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W. H. Auden citations
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Wystan Hugh Auden, plus connu sous la signature W. H. Auden est un poète, essayiste, dramaturge, librettiste et critique d'origine britannique, considéré comme l’un des plus importants et influents poètes du XXe siècle.

Il a vécu la première partie de sa vie au Royaume-Uni puis a émigré aux États-Unis en 1939 et est devenu citoyen américain en 1946. Il est élu Chancelier de l'Academy of American Poets en 1954, il occupera cette charge jusqu'en 1973. Wikipedia  

✵ 21. février 1907 – 29. septembre 1973  •  Autres noms W.H. Auden
W. H. Auden photo
W. H. Auden: 122 citations0 J'aime

W. H. Auden: Citations en anglais

“Cold, impossible, ahead
Lifts the mountain's lovely head
Whose white waterfall could bless
Travellers in their last distress.”

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W. H. Auden

First published in book form in Look, Stranger! (1936; US title On this Island)
Source: Autumn Song (1936), Lines 17–20

“Politics cannot be a science, because in politics theory and practice cannot be separated, and the sciences depend upon their separation.”

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W. H. Auden

"Tyranny”
A Certain World: A Commonplace Book (1970)

“In a national capital Mirabeau and his set
Attacked mystery; the packed galleries roared
And history marched to the drums of a clear idea,
The aim of the Rational City, quick to admire,
Quick to tire.”

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W. H. Auden

Memorial for the City (1947)

“A god who is both self-sufficient and content to remain so could not interest us enough to raise the question of his existence.”

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W. H. Auden livre Forewords and Afterwords

"The Greeks and Us", p. 15
Forewords and Afterwords (1973)

“For the error bred in the bone
Of each woman and each man
Craves what it cannot have,
Not universal love
But to be loved alone.”

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W. H. Auden September 1, 1939

Source: September 1, 1939 (1939), Lines 62–66

“In the course of many centuries a few laborsaving devices have been introduced into the mental kitchen — alcohol, coffee, tobacco, Benzedrine, etc. — but these are very crude, constantly breaking down, and liable to injure the cook. Literary composition in the twentieth century A. D. is pretty much what it was in the twentieth century B. C.: nearly everything has still to be done by hand.”

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W. H. Auden livre The Dyer's Hand

"Writing", p. 17
The Dyer's Hand, and Other Essays (1962)

“Normally, when one passes someone on the street who is in pain, one either tries to help him, or one simply looks the other way. With a photo there's no human decision; you're not there; you can't turn away; you simply gape. It's a form of voyeurism.”

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W. H. Auden

Source: Paris Review interview (1972), p. 247

“Lay your sleeping head, my love
Human on my faithless arm;
Time and fevers burn away
Individual beauty from
Thoughtful children, and the grave
Proves the child ephemeral;
But in my arms till break of day
Let the living creature lie:
Mortal, guilty, but to me
The entirely beautiful.”

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W. H. Auden

Lay your sleeping head, my love (1937), lines 1–2, written January 1937; also known as Lullaby.

“When one looks into the window of a store which sells devotional art objects, one can't help wishing the iconoclasts had won.”

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W. H. Auden livre The Dyer's Hand

"Postscript: Christianity & Art", p. 461
The Dyer's Hand, and Other Essays (1962)

“The basic stimulus to the intelligence is doubt, a feeling that the meaning of an experience is not self-evident.”

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W. H. Auden livre Forewords and Afterwords

"The Protestant Mystics", p. 51
Forewords and Afterwords (1973)

“A ragged urchin, aimless and alone,
Loitered about that vacancy: a bird
Flew up to safety from his well-aimed stone:
That girls are raped, that two boys knife a third,
Were axioms to him, who'd never heard
Of any world where promises were kept
Or one could weep because another wept.”

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W. H. Auden livre The Shield of Achilles

The Shield of Achilles (1952)

“They never forgot
That even the most dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.”

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W. H. Auden Musée des Beaux Arts

Musée des Beaux Arts (1938)

“In all technologically "advanced" countries, fashion has replaced tradition, so that involuntary membership in a society can no longer provide a feeling of community.”

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W. H. Auden livre Forewords and Afterwords

"Lame Shadows", p. 410
Forewords and Afterwords (1973)

“The law cannot forgive, for the law has not been wronged, only broken; only persons can be wronged. The law can pardon, but it can only pardon what it has the power to punish.”

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W. H. Auden livre The Dyer's Hand

"The Prince's Dog", p. 201
The Dyer's Hand, and Other Essays (1962)

“When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter,
And when he cried the little children died in the streets.”

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W. H. Auden

Epitaph on a Tyrant (1939), lines 5–6

“Defenceless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.”

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W. H. Auden September 1, 1939

Source: September 1, 1939 (1939), Lines 89–99

“Most people call something profound, not because it is near some important truth but because it is distant from ordinary life. Thus, darkness is profound to the eye, silence to the ear; what-is-not is the profundity of what-is.”

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W. H. Auden livre Forewords and Afterwords

"Un Homme d'Esprit", p. 361
Forewords and Afterwords (1973)

“Before people complain of the obscurity of modern poetry, they should first examine their consciences and ask themselves with how many people and on how many occasions they have genuinely and profoundly shared some experience with another; they might also ask themselves how much poetry of any period they can honestly say that they understand.”

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W. H. Auden livre The Dyer's Hand

The Dyer's Hand (1955), in the BBC weekly The Listener (30 June 1955)

“A crowd of ordinary decent folk
Watched from without and neither moved nor spoke
As three pale figures were led forth and bound
To three posts driven upright in the ground.”

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W. H. Auden livre The Shield of Achilles

The Shield of Achilles (1952)

“Into this neutral air
Where blind skyscrapers use
Their full height to proclaim
The strength of Collective Man,
Each language pours its vain
Competitive excuse.”

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W. H. Auden September 1, 1939

Source: September 1, 1939 (1939), Lines 34–39

“Unfortunately for the modern dramatist, during the past century and a half the public realm has been less and less of a realm where human deeds are done, and more and more of a realm of mere human behavior. The contemporary dramatist has lost his natural subject.”

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W. H. Auden livre The Dyer's Hand

"Genius & Apostle", p. 435
The Dyer's Hand, and Other Essays (1962)

“Acts of injustice done
Between the setting and the rising sun
In history lie like bones, each one.”

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W. H. Auden The Ascent of F6

The Ascent of F6, written with Christopher Isherwood, Act II, Scene V; quoted by Richard Adams in his novel Watership Down. (1936)

“The thin-lipped armorer,
Hephaestos, hobbled away,
Thetis of the shining breasts
Cried out in dismay
At what the god had wrought
To please her son, the strong
Iron-hearted man-slaying Achilles
Who would not live long.”

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W. H. Auden livre The Shield of Achilles

The Shield of Achilles (1952)

“Let us honour if we can
The vertical man
Though we value none
But the horizontal one.”

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W. H. Auden livre Poems

Dedication to Christopher Isherwood, Poems (1930)

“No poet or novelist wishes he were the only one who ever lived, but most of them wish they were the only one alive, and quite a number fondly believe their wish has been granted.”

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W. H. Auden livre The Dyer's Hand

"Writing", p. 14
The Dyer's Hand, and Other Essays (1962)

“Music is the best means we have of digesting time.”

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W. H. Auden

A quotation from Igor Stravinsky, not Auden. Cited as Auden's through a misreading of a paragraph in Stravinsky: Chronicle of a Friendship, by Robert Craft (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1972), p. 6. (The antecedent of "he" is unmistakably "Mr. S." in Craft's sentence: "He also makes a marvelous remark to the effect that 'Music is the best means we have of digesting time'"; and in the sentence that follows "he" is again Stravinsky, not Auden.)
Misattributed

“A million eyes, a million boots in line,
Without expression, waiting for a sign.”

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W. H. Auden livre The Shield of Achilles

The Shield of Achilles (1952)

“Sad is Eros, builder of cities,
And weeping anarchic Aphrodite.”

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W. H. Auden

In Memory of Sigmund Freud (1939), lines 111–112

“Almost all of our relationships begin and most of them continue as forms of mutual exploitation, a mental or physical barter, to be terminated when one or both parties run out of goods.”

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W. H. Auden livre The Dyer's Hand

"Hic et Ille", p. 105
The Dyer's Hand, and Other Essays (1962)

“When I consider others I can easily believe that their bodies express their personalities and that the two are inseparable. But it is impossible for me not to feel that my body is other than I, that I inhabit it like a house, and that my face is a mask which, with or without my consent, conceals my real nature from others.”

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W. H. Auden livre The Dyer's Hand

"Hic et Ille", p. 104
The Dyer's Hand, and Other Essays (1962)

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