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W,H Auden

Whystan Hugh Auden greatly contributed to the literary world of the twentieth century with his influential works of poetry, prose, and play writing. Auden’s writing style and unusual subject matters were mostly contrived as a result of his travels, political affrications, vast intelligence, experience with homosexuality, and nature. His early upbringing and the works of Sigmund Freud also influenced Auden. Specifically, he changed schools often and his parents pressured him to pursue his studies in the sciences, at this time he discovered and began studying the works of Freud. In 1922 while still attending school, Auden began to question his religious faith, and shortly after Auden was introduced, by a friend, to the idea of writing poetry. Throughout his career, Wystan Hugh Auden created many poems of varying caliber, but several critics agree that his work completed after the mid-nineteen thirties stands out at his finest and most defining. Followers of Auden’s career break his writing up into two periods

“As I Walked Out One Evening” discusses the struggle between time and love; nothing that time transcends all emotions and people. The first five stanzas display the triumph and eternal aspect of love and happiness. The turning point occurs in the sixth stanza when Auden uses the metaphor, “…. the clocks in the city began to whirr and chime: O let not Time deceive you, you cannot conquer Time,” to illustrate the endurance and succession of time. Shortly after in the eighth stanza Time begins to also represent aging and death. In addition, the twelfth stanza Auden alludes to nursery rhyme, “Jack and Jill,” to refer to a loss of innocence and offer an insinuation towards Heaven. In the closing lines, Auden displays the death and love through the lovers and represents the continuity of Time with the symbol of the deep river. Auden uses his characteristic style to intertwine the theme within imagery and metaphors.