Abstract
The aim of this paper is to highlight the importance of a remarkable writer, Wystan Hugh Auden (1907 - 1973), who was strongly influenced by the philosophy and thinking of the Danish philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard, especially by his works Either - Or, The Concept of Anxiety, Works of Love and The Sickness Unto Death. Auden's poetry is noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, purity and religion, and its unique variety in tone, form and content. It is enormously rich in allusions, poetic tone and intellectual power. The content of his poems ranges from philosophical meditations, the concept of being, the concept of man, anxiety, aloneness and despair, to the contemporary crises of modern man and the evolution of society. His poetry becomes a resource for existential reflection in modern society with the technocratic and hedonistic tendencies of consumer society of which this paper is an in-depth analysis.
Highlights
“Our bodies cannot love: But without one, What works of Love could we do?” [12, p. 713]
People are tied to their average lives; they desire to pursue their happy dreams, and they keep the music playing and the lights on so that they will never see how morally lost they are
My personal feelings towards them were unchanged–they were still colleagues, not intimate friends-but I felt their existence as themselves to be of infinite value and rejoiced in it” [16, p. 69-70]. Auden later describes this feeling as a vision of ‘Agape,’ or a kind of brotherly love
Summary
Wystan Hugh Auden is one of the greatest and most influential poets of modern times. His verse combines evocative descriptions of his inner world and feelings with personal responses to the major events of the 20th century. For Auden, “Kierkegaard’s belief that a man is related in his life to an unconditional absolute that he must continuously search for but never fully know, resonated profoundly with Auden’s own spiritual instincts of faith and doubt, as did Kierkegaard’s consequent exploration of man’s existential relationship with God in his everyday life” [1, p. The grass withers, the flower fades, But the word of our God stands forever” [10, p. 95]
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