W. H. Auden

He lives in a hideous house, I can't tell you how awful it is, with hideous pictures on the walls.

     - W. H. Auden (in conversation) 1966

It is also unfortunate that the general Press, with its usual slant towards sneering, fastened on your remarks about my house and pictures. This was the main item in reports in English papers and exposed my wife and myself to a certain amount of ridicule.

     - J. R. R. Tolkien to W. H. Auden, 1966

We figure from this rather testy exchange that Wystan and Ronald didn't like each other that much. That, of course, isn't correct. They were actually good friends.

A year later Ronald had sent Wystan an Old English (that is, Anglo-Saxon) poem for a celebration of Wystan's birthday. In sending his thanks, Wystan had praised one of Ronald's own poems, "The Sea Bell (Frodo's Dreme)". Such praise from one of the leading poets of the twentieth century had the expected effect, and Ronald replied:

I was greatly cheered not only by your pleasure in having an Old English poem (I thought this would be appropriate) but also by your praise of "Frodo's Dreme". That really made me wag my tail.

So we see that Ronald could get a bit testy but he never held a grudge. Besides, one of Ronald's later visitors remembered Wystan's comments and noted that Ronald's house was not hideous. It was simply ordinary.

You'll sometimes read on the Fount of All Knowledge that Wystan was a student of Ronald's at Oxford. Strictly speaking, this is not correct.

A major difference between the Oxford system vs. American universities is the manner of instruction. When Ronald or Wystan - quote - "went to class" - unquote - they would see their tutors, that is, faculty members they met with for one-on-one instruction. It was the tutors' responsibility to make sure the students covered the material needed for the exams which were given at the end of the year.

Yes, there were lectures, but attendance was neither required nor in some cases all that necessary. John Wain, Professor of Poetry at Oxford from 1973 to 1978, said he was very supercilious about lectures unless the professor was particularly good (such as C. S. Lewis). When Isaac Newton was professor at Cambridge, his lectures were so rotten that he often spoke to an empty hall.

In American universities, though, the lectures are where you learn the material. Attendance is expected, although a record is often not kept. To insure at least a modicum of attendance the teacher - if they care - can resort to subterfuge and (to the students) underhanded tricks. For instance, one sneaky professor would grade with a strict 90 - 100% percentage for an A. Then he made sure that 10% of the test material was only from the lectures and not from the book. With no attendance, the best you could do was a B.

As far as Wystan, he was majoring in English and so he did attend lectures by Ronald who was the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professorship of Anglo-Saxon. Although Wystan wrote that Ronald's reading of Beowulf was superb, others remember Ronald's lectures as hard to follow largely because he was difficult to understand. If the recordings we have of Ronald reading from his works are representative of his lectures, there are certainly parts where he speaks rapidly and runs the words together. One writer who met him in the 1960's found that Ronald rushed his speech and elided whole phrases so that much of the time he couldn't understand what Ronald was saying.

In 1925 Wystan had started off studying biology at Christ Church (one of the Oxford colleges), but he decided to switch to English. Of course, Wystan needed a tutor, and he had some difficulty finding a member of the English faculty willing to take on a biology dropout. Finally it was Neville Coghill, then a young fellow at Exeter College, who was agreeable. So we should say that Wystan was a student, not of Ronald, but of Neville.

Wystan was only granted a third class degree - equivalent to a "C". His nominally mediocre showing doesn't seem to fit what we know either about Wystan's knowledge or his industry. Without wanting to cast aspersions on the examiners, it may simply have been spite because Wystan quickly developed a reputation as a poet.

A reputation at Oxford, that is. But a college reputation and six pence could buy you a crumpet. So after spending a year in Germany (financed by his parents), Wystan took up a job teaching in Scotland.

But Wystan kept writing poetry and his friend Stephen Spender printed off 45 copies of a short collection. The volume mostly circulated among friends and family. Of course, such a book couldn't sell very many copies.

However, before he left Oxford, Wystan had met T. S. Elliott who a few years before had gained fame for his poem "The Waste Land". Wystan had sent T. S. some of his own poetry and T. S. had been sufficiently impressed to invite Wystan to visit him.

By 1927 Wystan had garnered enough poetry that he thought was good enough to send to Faber and Faber where T. S. was now an editor. That book was turned down, but three years later a second book of poems was accepted.

The book - simply titled Poems - was a surprise hit. Suddenly Wystan, only twenty-three, was a major poet. For the book he had decided that Wystan Hughes Auden wasn't a good by-line so he just went with W. H. Auden. After all, it worked OK for Thomas Stearns Eliot.

Wystan soon found that a famous poet could make a living by writing articles and reviews and giving talks (publishing poetry on its own tends not to be particularly lucrative). As his fame grew, he was also offered visiting professorships, and later he even had a stint as Professor of Poetry at Oxford which - unlike most Oxonian professorships - only extends for five years before switching to someone else.

In 1939 and as Hitler's marches finally blew up into World War II, Wystan moved to the United States. He remained there for the duration, and in 1946 became an American citizen. After the war he was without doubt one of the Grand Old Men of Poetry although he wasn't even 40. He would travel around the world giving readings, interviews, and lectures. And writing poetry, of course.

Although Ronald Tolkien had published The Hobbit in 1937, it was considered primarily a children's book. Although it sold well, most of the stock had burned up during the air raids over London. So although Ronald's friend, Jack Lewis, had become world famous for his Christian writings and BBC broadcasts, Ronald was still largely unknown.

However, Ronald had been writing a Hobbit sequel. Originally intended for publication by Christmas 1938, the work had dragged out for over a decade. Ronald resumed work in earnest after the war. But because Stanley Unwin, Ronald's publisher, was not interested in also publishing what ultimately became The Silmarillion, Ronald eventually submitted the book to Collins, another UK publishing house. But after provisionally accepting the book, Collins got scared off by the costs of marketing a 1000-plus page novel. So Ronald quite nicely asked Rayner Unwin - who as a schoolboy recommended that his dad publish The Hobbit and now was working for the family firm - if they would reconsider publishing what they were now calling The Lord of the Rings. Rayner and his dad decided the book - although likely to lose them money - was worth publishing, and the book was accepted.

Wystan loved the book and wrote glowing reviews (because of its size, the Lord of the Rings was split up into three separate volumes). Not only did Wystan's praise help the sales, but he wrote articles that defended the book against charges of triviality. It was not just a children's book, he said, although kids could read it with enjoyment. But the tale also dealt with issues that were relevant for adults. Wystan was even planning to write a book about Ronald's work but stopped when Ronald asked him not to.

Although he was an American citizen, Wystan spent a lot of time in Europe and even had a home in Austria. It was there that he died in 1973 aged 66. That was about median for the time when people smoked like chimneys and was a habit of which Wystan omnipresently partook.

Now we have to let everyone in on a little secret. Yes, Wystan was one of the most famous and popular poets of the 20th century. But there's one part of his poetry that probably does not settle well with the more modernistic of poetry fans and those with the more intellectual bent.

Yes, some of Wystan's poetry rhymes.

Now there's another secret. Although the author and illustrator of CooperToons finds the lives of poets interesting and instructive, he really doesn't care that much for poetry per se. Haikus and limericks are pretty much it. Wystan, though, did write limericks.

Alas, although some of Wystan's poems are among the best there are - even for people who don't like poetry - we must give an Official But Humble CooperToons Opinion that Wystan's limericks are neither among his best work nor particularly good examples of the genre.

So in the end, we must conclude:

• There once was a man name of Wystan
• Who wrote verse, both free and rhymes mixed in.
• When to light verse he'd stray,
• 'Twas not his forté.
• But the list of great poets he exists in.

References

"The Elvish Mode", Gerald Jonas, The New Yorker, January 15, 1966, p. 24.

The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien, Humphrey Carpenter (Editor), Houghton Mifflin, 1980

W.H. Auden, a Biography, Humphrey Carpenter, Houghton Mifflin, 1981.

The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Literature, Volume 1, Jay Parini, Oxford University Press, 2003.

J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia: Scholarship and Critical Assessment, Michael D. C. Drout, Routledge, 2007.

W. H. Auden, The Art of Poetry", Michael Newman, The Paris Review, Issue 57, Spring 1974.

Tolkien: The Authorized Biography, Humphrey Carpenter, Houghton Mifflin, 1977.

J.R.R. Tolkien Reads and Sings The Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Ring, J. R. R. Tolkien, Caedmon, Vinyl LP, 1975.