The Augustinian Theology of W. H. Auden

Stephen J. Schuler|Malcolm Alan Compitello

ISBN 10: 1611172438 / ISBN 13: 9781611172430

Edité par UNIV OF SOUTH CAROLINA PR, 2013

A propos de cet article

&Uumlber den AutorStephen J. Schuler holds a Ph.D. in English from Baylor University. He is an assistant professor of English at the University of Mobile in Alabama, where he teaches British literature and honors English. Schuler lives .

N° de réf. du vendeur 904505045

Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: The Augustinian Theology of W. H. Auden
• Éditeur: UNIV OF SOUTH CAROLINA PR
• Date de parution: 2013
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN à 10 chiffres: 1611172438
• ISBN à 13 chiffres: 9781611172430
• Reliure: Couverture rigide
• État de l'article: New

A propos de ce titre

Synopsis

When W. H. Auden returned to Christianity in the early 1940s, he identified himself with what he called an "existential" method of spiritual and literary inquiry, which the writings of St. Augustine helped him define as a mode of thinking that not only allows for human subjectivity, but emphasizes the hopes, fears, needs, desires, and anxieties of the individual. Augustine thus became for Auden a model of a thinker who seamlessly merged psychological reflection with philosophical speculation and theological insight, and it is this combination of introspection and theoretical investigation that shapes much of Auden's later poetry.

The Augustinian Theology of W. H. Auden illustrates that Augustine's thought is a major influence on Auden's postconversion poetry and prose. Auden encountered Augustine both directly, through his reading of the Confessions, and indirectly, through several of Auden's contemporaries, such as Reinhold Niebuhr, Charles Norris Cochrane, and Charles Williams. Stephen J. Schuler argues that Augustine provided Auden with the language of privation to describe the nature of moral and social evil, enabling him to make sense of the pervasive anxieties produced by World War II. Augustine's works also offered Auden a rationale for his intuition that the physical world, and especially the human body, is intrinsically good. Auden's struggle to reconcile the implications of his Augustinian theology with his attitudes toward romantic love and sexuality are explained by Schuler, who demonstrates how the Augustinian theology of Reinhold Niebuhr helped shape Auden's ideas about human identity and community, which is defined and maintained by love in all its various forms. Finally, Schuler analyses Auden's Augustinian view of the ethics of poetry.

By examining the presence of Augustinian ideas in Auden's poetry and prose, Schuler establishes the Augustinian origins of several crucial but often misunderstood features of Auden's work as well as the importance of Augustine in shaping and articulating the concerns of Auden's later poetry.

À propos de l'auteur

Stephen J. Schuler holds a Ph.D. in English from Baylor University. He is an assistant professor of English at the University of Mobile in Alabama, where he teaches British literature and honors English. Schuler lives in the Mobile area with his wife, Grace, and their four children.