Ethical Consciousness in W. H. Auden's Poetry (1935—1940)

This book takes a thematic-cum-stylistic approach to Auden’s earlier poetry and poetics. By dividing the poet’s ethical consciousness into three thematic groups (cognition, emotion and conation), it demonstrates how readers can construct poetic themes by experiencing texts within their social and historical contexts. This allows a congruence of consciousness to be achieved between poet and reader. The book reveals the wide-ranging ethical concerns of Auden’s poetry (1935—1940), which include addressing the social and moral crisis of the West, denouncing the evil of international fascism and the injustice of appeasing it, expressing sympathy for those who suffer, urging joint action against fascism, promoting mutual love, and envisioning a community of freedom and brotherhood. When examining Auden’s poetry, the author employs traditional and cognitive stylistic tools to focus on how verbal nuances and patterns work together to evoke reader’s perception, feeling and cognition, thereby conveying poetic meaning. While offering new insights into Auden’s poetry and poetics, the study sheds light on the merits of what Geoffrey Leech calls an “interpretive synthesis” of stylistics and literary studies. Covering a wide range of Auden’s canonical poems, including “Spain”, “In Memory of W. B. Yeats”, “Refugee Blues”, “September 1, 1939”, “Musée des Beaux Arts”, “Epitaph on a Tyrant” and “New Year Letter”, this book will appeal to students and scholars interested in modern Anglophone poetry, literary criticism, and cognitive stylistics (or poetics).