And the Word was made Flesh : Anthropomorphism in the poetry of W.H. Auden

Abstract

And the Word Was Made Flesh: Anthropomorphism in the poetry of WH Auden examines the reasons for the neglect of Auden’s prolific deployment of anthropomorphism by examining the poetry’s critical reception with a view to understanding what larger purpose, what ‘strategy of discourse’ (Ricoeur 2003, The Rule of Metaphor: 5-9), Auden may have had in mind when he revived a trope traditionally regarded as retrograde. Anxious not to be mistaken for a Modern, yet unable to find a social rhetoric to suit his purposes, Auden elected upon a new style of poetry which questioned the very foundations of language by placing anthropomorphism, the ascription of agency and sentience to voiceless entities, at its centre. The study explores anthropomorphism from historical and theoretical perspectives in an attempt to explain the reasons for its demise, at least, within the academy. This study emphasises the importance Auden placed on the everyday activity of reading, the principal focus for the poet’s ‘cultural theory’ (Boly 1991 and 2004: 138). Auden, 'eager to create a tradition of its own' (Emig 2000: 1), abjuring propaganda, hoped to educate the reader to resist the different ideologies which were vying for ascendency during the 1930s. This study will demonstrate that anthropomorphism, with its capacity to suggest alternative words to ‘re-describe reality’ (Ricoeur 2003: 5), played a pivotal role in Auden’s project for cultural renewal. This study demonstrates that the lasting benefit of Auden’s use of anthropomorphism is to have recognised with prescience what critics now recognise as a 'revolutionary and potently counter-cultural tactic of cultural appropriation' (Paxson 1994: 173), a trope that 'engenders within its semiotic structure a hidden critique of Western culture' (Paxson: 50). Evidence from recent linguistic theory is marshalled in support of the trope’s rehabilitation. This study examines a selection of Auden’s four hundred published poems, and it also offers a provisional taxonomy to initiate the complex process of classifying instances of personification and its co-ordinate tropes in poetry.