AREA OF STUD Y The Journey

THE POETRY OF W. H. AUDEN

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The poet W. H. Auden often uses the symbol of life as a journey. In his series of poems
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titled “The Quest”, Auden reveals the early, unsteady steps of the traveller as he sets out to
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discover his life’s meaning, followed by descriptions of the obstacles and hindrances that lie in
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his way.
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In many of his poems he describes the life of a person as an attempt at self-discovery, a

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journey which too often ends in frustration. But it is one that has to be undertaken in the
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hope that it will lead to fruition. Auden talks of the initial hopes experienced on our journey
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through life. He says that we begin with hopes and this almost always leads to frustration. We
then begin a more demanding phase in our lives. We resemble, he says, ‘travellers discovering
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new lands, working hard to find themselves, to settle in and to make the journey worthwhile. ‘
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Similarly, the individual must find his true identity and learn what it is to be happy.
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The symbol of the journey, of the quest and search, is intimately linked to a hero and we find
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Auden applauding the fact that this searching and this heroism will continue because, too often,
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the hope of success is thwarted and destroyed.

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What Auden eventually concludes in his symbol of the Quest is that, too often, we use such
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a journey for its own sake. We use it as a means of personal self-discovery, not of finding out
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about others. We use it as a mark of achievement in itself in that case, he claims, the journey
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has been wasted.

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This point of view is most dramatically presented in one of his later poems, “Moon Landing”.
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He sees it as ‘A grand gesture’, as the natural fruition of all those searchings and investigations
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that began when ‘the first flint was flaked’ -that is, when science was born and scientists began
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searching for the truth. But despite the achievement, the journey was in vain if as he says, ‘our
selves still don’t fit us exactly.
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Read through the poems The Quest, The Journey’ Moon Landing by
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W.H. Auden and complete the activities that follow.

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Wystan Hugh Auden

1907-1973
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 THE POETRY OF W. H. AUDEN

The Quest
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All bad been ordered weeks before the start

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From the best firms at such work; instuments

To take the measure of all queer events,
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And drugs to move the bowels or the heart,

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A watch, of course, to watch impatience fly,

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Lamps for the dark and shades against the sun;

Foreboding, too, insisted on a gun,
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And coloured beads to soothe a savage eye.

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In theory they were sound on Expectation

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Had there been situations to be in.

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Unluckily they were their situation:

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One should not give a poisoner medicine,

Auden and Isherwood, two famous Englishmen of letters
A conjurer fine apparatus, nor
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in the 1930s, visited China in 1938

A rifle to a melancholic bore.
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Two friends who met here and embraced are gone,

Each to his own mistake; one flashes on They noticed that virginity was needed To tray the
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To fame and ruin in a rowdy lie. unicorn in every case But not that, of those virgins
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A village torpor holds the other one, who succeeded A high percentage had an ugly face.
Some local wrong where it takes time to die.
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This empty junction glitters in the sun. The hero was as daring as they thought him,
But his peculiar boyhood missed them all;
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The angel of a broken leg had taught him

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So at all quays and crossroads: who can tell The right precautions to avoid a fall
These places of decision and farewell
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To what dishonour all l adventure leads, So in presumption they set forth alone
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What parting gift could give that friend protection, On what, for them, was not compulsory
So orientated his salvation needs And stuck half-wav to settle in some cave
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The Bad Lands and the sinister direction ? With desert lions to domesticity;
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All landscapes and all weathers freeze with fear, Or turned aside to be absurdly brave,
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But none have ever thought, the legends say. And met the ogre and were turned to stone.
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The time allowed made it impossible;

For even the most pessimistic set
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The limit of their errors at a year.

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What friends could there be left then to betray,

What joy take longer to atone for; yet
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Who would complete without the extra day

The journey that should take no time at all ?
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© Beverly Hills IEC Journeys_Auden 2

 THE POETRY OF W. H. AUDEN

The Quest
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Suppose heʼd listened to the erudite committee,

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Incredulous, he stared at the amused

Official writing down his name among He would have only found where not to look:
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Those whose request to suffer was refused. Suppose his terrier when he whistled had obeyed,
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It would not have unearthed the buried city:

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The pen ceased scratching; though he came too late Suppose he had dismissed the careless maid,
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To join the martyrs, there was still a place The cryptogram would not have fluttered from the boy
Among the tempters for a caustic tongue
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ʻI was not I,ʼ he cried as, healthy and astounded,

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To test the resolution of the young He stepped across a predecessorʼs skull.;

With tales of the small failings of the great, ʻA nonsense jingle simply came into my head
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And shame the eager with ironic praise. And left the intellectual Sphinx dumbfounded,
I won the Queen because my hair was red;
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Though mirrors might be hateful for a while The terrible adventure is a little dullʼ
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Women and books should teach his middle age

The fencing wit of an informal style Hence Failureʼs torment: ʻWas I doomed in any case
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To keep the silences at bay and cage Or would I not have failed had I believed in Grace ?ʼ
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His pacing manias in a worldly smile.

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Fresh addenda are published every day

To the encyclopaedia of the way.
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Linguistic notes and scientific explanations,

The over-logical fell for the witch And texts for schools, with modernized spelling and illustration
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Whose argument converted him to stone;

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Thieves rapidly absorbed the over-rich; Now everyone knows the hero most choose the old horse:
The over-popular went mad a one, Abstain from liquor and sexual intercourse
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And kisses brutalized the over-male.

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And look out for a stranded fish to be kind to:

As agents their effectiveness soon ceased; Now everyone thinks he could find, had he a mind to,
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Yet, no proportion as they seemed to fail,

Their instrumental vaue was increased The way through the waste to the chapel in the rock
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To those still able to obey their wish. For a vision of the Triple Rainbow or the Astral Clock.
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By standing stones the blind d can feel their way, Forgetting his information comes mostly from married men
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Wild dogs compel the cowardly to fight, Who liked fishing and a flutter on the horses now and then
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Beggars assist the slow to travel light,

And even madmen manage to convey And how reliable can any troth be that is got
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Unwelcome truths in lonely gibberish. By observing oneself and then just inserting a Not ?
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© Beverly Hills IEC Journeys_Auden 3

 THE POETRY OF W. H. AUDEN

Moon Landing
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It’s natural the Boys should whoop it Up for

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so huge a phallic triumph, an adventure

it would not have occurred to women
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to think worth while, made possible only

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because we like huddling in gangs and knowing

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the exact time: yes, our sex may in fairness

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hurrah the deed, although the motives

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that primed it were somewhat less than menschlich.

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A grand gesture But what does it period ?

What does it osse ? We were always adroiter
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with objects than lives, and more facile

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at courage than kindness: from the moment

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the first flint was flaked this landing was merely

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a matter of time. But our selves, like Adam’s,

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still don’t fit us exactly, modem

only in this - our lack of decorum.
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Unsmudged, thank God, my Moon still queens

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Homer’s heroes were certainly no braver the Heavens as

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than our Trio, but more fortunate: Hector She ebbs and fulls, a Presence to glop at,
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was excused the insult of having Her Old Man, made of grit not protein,
his valor covered by television. still visits my Austrian several
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Worth going to see? I can well believe it. with His old detachment, and the old warnings
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Worth seeing? Mneh! I once rode through a desert still have power to scare me: Hybris comes to
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and was not charmed: give me a watered an ugly finish, Irreverence

lively garden, remote from blatherers is a greater oaf than Superstition.
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about the New, the von Brauns and their ilk, where Our apparatniks will continue making
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on August mornings I can count the morning the usual squalid mess called History:
glories where to die has a meaning, and
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all we can pray for is that artists,

no engine can shift my perspective. chefs and saints may still appear to blithe it.
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1969

© Beverly Hills IEC Journeys_Auden 4

 THE POETRY OF W. H. AUDEN

The Journey
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To throw away the key and walk away,

Not abrupt exile, the neighbours asking why,
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But following a line with left and right,

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An altered gradient at another rate,

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Learns more than maps upon the whitewashed wall,

The hand put up to ask; and makes us well
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Without confession of the ill. All pasts

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Are single old past now, although some posts

Are forwarded, head looking on a new view
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The future shall fulfil a surer vow.

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Not smiling at queen over the glass rim

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Nor making gunpowder in the top room,

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Not swooping at the surface still like gulls

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But with prolonged drowning shall develop gills.

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But there are still to tempt; areas not seen

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Because of blizzards or an erring sign

Whose guessed at wonders would be worth alleging,
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And lies about the cost of a night’s lodging;

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Travellers may sleep at inns but not attach;

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Activities
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1. Explain the meaning of each of the three poems. What is the tone and the message
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that you think each one has?

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2. For each poem, explain what aspects of the text most effectively capture the tone the
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composer is trying to create.

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3. What do you consider the purpose of each text? Now does the tone contribute to
the purpose?
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4. Write a letter to the editor in which you respond to one of the poems. In your letter
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include such things as your ideas, opinions and thoughts about journeys of personal
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discoveries.
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5. What is the poet’s attitude towards the concept ʻThe Journeyʼ in each of the
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poems? How does it change or develop?

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6. Which of the poems did you find most appealing and why?
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7. Write a short piece of reflection on how these poems have broadened your thoughts
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and views of the Area of Study.

© Beverly Hills IEC Journeys_Auden 5