Auden and Rilke

Abstract

This article traces Auden's references to the poetry of Rilke, showing his influence to be strongest in the late 1930's. It then compares some poems by Auden with similar works by Rilke. It argues that Auden shared with Rilke a concern with the development of the individual from childhood and with the relation of the individual sensibility to the external world and also an aesthetic and symbolist dimension, but that the effect of this in his writing is always modified by his concern with morality and his feeling that this has priority over aesthetics, and by Auden's scepticism concerning the more Romantic or mystical aspects of Rilke's thought.