W. H. Auden

British-American poet (1907–1973)

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Lived 1907–1973, aged 66United Kingdom

United Kingdom WritersWriter / Author

Wikipedia
67 languages
Cross-language footprint
Era
1907–1973
Aged 66
Known for
Night Mail
1936

Summary

Updated 2026-06-08

A poet whose single stanza—"Stop all the clocks"—became the English language's default script for grief, Auden built a half-century career toggling between the personal and the political, the devotional and the mordantly funny, never settling into one mode long enough to be pinned down.

Biography

About

Wystan Hugh Auden was born in York in 1907, grew up near Birmingham, and caught public attention in 1930 with his first book, Poems. Through the 1930s he wrote left-wing political plays with Christopher Isherwood, earning a reputation he later fled by moving to the United States in 1939. The shift marked a turn inward: his 1940s work explored religious themes in long poems like "For the Time Being", and his 1947 book The Age of Anxiety won the Pulitzer and gave the era its diagnostic phrase. He became an American citizen in 1946 while keeping his British passport, taught intermittently at univ…

Voice

In their own words

Sourced, dated quotes from W. H. Auden

W. H. Auden

said1948

A poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with language.

— "Squares and Oblongs", in Poets at Work (1948) p. 170

W. H. Auden

said5 May 1941

Every day America's destroyed and re-created, America is what you do, America is I and you, America is what you choose to make it.

— Paul Bunyan (5 May 1941) act II, sc. 2

W. H. Auden

said1936

This is the Night Mail crossing the Border, Bringing the cheque and the postal order, Letters for the rich, letters for the poor, The shop at the corner, the girl next door.

— Night Mail (1936)

W. H. Auden

said1936