
that he held in 1939.
In order to understand Auden's views in "New
Year Letter" and Elizabeth Mayer 1 s role as the central figure in that
poem, it would be best to examine and to understand Auden's prose work
"The Prolific and the Devourer" 4 which he had written one year prior to
the publication of his long poem, and to consider also those intellectuals who made a significant contribution to Auden's philosophy in "The
Prolific and the Devourer" and "New Year Letter."
Although "New Year
Letter" contains Auden 1 s most important beliefs, it is "The Prolific
and the Devourer" that explains the reasons why he held these beliefs,
and gives the answer to the dilemma of his period and problems in his
life.
1
2
"The Prolific and the Devourer," unpublished during Auden's lifetime, reflects the maturation of his beliefs during the 1930's.
The
work is a collection of aphorisms and reflections which was written
during a period of transition in Auden's life before he committed himself to Christianity in the 1940's.
Before Auden emigrated to America
in 1939, he had abandoned his Anglican faith for one which was ambivalently Marxist.
Although Auden was interested in Marxism, he was
never a member of the Communist Party nor an ardent disciple of that
dogma.
It was during this period, the 1920's and 1930's, that Auden
became seriously interested in the ideas of three men.
Auden was first
drawn to D. H. Lawrence and the ideas he expressed in Fantasia of the
Unconscious, which had been published in 1922. That work rejected the
cerebral activity of the modern, Western man in favor of a life style
which responded to the "spontaneous centres" of our emotions.5
Auden
soon abandoned Lawrence's view and in 1925, he seriously courted the
ideas of an American psychologist, Homer Lane, who believed that the
full expression of one's desires leads to goodness.
Lane also believed
that "human nature is innately good; the unconscious processes are in
no way innnoral. "
6
By 1932, Auden had once again shifted his psycholo-
gical ground--this time to Gerald Heard who argued that "Man's nature
is.divided, and that neurosis arises from the suppression of one half
n7
of this nature.
Heard also insisted that the "suppression of
the inner personality, and the increasing dominance of the 'economic
man' would lead to neurosis in the individual and to revolution in
society at large."
8
In 1939 and 1940, when he read Carl Jung's Inte-
gration of the Personality, Auden integrated these conflicting psychological theories into personal consistent systems which explain both
3
the conscious and unconscious mind.
In his Integration of the Personality, Jung divides man's personality into two categories or attitude-types:
the extrovert ("who is
distinguished by his attitude to the object . • • • He affirms its
importance to such an extent that his subjective attitude is constantly
related to and oriented by
t~e
object" 9 ) and the introvert ("who is
always intent on withdrawing from the object as though he had to prevent the object from gaining power over him"
each attitude type into four categories:
and Intuition.
10
).
Jung further divides
Thinking, Feeling, Sensation,
These four categories or functions make up each atti-
tude-type, and Jung also places these four functions into two categories.
The first category belongs to the rational functions of
Thinking and Feeling.
The second category belongs to the irrational
functions of Sensation and Intuition.
Jung believed that when there
was an imbalance among the four functions, such as the dominance of
the Thinking function of the personality over that of the other three
functions, the psychological problems of neurosis and psychosis would
soon manifest themselves.
Jung said that this problem could be resolved
when the dominant function would allow the other three functions,
"the auxiliary functions," to serve the dominant function without
being repressed; thus, a balance is insured within the personality:
"Hence the auxiliary function is possible and useful only in so far
as it serves the dominant function without making any claim to the
autonomy of its own principle."
11
Therefore, Jung believed that the
separation of the dominant function (the conscious ego) from the
auxiliary functions (the unconscious mind), and the repression of that
unconscious mind, would lead to psychological problems.
4
Jung also believed that the conflict between good and evil represents the conflict between the conscious (good) and the unconscious
(evil):
"The contradiction arises only when the personal development
of the psyche begins, and when reason discovers the irreconcilable
nature of opposites.
of repression.
The consequence of this discovery is the conflict
We want to be good, and therefore repress evil, •••
Repression of the collective psyche was absolutely necessary for the
development of personality."
12
The collective psyche, which Jung
speaks of, is in the unconscious; when a child grows up, he or she
must repress certain dark instincts, the archetypes of primordial
images, which are inherited from the collective history of man's
psyche.
These archetypes have found expression in a variety of forms,
and one of these archetypes, for man, is the Mother figure, what Jung
calls the Mater Imago or the Anima.
Jung saw in myths that the Hero
is an expression of man's drive toward consciousness.
When a boy
grows up, he represses the archetype of the Primordial Mother, and
then seeks the Hero or the conscious mind in order to develop a conscious ego.
This separation between the conscious and unconscious
mind is unavoidable, and Jung believed that the "result is an impoverishment of instinct and disorientation in the generally human situations. "
13
Jung also points out that this disorientation is the true
evil of man.
It is only later in a man's life that the collective
archetype of the lost or repressed content of the unconscious (the
anima) is allowed to surface in the conscious mind.
resolve man's disorientation.
This process can
Jung calls the rising of the collective
psyche (the anima) to the conscious mind "the solificatio" or the
crowning of Helios--the sun--which is a symbol of the anima in mytho-
5
logy.
Although the conscious mind, which only recognizes rational
"enlightenment as the highest form of understanding and insight,"
14
does not wish to be aware of the anima in its unconscious, it is the
solificatio, or the rising of the collective psyche to the conscious
mind, which integrates the personality into a peaceful existence that
complements both the unconscious and conscious mind.
In 1933, Auden
personally experienced this mystic transcendence of self, the solificatio, which he calls the "Vision of Agape."
Before 1933, Auden described love in terms of a "Vision of Eros"
which is love that is based upon sensuality since it lacks any religious
purpose.
Auden saw the erotic lover as one who valued only the good or
the positive element in others, and he or she would ignore what was
evil or weak in the society and the individual.
Since Eros tries to
resolve the problem, in his mind, of how Eros can escape a "preposterous guarantee" that "there are no poor."
15 While having a casual lunch
with his three colleagues, Auden felt an outside force taking possession of his soul:
"I felt myself invaded by a power which, though I
consented to it, was irresistible and certainly not mind.
For the first
time in my life I knew exactly--because, thanks to the power, I was
doing it--what it means to love one's neighbor as oneself . . • I knew
that, so long as I was possessed by
this spirit, it would be literally
impossible for me deliberately to injure another human being." 16
Auden
called this mystic experience his "Vision of Agape" which can redeem
man from the selfish love of Eros.
Agape forced Auden to see and to
accept the dark side in the individual and in society without condemnation.
Thus, in 1939, Auden found a better answer to his dilemma with
Eros in Charles Hilliams' Descent of the Dove.
17
6
In Charles Williams' Descent of the Dove, Auden discovered that
Williams espoused a belief which was similar to his own.
Williams
believed that, whether historical or present events appear to be either
good or evil, the outcome of all those events will be just and good,
since the Holy Spirit guides the actions of humanity according to God's
plan of salvation.
Hilliams saw the history of Christendom as the
reconciliation of Eros
(sensuality) with the Logos (the Divine)
through the God-Man, Jesus Christ, who, in His person, is the symbol
of the Agape, the reconciliation of God and Man.
This reconciliation
between Eros and Logos was sealed because of God's will, through the
Incarnation, and not man's will:
"The Church, organizing itself for
that process in time, had accepted the view that its members, like
itself, would always have to live their lives on the basis of 'faith.'
And the very condition of that faith was that Deity was single, supreme,
and different.
Without difference there was no Reconciliation.
Reconciliation was the supreme aim of faith." 18
And
Auden solved his
problem of how Eros can achieve Agape through faith, and Williams best
described Auden's "Vision of Agape," which was selfless love, with a
quote from Ignatius of Antioch who also had had a "Vision of Agape" in
the second century:
"My Eros is crucified."
By this he meant that the
"physical and spiritual are no longer divided; he who is Theo is
anthropos, and all the images of anthropos are in him"
19
or in Christ.
Williams uses, in The Descent of the Dove, Dante's Divine Comedy as an
example of how an individual can achieve Agape through his Eros.
Williams uses Dante's Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven as representatives of the three stages through which man ascends on the road to
salvation.
Hell is Eros, the "Way of Romantic Love," or the place
7
where the "greed of love . . . sinks into the greed of gluttony, and
then beyond that it develops into hatred of all who have other and
different desires,.
Purgatory is a place where the individual
repents and realizes that God can exchange His love with man's love;
however, complete reconciliation and salvation are achieved when man/
Dante enters Heaven where there is no hate but only love between
humanity and God.
The soul cannot be saved at this final stage with-
out the body, Eros, since the body is needed for a complete union with
the Logos:
"It is these great doctrines of matter, of exchange, of
perfect love, which are made apparent in the paradox of the line, 'Vergine Madre, figlia del tuo Figlio.
1
This is the secret of the universe,
the mortal maternity of the Godhead.
Williams calls the union
of the flesh with the spirit the way of exchange and substitution.
God exchanges man's sins for His pure love, and then, He substitutes
man's fallen nature with His grace.
This process of exchange and
substitution between God and man is also called the Fall and Redemption.
One can surmise, as Williams did, that if it were not for man's
fall from grace, he would never be united so closely to God--it is the
murder of the God-Man which saves humanity.
Williams also believed
that the process of exchange and substitution could also be practiced
a~ong
men since men can love their neighbors as themselves.
It is
man's love for God and his neighbors which is Auden's criterion for
the solution to man's social and political problems.
Soon after Auden
read Charles Williams' book, he turned to S0ren Kierkegaard for a
different perspective on the idea of Eros, Logos, and Agape.
When Auden read Kierkegaard's philosophical works during the early
months of 1940, he was "bowled over by their originality. • • and by
8
the sharpness of their insights."
22
Kierkegaard didn't believe in an
inherited Christianity since each person must find faith by himself.
Kierkegaard, like Charles Williams, believed that the fall of man was
necessary if man were to gain freedom and wisdom.
Man fell from grace,
not because of his sensuality or natural desires, but because of his
pride which believed it was equal to God's omnipotence.
Because man
lives in a world of Becoming, which is a process for spiritual evolution, he has had the freedom to choose between what is right and what
is wrong (after his fall from grace).
This freedom to make moral
decisions would have been denied to man if he remained an innocent
creature in Eden.
Then, if man is in a world of Becoming, he will make
the wrong decisions, and, therefore, he will learn from his mistakes
and be able to seek what is correct.
In the world of Becoming, Kier-
kegaard saw that man can never know the "objective" world which is
outside human experience.
Since man can't escape subjectivity, the
distinction between subject and object is unreal:
"The awareness of
existing is also absolutely private and incommunicable. • • My existence cannot become an object of knowledge."
24
In the world of Be-
coming, the subjective state, Kierkegaard saw that there were three
stages of experience through which an individual had to pass if he
were to achieve a personal relationship with God.
with Williams' notion of Eros, Logos, and Agape.
They are compatible
Kierkegaard's first
stage of experience is the Aesthetic, and religion of Paganism, in
which the individual lives for the present moment and the pleasures of
the flesh.
The second stage of experience is the Ethical, the Natural
Religion of Humanism and Stoicism, in which the individual would have
the choice either to accept or reject moral laws.
The third stage of
9
experience is the Religious, the Revealed Religions of Judaism and
Chrisitianity, in which the individual must make a leap of faith.
The
sinner must completely abandon himself to God's mercy, and, therefore,
his salvation is not dependent upon his obedience to moral laws (as
those who belong to the Ethical stage of experience) but upon his
personal relationship with God.
Kierkegaard's distinction between the
Ethical and Religious man is a subject which Reinhold Niebuhr also
closely examines in his collection of essays, Christianity and Power
P 0 l l•t•lCS. 25
Niebuhr, who was Auden's close friend during the 1940's, attacked
the modern, secular culture of his day in his writings.
Niebuhr be-
lieved that humanism in science, culture, and politics--that is, the
attitude which erased the absolutes in man's beliefs--had simply
rationalized the presuppositions of Christian tradition and faith into
a philosophy which could only be examined and understood from an
historical perspective.
The Liberal, who espoused humanism, believed
that the root of evil was in institutions, such as governments and
organized religions, and not in man's fallen nature or sinfulness.
Niebuhr saw that humanism failed because it was concerned only with
man's material needs, and it ignored his spiritual needs.
He also
believed that society would never be perfect and peaceful since each
man is a sinner; however, Niebuhr did have faith in a social system
which would spiritually evolve and grow if man could transcend relativistic, human laws for the absolute laws of God:
"Every Humanistic
creed is a cosmos of meaning sustained by a thin ice on the abysmal
deeps of meaninglessness and chaos.
Only faith in God, who has been
our dewelling place in all generations . . . can rescue man.
"26
10
Niebuhr also pointed out that liberalism or humanism causes dualism or
a separation in belief within society:
"What begins as the deification
of humanity in abstract terms ends as the deification of a particular
27
type of man" --blind optimism led to tyranny in a nation such as Germany during the 1930's.
In order for one to follow the laws of God,
and thereby, avoid the mistake of following the humanistic creed,
Neibuhr thought that it was imperative for one to know and understand
the presuppositions of Divine laws.
It was in 1939 that Auden turned
toR. G. Collingwood's Matter and Metaphysics
28
as a guide to the
understanding of the presuppositions of Divine laws.
In Matter and Metaphysics, Collingwood defines metaphysics not as
a science of pure being but as one that studies the presuppositions
which underlie all sciences.
Collingwood argues that metaphysics is
the study of the history of absolute presuppositions of our present
time, one need examine only the questions that arise in our daily
affairs:
2
"Every question involves a presupposition," 9 since a pre-
supposition is the fact or belief which "causes a certain question to
arise. •
rr30
Once a presupposition is known, it can be divided
into t1,ro categories--relative and absolute presuppositions.
A relative
presupposition stands "relatively to one question as its presupposition
and relatively to another question as its answer. "
31
The absolute
presuppositions give us the reasons and purpose to inquire into the
nature of ourselves and that of the universe.
Collingwood also be-
lieved that the absolute presuppositions of our society are found in
religious institutions and schools of philosophy and theology.
For
example, society and the sciences translate the Christian dogma of the
Trinity--Father, Son, and Holy Spirit--into an absolute presupposition
11
which supports our conception of the universe--Father becomes Essence
(quarks and electrons), Son becomes Form (atoms and molecules), Holy
Spirit becomes Motion (energy and change).
However, Collingwood be-
lieved that absolute presuppositions change and have changed throughout history:
"The essential thing about historical phases is that each
of them gives place to another; not because one is violently destroyed
by alien forces impinging on its fabric from without by war or from
within by revolution, but because each of them while it lives is
working at turning itself into the next."
32
He also points out that
the religious institutions observe and respond to the changes of
absolute presuppositions or what Niebuhr called the "Divine Laws."
Auden sought for the "Divine Laws" or an absolute system of beliefs
during the 1930's, and in "The Prolific and the Devourer" he synthesized
the ideas which be found in Collingwood, Niebuhr, Kierkegaard, \filliams,
and Jung into a logical structure 1rritten in prose.
Auden divides "The Prolific and the Devourer" into four parts, the
first of which examines the role of the artist and politician in society
and the relationship between them.
The title of this work is borrowed
from Blake's "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell," from which, Auden
quotes three stanzas at the beginning of Part I:
"But the Prolific
would cease to be Prolific unless the Devourer • • • received the excess
of his delights/ These two classes of men are always on earth, and they
should be enemies; whoever tries to reconcile them seeks to destroy
existence."
33
The artist is the Prolific who produces and the politi-
cian is the Devourer who consumes.
Auden believed that the artist is
involved with the private life of man and the politican with the public
life of man; furthermore, the artist and the politican should never
12
interfere nor be involved with each other's work," • . • each has a vision
of the world which must remain incomprehensible to the other."3 4
The
danger of the politician is that he creates dualities in men's minds.
Therefore, to resolve this danger, Auden suggests that the politician
must learn to be honest.
One can relate Auden's concept of the poli-
tician's ability to cause dualisms within the society to Williams'
explanation of Eros and Agape.
When two politicians run for a seat in
office, they both adopt an extreme platform; thus,.they cause the
electorate also to divide themselves between two extreme points of
view.
By doing this, the politician enhances Eros since each side of
the divided electorate can love only those who side with its candidate.
Auden saw that a politican must learn to love those who may disagree
with him--Agape--in order to avoid a dualism in the population.
Auden
also saw that it was the artist's duty to help and guide humanity
toward its own discovery of the "Vision of Agape."
In order for the
artist to accomplish this task, he should "transcend duality, and
establish unity or freedom"
35
in the society--man must learn to love
his neighbor as himself (Agape).
However, the artist
pretend to give "an answer to anything." 36
should never
The artist's duty, which
is to transcend dualities, is a concept which Auden borrows from Carl
Jung who saw that the personality should never be divided against
itself in terms of the conscious mind having dominance over the unconscious mind or vice-versa.
In order for the artist to transcend
dualities, he must first understand and then express the dualism of
those ideas which may exist in the public mind.
the greatest danger in an artist
But Auden warns that
is passivity since it limits his
knowledge "to what comes to him automatically through immediate personal
13
experience." 3 7
Auden borrows this anathema for the passive artist,
whom he calls the "ivory-tower artist," from Kierkegaard who believed
that man must actively seek and understand his subjective self especially as he approaches the Religious stage of experience--the artist
is at that stage of experience.
In Part II of "The Prolific and the
Devourer," Auden takes a closer look at the types of dualities which
exist within the society.
In order for an individual to transcend the dualities which
exist in his mind, Auden points out in Part II of "The Prolific and
the Devourer" that the individual can only gain salvation through love:
"We are all here on earth to help others: what on earth the others
38
are here for, I don't know."
Auden's quote demonstrates Kierkegaard 1 s
influence since Auden believed that the most noble action which we
can perform in life is to have a personal and subjective relationship
with both our God and our neighbors--this is love.
Man's obedience to
divine laws is the only way through which an individual may eventually
learn how to properly love his neighbor, " • • • happiness is what we
feel when we are living according to these laws, and unhappiness.
39
when we are not."
Auden 1 s faith in divine laws, which parallels
Neibuhr's belief in those same laws and Collingwood's trust in absolute
presuppositions, led him to believe that these laws could not be
codified, being dependent upon "Faith and Scepticism."
Auden also
points out that, if man were to follow the truth which lies behind
divine laws, he ought first to avoid sin and evil.
He also saw that
evil was not the opposite of good, since that belief would be a
duality; evil is a local disturbance "set up by faulty behavior of
individual living creatures."
40
Auden borrows his definition of sin
14
from Jung who saw that the worst evil is the disharmony within a man's
personality, " • • • we, being divided beings composed of a number of
selves each with its false conception of its self interest • • • The
majority of our actions are in the interest of these selves • • • " 41
The devil, who tempts man, is not a supernatural being, but
a repre-
sentation of man's doubts and fears; furthermore, as Auden observed,
the devil caused man to fall twice from grace:
first, when he
embraced evil (dualism) as a way of life, and second, when evil
(dualism) became
a universal phenomenon.
Auden suggests that both
the individual and the soceity must evolve through three stages of
experience if they are to achieve salvation.
borrowed from Williams' writings.
These three stages are
The first stage of experience is
Hell, where an individual lives a life that is devoted to pleasure.
The second stage is man's progress towards salvation in Purgatory
where the individual is in harmony with himself; however, Auden
believed that once one achieves paradise, he must sin again and
repeat the process towards paradise.
Auden's belief in this cyclical
process was borrowed from Kierkegaard's concept that man is in a
state of Becoming, for if man treated his nature as complete, Auden
believed, he would "Become" sterile and passive.
Towards the latter section of Part II of "The Prolific and the
Devourer," Auden turns to the parables of Jesus and interprets them
in the light of what was said in the first section of Part II.
Auden
continues to borrow Williams' ideas in this latter section as he
attacks the Christian dualists who have despised the body in favor of
the health and welfare of the spirit:
"Time and again Jesus attacks
those who think of the good life as something contrary to our animal
15
nature, that the flesh is not divine."
42
Auden also attacks the dual-
ists of man's secular age, such as Pascal and Montaigne, who believed
that the intellect was superior to the heart.
Auden then turns to the
temptation of Christ in the desert, and interprets Christ's three
temptations as examples of how both Christian and secular dualists can
learn to resolve their false concepts.
Apropos of what was earlier
said about Kierkegaard's philosophy, Auden interprets Christ's first
temptation by Satan--"Command that these stones be turned into bread"
--as those ideas which cause man to remain at the stage of an egotist
and an admirer of Eros:
c 'est mois.
1
"
43
"A thing is what I want it to be, 'L'etat
The second temptation of Christ--"If thou be the
Son of God cast thyself down"--is a temptation which stunts man's
growth at the Ethical stage of experience or the stage where he
believes that ideas, the intellect, are superior to his feelings and
emotions:
"For the child 1 s belief in the omnipotence of the animal
desire, he exchanges a belief in the omnipotence of the intellect."
44
The third temptation of Christ--"All these will I give thee if thou wilt
fall down and worship me"--tempts man never to change his interpretation of divine laws even though he is at Kierkegaard's Religious stage
of experience and he is having a personal relationship with God: " ••• the
divine law exists •.• though we know that all dogmas and doctrines are at
best provisional makeshifts ..•• "
45
One can easily deduce from Auden's
interpretation of the temptations of Christ that he believed salvation
to be a subjective and not an objective faith in the Divine; moreover,
Auden reinforced this faith in the subjective experience, which is also
Jung's and Kierkegaard's belief, at the end of Part II:
" ••• there is
no other way to the truth but through individual faith and individual
16
effort."
46
In Part III of "The Prolific and the Devourer," Auden turned
away from the dualities within the individual and he examined the dualities which have existed in society throughout history.
Auden begins Part III of "The Prolific and the Devourer" by stating
that historical events are either "bad" or "good" depending upon how
closely those events abide by the prescriptions of divine laws.
historical events follow the "Way of love and understanding."
47
"Good"
Auden
also borrows Collingwood 1 s belief that history "is made up of an
·
· a·lVl·aua1 ac t s .•• ac t so f p_yslca
h · 1 war k .... " 48 Th ese
lffiillense
numb er o f ln
acts of physical work belong to "Man the Maker," who, unlike ".Man the
Politician," does not consume
changes.
but is the prime cause of historical
".Man the Maker"is a new type of human being who will parti-
cipate in a newworld-wide socialistic society that is just since it
obeys divine laws:
"Marxism reveals not the selfishness of man, but
the real basis of human love •.. \-le can love our neighbor as ourself
because our need of each other is equal."
49 In contrast to the social-
ist society, which tries to remove man's wants, most historical societies had unjust governments that attempted to justify the dualism of
their systems.
Auden believed that socialism, the just society of the
future, will have one important criterion--it will promote both unity
and equality among mankind.
Ancient Rome failed to promote a just
society since it imposed unity and equality without the consent of its
subjects.
The Middle Ages failed because the Church created a duality
in the society, for it promoted unity as being more important than
equality.
After the Reformation, Protestantism and our modern secular
society advocated equality, and therefore, it separated man's private
life from his public life.
Modern society supports the duality which
17
was inherited in the vision of the "Economic Man "--the man who prizes
his intellect above the treasure of his heart.
In order to resolve the
dualism of the "Economic Man" in our society, Auden advises humanity to
embrace Socialism which can synthesize divisions into a harmonious
union:
"By combining faith in reason and emotion it has been able to
reverse the Romantic nostalgia for the past and ••• to see history as
moving in the direction of unity and equality. " 50
Hm·rever, at the end
of Part III of "The Prolific and the Devourer," Auden cautions his
readers and Socialists that the time is not right for the adoption of
Socialism if Socialists require violence to initiate a system which
society is not yet ready to accept.
In Part III and also Part IV of "The Prolific and the Devourer,"
Auden states his belief that a society or an individual cannot change
unless the historical moment is ripe enough for a change.
this idea from Paul Tillich 1 s "Interpretation of History."
sa1.:r time as decision, not duration:
He borrows
51
Tillich
"Kairos is not quantitative time
of the occasion, ••• Kairos is the time which indicates that something
has happened which makes an action possible or impossible."
52
Auden
states in Part IV that it was the right time, the Kairos, for mankind
to seek the truth and an understanding of the dualities which exist in
society even though it might not yet be the right time for a complete
change.
Poetry, he believed, was the means through which the Kairos
could effect a change of heart in mankind:
"To others one must talk in
parables; one must use as one's artistic subject material where the
truth of non-violence convinces without offending, and let them extend
the conclusion to other fields for themselves." 53
In "New Year
Letter," Auden tries to convince his audience to seek truth and love
18
through obedience to divine laws, yet it is his audience who will have
to make the choice whether or not to follow this advice since Art can
never be a substitute for action.
The Prologue which precedes Part I of "New Year Letter" summarizes
the position which Auden takes at the end of Part III of the poem.
The
Prologue is concerned with the rebirth (spring) and renewal of the
human condition although the possibility of war was real during 1940
when Auden wrote this poem.
In the final stanzas of the Prologue,
Auden speaks of the right time, the Kairos, of his era which grants
mankind the opportunity to change the human condition:
"And Neither
a Spring nor a War can ever/ So condition his ears as to keep the Song/
That is not a sorrow from the invisible twin."
54
The "Song" is the
love which can transcend the dualities of man (the invisible twin)
that inhibit his awareness of the unconscious self.
Auden borrows the
concept of the invisible twin within man's personality from Montaigne,
whom he quotes in the poem's epigraph:
"We are I know not how, double
in ourselves, so that what we believe we disbelieve, and cannot rid
ourselves what we condemn."
Once love increases man's awareness of
himself and helps him to transcend his dualities, a transformation
takes place through the repentance of one's sins and the acknowledgement that one is imperfect:
"O what weeps is the love that hears, an /
Accident occurring in his substance."
55
When man repents, he realizes
that his imperfections (accidents) are not part of his true nature
(substance).
Part I of the "New Year Letter" is divided into three
sections which may be entitled ''Man Under Judgment."
56
Auden is the
judge who observes "Man" as he searches for order and sense in his
ambiguous life.
Auden begins Part I contrasting the images of winter
19
and decay that inhabit the world in 1940 with the images of spring and
rebirth in the Prologue:
conscience and the State."
"Under the familiar weight/ Of winter,
57
In the opening stanzas of Part I, Auden
introduces the premise that it is not Politics but Art which will guide
the individual towards a solution to his dilemma.
Auden points out
that even though mankind is in a state of war, the individual is prepared for a change within his society:
"All our reflections turn
about / A common meditative norm,/ Retrenchment, Sacrifice, Reform"
(11.9-11).
It is the right time, the Kairos, for each man to listen
to his own unconscious self through the power of love and also to see
the dualisms within himself which support his society's hostilities:
"Yet, time can moderate his tone/When talking to a man alone" (11. 30-31).
The reconciliation that the unconscious can reveal to the individual
man is represented in Part I by Auden's friend Elizabeth Mayer.
Eliza-
beth Mayer awakens Auden's unconscious self; she then inspires the
poet to synthesize his own dualisms into a more harmonious balance of
the self:
"A cottage in Long Island shone/ Where Buxtehude as we
played/ One of his passacaglias made/ Our minds a civitas of sound .••
For art had set in order sense ..• And from its ideal order grew/ Our
local understanding too" (n.46-55).
Auden also states that art can unite man's ideals (Logos) with his
physical wants (Eros) into a harmonious system:
"To set in order--
that's the task/ Both Eros and Apollo ask;/ For Art and Life agree in
this,/ That each intends a synthesis" (11.56-59).
The synthesis of
dualities (the body and the soul) can only occur when both parts complement each other:
"When both are equal each to each, I Yet in inten-
tion all are one/ Intending that their wills be done/ Within a peace
20
where all desires/ Find in each what each requires" (11.68-73).
This
need for a balance of parts within ourselves is borrowed from Jung 1 s
Integration of the Personality; however, Auden states, as he did in
"The Prolific and the Devourer," that, although it is the duty of art
to synthesize man's dualisms, art cannot provide the synthesis for his
life:
"Art in intention is mimesis/ But, realized, the resemblance
ceases:/ Art is not life, and cannot be/ A midwife to society" (11.7679).
Although art cannot replace or shield man from the realities
which an individual and a society must face during a lifetime, it must
still be able to provide models with which man can anticipate the
unique decisions he must make in order to change:
"That each particu-
lar artist knows,/ Unique events that once took place/ Within a
unique time and space" (11.88-90 ).
However, change must first occur
within the individual before it can occur within the society:
"And
each life must itself decide/ To what and how (the model) be applied"
(11.97-98).
When the individual accepts the model of Art which leads
him to a better understanding of himself, Auden points out that Art
also unlocks the dormant shadows (the dark side of the soul) within an
individual's unconscious, "And the wild furies of the past/ Tracked
to their origins at last/ Trapped in a medium artifice" (11. 113-115).
Auden believed that once the individual was aware of his dark side
(sin), he would repent and thereby be transformed into his real self:
"Now large, magnificent, and calm./ Your changeless presences disarm/
The sullen generations, still/ The fright and fidget of the will,/ And
to the growing and the weak/ Your final transformations speak" (11.117122).
Auden borrows these ideas from Jung's theory of psychological
compensation, and also from Williams' interpretation of Dante's Purga-
~-
----
~--~--
21
tory in Descent of the Dove.
58
In the latter section of Part I, Auden, who has been sitting in
judgment on mankind, shifts his point of view and places himself under
the judgment of past poets, who have also attempted to awaken man to
the realization of his unconscious self.
Auden feels that he isn't
worthy of the duties which are mandatory for an artist:
"Yet, as he
faces them alone,/ Who can show convincing proof/ That he is worthy
of their love?" (11. 152-154).
Auden also believes that he cannot
match the brilliance of the poets of the past who enlightened mankind-such as Dante, Blake, Rimbaud, Catullus, Tennyson, Baudelaire, Hardy,
Rilke, and Shakespeare since these poets had one feature in common:
they had all been able to synthesize mankind's dualisms into one
harmonious balance within the self.
Auden reconciles himself to the
task of being a poet; moreover, he hopes that he will not commit the
artist's sin which is the passiveness that he speaks of as an IvoryTower artist in "The Prolific and the Devourer":
"Yet the weak
offender must/ Beg still for leniency and trust/ His power to avoid
the sin/ Peculiar to his discipline" (11. 230-32).
In order for the
artist to inform and enlighten his audience, he ought to be an active
poet who produces viable poetry.
Near the end of Part I, Auden again
shifts his point of view away fromhimself and to the problem which
besets humanity.
Auden states that the source of evil lies in the dualities which
exist within the individual and not within society.
tive who uncovers and explains this evil:
Art is the detec-
"And all investigation
ceases./ Yet our equipment all the time/ Extends the area of the crime/
Until the guilt is everywhere" (11. 256-259).
Auden saw that pride,
which is the root of all evil, extends itself from the individual into
the society which manifests this evil through its blind faith in human
laws that lead to disasters such as Hitler's Germany--Niebuhr came to
the same conclusions in his collection of essays, Christianity and
Power Politics.
The only way out for humanity which is engulfed in
evil is through art.
Although art cannot stop wars, such as the one
which Auden was experiencing when he -wrote "New Year Letter," it can
awaken man to the truths that are in the divine laws of the universe,
and also to the dualities which exist in many forms throughout life.
Auden also saw that when the individual recognized the importance of
his unconscious (the child), without ignoring his conscious self (the
Oracle), he would then be able to realize the dualities (Janus) that
can separate one's personality into distinct parts.
Hhen man stood
"Before the Oracle, it would/ Ignore his growing earnestness/ But not
the child of his distress/ For through the Janus of a joke/ The candid
psychopompos spoke" (ll. 302-306).
Auden concludes Part I with a
prayer that his poetry will inspire man to transcend the dualities of
his life; also, Auden prays that his poetry will guide his audience
towards truth and universal love:
"Use the Good Offices of verse;/
May an Accord be reached, and may .•. This private minute for a friend,/
Be the dispatch which I intend" (ll. 310-314).
The friend of course is
Elizabeth Mayer who guides and inspires Auden as he describes what
causes the sins of mankind in Part II.
Part II of "New Year Letter" may also be entitled "Man and His
Devil."
This section begins with a scene of man descending into a
valley which symbolizes his search for his unconscious mind.
But man-
kind fails to understand himself because the devil, who symbolizes
23
despair and deceit, stunts his growth and destroys his faith in the
future.
Man, who refuses to see his mistake, instead accepts the sta-
tus quo as a permanent social system:
" .•• We'd rather/ Be perfect
copies of our father,/ Prefer our idees fixes to be/ True of a fixed
Reality" (11. 360-364).
Although the devil keeps man unconscious of
his stagnant existence and of the dark side of the soul, he
unwitt~ngly
defeats his purpose for humanity will soon resent its stagnant existence and wish to depart from the devil' s company:
"So, credo ut
intelligam./ For how could one get on without you/ And keep you in
your proper place/ \.fuich is, to push us into grace?" (11. 422-426).
Credo ut intelligam (I believe in order to understand) comes from
Charles Williams' Descent of the Dove.
------
Auden believes that evil will
inevitably benefit mankind as it turns him away from despair, deceit,
and hatred.
Auden points out that for a change to occur within
society, each indivdual must avoid the devil's dualisms, the separation
of the unconscious from the conscious mind, and he must also learn to
be completely aware of his unconscious mind which is free from the
anxieties of time:
"Our best protection is that we,/ In fact, live in
eternity" (11. 429-430).
Auden borrows this new concept of man, who
is aware of his unconscious and can live in the moment (eternity)
without anxiety, from Jung:
"Thus he has become unhistorical in the
deepest sense and has estranged himself from the mass of man who live
.
.
entlrely
withln
the bounds of tradl•t•lon. 1160
.
.
Auden dlscovers
thls
"unhistorical" aspect (the unconscious) in himself through Mrs. Mayer
who is able to raise his unconscious mind (symbolized by the anima) to
a new level of awareness:
"I write 'Elizabeth's my friend,'/ I
cannot but express my faith/ That I is Not-Elizabeth" (11. 451-453).
24
Auden turns again to the devil who immediately concurs with man's
discovery--after man has realized the devil 1 s intellectual deceit-that the intellect (the Economic Man)
61
causes a duality as it separates
"the Cause from Effect/ And thinks in terms of Space and Time" (11.490491).
Thus, the devil again is able to deceive mankind as he abandons
the dualism of the intellect for the dualism of the flesh:
"O when
will men show common sense," the devil exclaims, "And throw away
intelligence,/ That killjoy which discriminates,/ Recover what appreciates, ••• Where art and industry and moeurs/ Are governed by an ordre du
coeur?" (11. 518-527).
Auden also saw that there was an inherent
paradox in the devil 1 s manipulation of mankind since he ends up playing
the role of both a monist and a dualist, "To be both god and dualist"
(1. 573).
The devil is a dualist when he causes man to sin or to
create a disharmony between his conscious and
uncon~cious
mind as
Auden also pointed out in "The Prolific and the Devourer."
Then, the
devil, who causes man to become a dualist, soon discovers that mankind
will abandon dualism when he is aware of it.
At this point, the devil
is left with no alternative but to force man to accept monism because
he doesn't wish to lose control over his victims.
Monism, which
accepts the unconscious mind to be one and the same as the conscious
mind, removes man's ability to sin or to see the dualities within
himself.
The major aim of the devil is to create dualisms within the
mind of the individual and the society, but when he fails, the monistic
faith results with the devil's victims being morally impotent--the
devil fails as both a god and a dualist:
"To say two different things
at once,/ To wage offensives on two fronts,/ And yet to show complete
conviction,/ Require the purpler kinds of diet ion" (11. 584-587) •
25
Obviously, the devil is always trying to make us accept the lie as a
truth and vice-versa.
Auden gives some
exam~les
of how the devil has
succeeded throughout history.
Auden saw that Christianity had moved away from the original
teachings of Jesus which promised mankind the Vision of Agape; instead,
Christianity sought the security of the state (Eros) through its
union with Constantine after the Parousia (the Second Coming of Christ)
failed to become a reality:
"Knowing that as their hope grew less/ So
would their heavenly worldliness,/ Their early agape declined/ To a
late lunch with Constantine" (11. 645-648).
Wordsworth, like the
early Christians, was also deceived by the devil when his belief in a
Second Coming failed to materialize during the French Revolution, "But
ended, as the devil knew/ An earnest Englishman would do,/ Left by
Napoleon in the lurch,/ Supporting the Established Church" (ll. 659-
662).
Wordsworth moved away from his Vision of Agape, and he instead
embraced the security of the Anglican Church (Eros).
The Communists
of Russia, like the early Christians, abandoned the vision Marx had
for a worker's state when it failed to become a reality.
Another
reason for this failure was that Marx spoke with half-truths--he emphasized Man the Producer instead of Man the Consumer:
"Since to consume,
man must produce;/ By man the tough Devourer sets/ The nature his
despair forgets/ Of Man Prolific since his birth" (ll. 723-726).
Marx,
and modern Communists, created a dualism when they emphasized Man the
Producer and ignored Man the Consumer.
However, Auden believed that
Marx was correct when he saw that humanity must unite and learn to love
each other:
"Loosed from its shroud of temper, his/ Determinism comes
to this;/ None shall receive unless they give,/ All must cooperate to
26
live" (ll. 733-736).
In this latter section of Part II of the poem,
Auden states that he does not believe in a perfect, political system,
such as Marxism, which he had strongly supported in "The Prolific and
the Devourer," because these political systems ignore the absolute
presuppositions which Collingwood calls attention to, and also, because
they ignore the divine laws which Niebuhr believed were essential for
man's happiness.
Instead, political institutions only obey human laws
which lead to unhappiness for both the individual and the society: "You
are betrayed unless we see/ No codex gentium we make/ Is difficult for
Truth to break./ The Lex Abscondita evades/ The vigilantes in the
glades" (ll. 758-762).
Auden reaffirms his belief, near the conclusion of Part II, that
idealistic political systems will always fail, and he gives examples
of how such ideals will turn into tyranny.
because it tries to force unity and
the Fascists and Communists:
Tyranny (Caesarism) 62 fails
e~uality
upon its subjects as did
"O Freedom still is far from home;/ For
Moscow is as far as Rome/ Or Paris.
" (ll. 787-789).
Auden also
points out that the West throughout history, and also the modern Democratic nations, have been tricked by the devil since they were disillusioned with their political idealists who were dualists, and chose the
monist's faith in the extreme view as an answer to social unhappiness:
"Repenting of our last infraction/ We seek atonement in reaction/ And
cry, nostalgic like a whore,/ 'I was a virgin till four'" (ll. 807-810).
Mankind always decides to choose political extremes as an answer to its
problem: "O how the devil who controls/ The moral asymmetric souls/
The either-ors, .•• " (ll. 819-821).
In order for monism--"The moral
asymmetric souls"--to disappear from society, Auden suggests that man-
27
kind must first understand the devil's tricks; then, he must synthesize
each section of a duality without overemphasizing the importance of
either part:
"He cannot always fool us thrice,/ For he may never tell
us lies/ But half-truths we can synthesize" (11. 825-827).
Man can
discover Truth only when he understands the devil's tricks and applies
that knowledge to effect a change which promotes both Unity and Equality.
Only the individual is able to effect this change:
"So, hidden in his
hocus-pocus,/ There lies the gift of double focus,/ That magic lamp
which looks so dull/ And utterly impractical,/ Yet, if Aladdin use it
right,/ Can be sesame to light" ( 11. 828-833) .
Part III of "New Year Letter" may be entitled "Man as Seeker of
the Way," 63 for Auden examines the source of truth within the subjective self.
Early in this section, Auden addresses again Elizabeth
Mayer, who represents the source of the poet's search for the subjective self (the Anima figure).
When it is discovered, the dualism of
the flesh and the spirit are synthesized through the transcending
power of Agape:
"vlarm in your house, Elizabeth,/ A week ago at the
same hour/ I felt the unexpected power/ That drove our ragged egos in/
From dead-ends of greed and sin," and, "Arranged us so that each and
all,/ The erotic and logical/ Each felt the placement to be such/ That
he was honored over much" (11. 843-853).
The "unexpected power" is
Auden's reference to his Vision of Agape which is pure, unselfish love.
Auden feels it a privilege to have understood and received this pure
love.
The harmony which Auden experiences through Agape can reach
all men if they seek to understand the unconscious mind, "The Temeno 1 s
small wicket stands/ Wide open, shining at the centre/ The well of life,
and they may enter"
(11. 863-865), but man, who is imperfect, remains
28
w·ithin the hell of greed and selfishness which is a dualism that is
caused by his repression of the unconscious mind.
However~
were to achieve the paradise of pure love for his
neighbor~
if man
he would
commit a monism in his nature for the achievement of Paradise removes
his awareness of himself. 64
Auden believed that man ought to succeed,
fail, and succeed again if he is to improve himself:
"But
perfect~
Being has ordained/ It must be lost to be regained" (ll. 880-881).
only hope Auden offers is that
Hell~
its selfishness and
greed~
The
is not
binding and that man can gain a moment of Paradise if he seeks it. Mankind cannot change himself through will power--the change must occur
only when the time is ripe enough for change (the Kairos), only when
he is aware of his subjective self:
"We cannot then will Heaven where/
Is perfect freedom; our will there/ Must love the will to operate 11 (ll.
914~916).
Auden shifts his point of view in line 975, and he examines
himself as a poet who can neither stop World War II nor change society's
attitude.
Auden reasserts the view he held, in Part I of the poem and
"The Prolific and the
Devourer~"
that art is not "A midwife to society,"
--Art can only influence the individual to change:
"We can at least
serve other ends,/ Can love the polis of our friends/ And pray that
loyalty will come/ To serve mankind's imnerium" (11. 997-1000).
Auden
believed that only the collective action of individuals who have
changed for the better will effect a change within the society.
Indus-
trialism promises an instant change -vrithin the whole of a society as it
denies the importance of the individual within that society:
mechanized societies / vfuere natural intuition
result/ Of Industry's Quicunque
Vult~/
dies~/
"In
The international
The hitherto-unconscious creed/
29
Of little men who half succeed" (11. 1028-1033).
Industry supports
the devil's trick as it tries to subdue the individual's unconscious
mind, "We split our symmetry apart/ Deny the Reason or the Heart" (11.
1081-1082).
Industrialism, which only supports the conscious mind of
the individual as it promotes a material society, cannot permanently
subdue the unconscious mind which soon surfaces to challenge the
dominance of the conscious mind and the flesh.
When the unconscious
mind surfaces, the Anima figure, the archetype which causes man to pay
attention to his hidden nature, guides mankind towards truth as he
becomes more aware of the sins which cause the disharmony between the
conscious and unconscious mind.
Auden quotes from Wagner's
opera
Siegfried, a passage which lends support to the Anima figure (the Mater
Imago), "Deine Mutter," who, within the unconscious mind, draws man
towards a true awareness of himself:
"' 0 Deine Mutter kehrt dir nicht/
Wieder Du seibst bin ich, dein/ Pflicht/ Und hiebe Brach sie nur mein
Bild.
1
/
And I was conscious of my guilt" (11. 1149-1152).
65
Auden then
calls his audience again to acknowledge the Eternal within the unconscious mind once the individual is a¥rare of the Anima figure, "To be
patriots of the Now/ Then all, by rights, are volunteers" (11. 11691170).
Auden again shifts his attention away from the individual as he
looks at the turmoil which the Earth is in: "Earth wobbles on down her
career/ With no ambition in her heart;/ Her loose land-masses drift
apart" (11. 1181-1183).
Auden traces modern problems, as he did in
"The Prolific and the Devourer," from the beginning of the Reformation
when Luther divided the private life of worship from the public life
of human responsibilities in which power and wealth are valued above
30
piety; then Auden immediately turns to Montaigne who widened Luther's
dualism and applied Luther's views to the separation of the flesh and
the spirit, in which the flesh is valued above the spirit.
The Reform-
ation also isolated man from his neighbor and as a result men began to
work against one another instead of helping one another:
"To feel in
splendid isolation/ Or drive himself about creation/ In the closed cab
of occupation'' (11. 1228-1230).
Auden believed that the Economic Man,
since the Reformation, judged objects on the basis of their utility.
When the falsehood of this philosophy caused man's faith in industrialism to waiver, Economic Man created a greater problem as he tried to
justify his falsehood which could only lead to disasters such as World
War II.
However, this failure has its good effects:
"And if his
half-success broke down/ All failures have one good result;/ They prove
the Good is difficult" (ll. 1250-1252).
Although the Good is difficult
to achieve, Auden believes that it isn't difficult for the individual
to grasp.
In the notes of the ''New Year Letter, 11 Auden quotes Tillich 1 s
belief that "the Kairos should determine the Logos; 11 moreover, Auden
restates, in this section of Part III of the poem, that 1940 is the
right time (Kairos) for man to try to grasp the Good within himself.
Auden also states that not only is the philosophy of the Economic
Man incorrect because it exalts the mind above the heart, but his
opposition, the Romantics, are also mistaken since they value the heart
above the mind.
Men like Blake, Rousseau, Kierkegaard, and Baudelaire
were artists who tried to steer mankind away from the view of one sort
of dualism or another.
Auden saw that dualism causes mankind to act
randomly and without direction when his psyche is unbalanced:
"It is
the Mover that is moved./ Whichever way we turn, we see/ Man captured
31
oy his lioerty" (11. 1285-1287).
Instead of heeding the warning of the
artists who point out the division within man's psyche, Man shows his
gratitude to his artists by ignoring them:
"The Disregarded in their
shacks/ Upon the wrong side of the tracks./ Poisoned by reasonable hate"
(11. 1326-1322).
ness.
Mankind rejects wisdom because of the Ego's selfish-
When selfishness occurs within the individual, the Ego separates
the unconscious and conscious mind from each other, but the Ego, soon
discovering that it is practicing a shallow narcissistic love, immediately turns to the Social Consciousness for security.
When the indi-
vidual seeks refuge from himself and looks to the social consciousness
for values and direction, he loses his individuality for the "good" of
the society.
Auden points to Hitler's Germany as an example of this
tragedy, "(Ego) she worships in obscene delight/ The Not, the Never,
and the Night,/ The formless Mass without a Me" (11. 1428-1430).
How-
ever, Auden again emphasizes, as he has done throughout the poem, that
this sin is the key to the individual's salvation, and consequently,
the salvation of the society:
either one's selfishness or one's
faith in the social consciousness must inevitably lead the individual
to the recognition of the Anima figure within his unconscious mind.
The Anima figure, the dark side, can redeem man if it is not destructive
or fraught with maternal features.
The Mother can be terrible:
"The
huge doll roars for Death or Mother/ Synonymous with one another;/
And Woman, passive as in dreams,/ Redeems, redeems, redeems, redeems"
(11. 1440-1443).
In line 1444 Auden turns his attention away from the indivicfual
for a moment to look at the setting of the poem, New York City in the
early hours of New Year's Day, 1940:
"Delighted with their takings,
32
bars/ Are closing under fading stars" (ll. 1444-1445).
During these
early hours, Auden examines America, which is unlike Europe that has
the potential to redeem itself once Americans learn from their sins:
"More even than in Europe, here/ The choice of patterns is made clear/
Which the machine imposes, what/ Is possible and what is not,/ To what
conditions we must bow/ In building the Just City now" (ll. 1519-
1524).
Auden concludes that "Aloneness is man's real condition," but
it is through aloneness that the individual can discover himself, and
therefore, he can heal the divisions within his psyche.
Once this
discovery occurs, the individual can then effect a positive change
within his society.
Auden states that man doesn't have an answer to
his problem--he needs only to understand its nature:
"That each must
travel forth alone/ In search of the Essential Stone,/ The 'Nowhere Without - No' that is/ The justice of societies" (ll. 1543-1546).
Auden points out near the end of the poem that this New Year Day is
the appropriate time for mankind to seek the truth of the "Essential
Stone" within his unconscious--the Divine laws. 66
Auden again states
that one can acquire true love only through obedience to Divine laws
and acknowledgement of the absolute presuppositions which support
both science and faith.
In order for mankind to obey these laws, he
must first confess his sins, and then, he must see the need for a
fraternal society:
"We need to love all since we are/ Each a unique
particular/ That is no giant, god, or dwarf,/ But one odd human
isomorph" (ll. 1643-1646).
Auden ends his poem with a prayer to his concept of God who is
not omnipotent but identical to Collingwood's explanation of the
Trinity in Matter and Metaphysics.
Auden's belief in God was not
33
fundamentally Christian in 1940, but he did use Christian nomenclature,
as did Collingwood, to explain the concept of the Trinity in "The Prolifie and the Devourer":
"If anyone chooses to call our knowledge of God,
to call Essence the Father, Form the Son, and Motion the Holy Ghost, I
don't mind:
6
Nomenclature is purely a matter of convenience." '7
Auden
expresses his view of the Godhead with a QUote from Williams' Descent
of the Dove-- "Quando non fuerit non est" (1. 1668):
he was not.
There is not when
Auden, like Williams, believes that the Father (Essence)
was co-eternal with the Son (Form); he also prays that the Holy Spirit
(Motion) will inspire man to come to an awareness of the absolute
presuppositions which support and change our concept of the universe:
"Send strength sufficient for our day/ And point our knowledge on its
way" (11. 1682-1683).
However, at the end of his prayer, Auden adds
one more element to his concept of the Trinity which forms a divine
Quaternity that is similar to the Catholic doctrine of the Virgin Mary
who is the mediatrix of grace.
This additional element (the Anima
figure) is represented by Elizabeth Mayer.
Auden concludes his poem
with a final address to Mrs. Mayer, who, as the Anima figure, unifies
man's spiritual and material disharmonies into a peaceful synthesis.
Jung interpreted the Virgin Mary's function within religion in the
same manner:
"The Mother of God. . .means the desire for the birth of
a savior, a peacemaker, a mediator pacem faciens, inter inimicos" or,
68
"A mediator making peace between enemies."
Auden also borrows Jung's
term, solificatio,
69 which is the rising of the Anima figure to the
individual's conscious awareness, to represent Mrs. Mayer's influence
upon his consciousness:
"Bless/ Me with your learned peacefulness/
Who on the lives about you throw/ A calm solificatio,/ A warmth
34
throughout the universe./ That each for better or worse/ Must carry
round with him through life" (11. 1691-1697).
Auden saw that it was
through an awareness of the Anima figure that society could hope to
achieve a reconciliation.
Auden ends "New Year Letter" with the hope
that man will get in touch with the Anima figure in his unconscious
mind and that he will truly begin to love his neighbor--"But always
there are such as you/ Forgiving, helping what we do./ 0 every day
in sleep and labour/ Our life and death are with our neighbor/ And
love illuminates again/ The city and the lion's den,/ The world's
great rage, the travel of young men" (11. 1701-1707).
35
NOTES
l.
W. H. Auden, New Year Letter (London:
Faber and Faber, 1941).
2. As quoted in Humphrey Carpenter, W. H. Auden, A Biography
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1981), p. 286.
3.
Carpenter, p. 275.
4. H. H. Auden, "The Prolific and the Devourer," Antaeus: No. 42,
Summer, 1981.
5.
Carpenter, p. 87.
6.
As quoted in Carpenter, p. 89.
7.
As quoted in Carpenter,
8.
Carpenter, p. 135.
p~
135.
9. Carl Jung, The Portable Jung, trans. R. F. C. Hull, ed.
Joseph Campbell (New York: Viking Press, 1976), p. 178.
10.
Jung, p. 174.
11.
Jung, p. 268.
12.
Jung, p. 97.
13. Carl Jung, The Integration of the Personality, trans. Stanley
M. Dell (New York: Faber and Rinehart, Inc., 1939), p. 109.
14.
Jung, Integration, p. 108
15.
As quoted in Carpenter, p. 163.
16.
As quoted in Carpenter, p. 160.
17. Charles Hilliams, Descent of the Dove (Grand Rapids, Michigan:
Grand Rapids Book Manufacturers, In~, 193~
18.
Hilliams, p. 30.
19.
Hilliams, p. 46.
20.
Hilliams, pp. 135-36.
21.
Hilliams, p. 138.
36
22.
Williams, p. 138.
23.
Carpenter, p. 285.
24. S~ren Kierkegaard, The Living Thoughts of Kierkegaard, ed.
W. H. Auden (New York: David McKay Company, Inc.:-1952), p. 6.
25. Reinhold Niebuhr, Christianity and Power Politics (New York:
Archon Books, 1940).
26.
Niebuhr, p. 213.
27.
Niebuhr, p. 207.
28. R. G. Collingwood, An Essay on Metaphysics (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1940).
29.
Collingwood, p. 25.
30.
Collingwood, p. 27.
31.
Collingwood, p. 28.
32.
Collingwood, p. 73.
33.
Auden, "The Prolific and the Devourer," p. 7.
34.
Auden, "The Prolific and the Devourer," p. 20.
35.
Auden, "The Prolific and the Devourer," p. 7.
36.
Auden, "The Prolific and the Devourer," p. 19.
37.
Auden, "The Prolific and the Devourer," p. 9.
38.
Auden, "The Prolific and the Devourer," p. 23.
39.
Auden, "The Prolific and the Devourer," p. 23.
40.
Auden, "The Prolific and the Devourer," p. 26.
41.
Auden, "The Prolific and the Devourer," p. 26.
42.
Auden, "The Prolific and the Devourer," p. 32.
43.
Auden, "The Prolific and the Devourer," p. 35.
44.
Auden, "The Prolific and the Devourer," p. 35.
45.
Auden, "The Prolific and the Devourer," p. 36.
46.
Auden, "The Prolific and the Devourer," p. 37.
37
47.
Auden, "The Prolific and the Devourer, " p. 42.
48.
Auden, "The Prolific and the Devourer, " p. 43.
49.
Auden, "The Prolific and the Devourer, " p. 44.
50.
Auden, "The Prolific and the Devourer, " pp. 50-51.
51. Paul Tillich, The Interpretation of Historx (New York:
Charles Scribner's Sons, 1936).
52. In A History of Christian Thought, ed. Carl E. Braaten
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1968), p. l.
53.
Auden, "The Prolific and the Devourer, 11 p. 58.
54.
Auden, New Year Letter, p. 14.
55.
Auden, New~ Letter, p. 14.
56. Herbert Greenberg, Quest for the Necessary: W. H. Auden
and the Dilemma of the Divided ConsCIOus;ess (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press-:-1"§b8), p. 102.
57. Auden, New~ Letter, ll. l-2. All references to line
numbers will be in parentheses immediately following the quotation.
58.
See p. 5 above.
59.
Greenberg, p. 102.
60.
Jung, The Portable Jung, p. 458.
61.
See p. 12 above.
62.
See p. 15 above.
63.
Greenberg, p. 102.
64.
See p. 13 above.
65. "Oh, your mother will not return/ To you. I am you (Yourself), your duty/ And love. She broke only my picture" (ll. 11491151). Siegfried (Act II, Scene ii).
66.
See p. 8 above.
67.
Auden, "The Prolific and the Devourer," p. 53.
68.
Jung, The Portable Jung, p. 640.
69.
See p. 2 above.
38
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Auden, W. H.
New Year Letter.
London:
Faber and Faber, 1941.
Auden, W. H. "The Prolific and the Devourer," Antaeus:
Summer, 1981.
No. 42,
Auden, W. H., ed. The Living Thoughts of Kierkegaard.
David McKay Company, Inc., 1952.
New York:
Bahlke, George W. The Later Auden:
the House. New Brunswick, NJ:
From "New Year Letter" to About
----Rutgers University Press, 1970.
~~~
Braaten, Carl E., ed. ! History of Christian Thought.
Simon and Schuster, 1968.
Carpenter, Humphrey. W. H. Auden, A Biography.
Mifflin Company, 1981.
Collingwood, R. G.
Press, 1940.
An Essay on Metaphysics.
New York:
Boston:
Oxford:
Houghton
Clarendon
Greenberg, Herbert. Quest for the Necessary: H. H. Auden and the
Dilemma of the Divided Consciousness. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1968.
Jung, Carl G.
M. Dell.
Campbell.
The Integration of the Personality. Trans. Stanley
New York: Faber and Rinehart, Inc., 1939.
The Portable Jung. Trans. R. F. C. Hull.
New York: Viking Press, 1976.
Niebuhr, Reinhold.
Books, 1940.
Christianity and Power Politics.
Tillich, Paul. The Interpretation of History.
Scribner's Sons, 1936.
Ed. Joseph
New York:
New York:
Archon
Charles
Williams, Charles. Descent of the Dove. Grand Rapids, Michigan:
Grand Rapids Book Manufacturers, Inc., 1939.