On the Difference between a Genius and an Apostle: Auden, Kierkegaard, and the Poetry of Vocation

Abstract

Abstract:Though critics have long recognized the influence of Søren Kierkegaard on poet W. H. Auden, the understanding of Auden's debt to Kierkegaard has primarily focused on the most famous aspects of Kierkegaard's thought: the "stages of life" and "leap of faith." By recovering the depths of Auden's reading of Kierkegaard, this article redefines their relationship: Kierkegaard's most lasting impact on Auden consisted in his views on the public, literary vocation, and necessity of indirection. In redefining Auden's debt to Kierkegaard, I also seek to recover Auden's continued commitment to public poetry in his supposedly private later career.