W H Auden

W H AUDEN d1973. British-American poet. His poetry was noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics / morals / love and religion and its variety in tone, form and content. Some of his best known poems are about love including ; "Funeral Blues". On political and social themes ; "September 1 1939" and "The Shield of Achilles". On cultural and psychological themes ; The Age of Anxiety and on religious themes ; "For the Time Being" and "Horae Canonicae". He was a prolific writer of prose essays and reviews on literary, political, psychological,and religious subjects and he worked at various times on documentary films, poetic plays and other forms of performance. Throughout his career he was both controversial and influential and critical views on his work ranged from sharply dismissive ; treating him as a lesser figure than Yeats and Eliot. Joseph Brodsky made a statement that he had "the greatest mind of the twentieth century". He died in Vienna aged 66 on September 29th 1973. After his death, his poems became known to a much wider public than during his lifetime through films, broadcasts and popular media