A Note on Auden's ‘Kathy’

Abstract

Scholars of W. H. Auden have long been aware of the allusion to Katherine Mansfield in his poem ‘Here on the cropped grass of the narrow ridge I stand’, printed in full in the current issue of this journal. When the poem first appeared, as number ‘XVII’ in Auden’s 1936 collection Look, Stranger!, F. R. Leavis was quick to recognise the reference to Mansfield six lines from its end; and this has become a standard note, though little more, in subsequent commentaries on the volume, including the recent Companion to Modernist Literature and Culture.1 But in presenting Auden’s poem to readers of this journal, Gerri Kimber has uncovered a treat for readers of Mansfield, who will doubtless want to know more about this unexpected connection with one of the twentieth-century’s leading British poets. Moreover, Auden’s poem juxtaposes an extract of ‘Kathy’s’ journal – ‘To be rooted in life,/ That’s what I want’ – with a quotation from Wilfred Owen to form a second intriguing pairing.2 And as if that were not enough, Leavis also recognises the strong influence of Burns and Yeats throughout the Auden collection, while elsewhere in this journal volume, C. K. Stead draws attention to the influence of Mansfield on Philip Larkin.3 How, we might wonder, has Mansfield found herself in the company of so many great male poets? It is to be hoped that these interconnections will give rise to new studies of Mansfield’s influence, but, in the meantime, Auden’s poem itself repays a careful reading. Leavis, who was ever critical of Auden, found much to condemn in Look, Stranger!, which he finds ‘essentially immature’, primarily because ‘Mr Auden still makes far too much of his poetry out of private neuroses and memories’.4 Auden’s references to Owen and Mansfield as ‘Wilfred’ and ‘Kathy’ in ‘XVII’ are a case in point – ‘It is a significant habit that is betrayed in this mode of referring to them’ – and this passage at the conclusion of the poem leaves Leavis questioning: ‘is