<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p> In the 1930s W.H. Auden taught at several public schools in Britain while simultaneously embarking on his poetic career. Later in life, he lectured at various educational institutions and returned to Oxford, his alma mater, in the 1950s as Oxford Professor of Poetry. His experience of teaching allowed Auden to reflect upon the pitfalls of Britain’s interwar educational system and its social function. Therefore, this article diverts attention from the prevailing scholarly focus on Auden’s poetry to his critical prose in order to examine the poet’s concerns about the content, purpose and role of education in society, his views on the structure of the educational system and disquiet about the tension between the utilitarian and humanistic dimensions of the educational process. At a more general level, the paper points out the relation that Auden maintained existed between education, democracy, art and the “crystallizing” power of poetry.</p></abstract>

In the 1930s W.H. Auden taught at several public schools in Britain while simultaneously embarking on his poetic career. Later in life, he lectured at various educational institutions and returned to Oxford, his alma mater, in the 1950s as Oxford Professor of Poetry. His experience of teaching allowed Auden to reflect upon the pitfalls of Britain’s interwar educational system and its social function. Therefore, this article diverts attention from the prevailing scholarly focus on Auden’s poetry to his critical prose in order to examine the poet’s concerns about the content, purpose and role of education in society, his views on the structure of the educational system and disquiet about the tension between the utilitarian and humanistic dimensions of the educational process. At a more general level, the paper points out the relation that Auden maintained existed between education, democracy, art and the “crystallizing” power of poetry.

The Poet at the Teacher’s Desk: W.H. Auden on Education, Democracy and Humanity

Prague Journal of English Studies

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

In the 1930s W.H. Auden taught at several public schools in Britain while simultaneously embarking on his poetic career. Later in life, he lectured at various...

The Poet at the Teacher’s Desk: W.H. Auden on Education, Democracy and Humanity

Published Online: Jul 22, 2017

Page range: 27 - 43

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/pjes-2017-0002

© Faculty of Education, Charles University

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.