Auden and the Politics of Creativity

W.H. Auden's "The Novelist" reads both as an assault on the militarism and conformity of mainstream popular fiction and as a guide to his fellow writers who may be seeking something more from their work than simplistic popularity and shallow gratification. Auden's dismissal of 'hacks' from the ranks of his contemporaries is followed closely by a description of what a writer actually is and what he or she seeks to accomplish, with or without the adoration of either an audience or even the approval of other writers. To Auden, mainstream success does not connote immediate status as a 'real' writer as to him a writer exists to write, even if the book or poem never sees publication. Creation, creativity, and maturing as an artist are far more important to Auden than public recognition and success. "The Novelist" explores Auden's idealism and details his perception of what it truly means to be a worthy, creative writer.

The first two lines of the poem introduce Auden's seemingly negative attitude toward his fellow poets and artists:

Encased in talent like a uniform,

The rank of every poet is well known.

By invoking this regimented, militaristic image of his contemporaries, Auden implies that most poets of his day seem more interested in mass producing acceptable, popularized and 'safe' works than in breaking ranks and exploring unmapped territory. The public that consumes his contemporaries' works has come to expect a certain product from each writer, and now that these writers have discovered these expectations, they pander shamelessly to them in order to maintain popularity. It is interesting that Auden uses the work "rank" to describe the standing of these poets, as the word could have two readings here. In one sense, it indicates that the writers march along in perfect lock-step with one another, producing the same book or poem again and again in a bizarre sort of production line until authorship is irrelevant as the works are inseparable clones of one another. The other reading would imply that as though authorship may be irrelevant, brand-naming of popular authors creates a kind of hierarchy with writers 'ranked' by their popular status and financial success rather than by actual talent and real creativity. As each writer in these ranks is "well-known" to create a certain product, and the product itself is "well-known" for being a certain type of novel or poem, any deviation would frustrate readers and publishers and would ultimately be detrimental to the writer's rank. By sacrificing creativity for marketability, poets deny both themselves and their audience a chance for growth. It would be an unfair and untrue generalization to accuse all of Auden's contemporaries as lacking originality and creativity, but as with every generation of writers there were certainly a fair number of pretentious, derivative hacks and 'popular' writers with little interest in enlarging the literary canon and a great deal of interest in financial gain and public notoriety. Auden's lines would appear to be a shot at these poets, a challenge to take off those encasing, imprisoning uniforms and step out of the tightly regimented lines in order to create something worthwhile. It may also be something of a warning to these poets to get out of the way of those writers who have the will and the talent to break formation.

The next two lines seem to act as a bridge between Auden's stern-faced warning to his declaration on what a poet should be:

They can amaze us like a thunderstorm,

Or die so young, or live for years alone.

Here, Auden precludes the idea that a poet must live a certain way in order to be a poet. He dismisses the concept that in order to write, one needs to be an emotionally sensitive, opium smoking odd-man-out with an overwhelming sense of doom and injustice. This stereotype does nothing to help a poet actually accomplish any noteworthy work, and Auden sees it as little more than a self-harming lie that inhibits creativity and originality. Some writers may find comfort in this cycle of self-creation and self-destruction, but others may find it to be a hindrance which interferes with creative productivity. The idea that every artist must suffer for every piece of his or her art has no hold with Auden and contrasts sharply with his view of how writers behave. What is ultimately important isn't the way a writer behaves or what he or she does when not writing. The only thing that matters is the art the writer produces, and biography and personality are secondary elements in the creation of poetry.

Following this pair of lines is Auden's description of what a poet is, rather than his attack on the popular notion of what it means to be a poet:

They can dash forward like hussars: but he

Must struggle out of his boyish gift and learn

How to be plain and awkward, how to be

One after whom none think it worth to turn.

Auden knows how important it is for a writer to grow through his or her work. Though some might read these lines as reinforcement of the very stereotype of the struggling, agonized artist Auden spent the previous lines shooting down, it is possible to instead see them as both clarifying and expounding on the first two lines of the poem where Auden attacked false poets and writers. Here, Auden contrasts a truer definition of the creative writer against those authors with little sense of art. Auden's ideal poet does not seek adulation for writing his or her works, unlike the fashionable poet with a great deal of nothing to say. Auden would say that a poet would not care if any audience found him or her worth turning to, as popularity is not this poet's goal. Publication and recognition are always welcome to the writer who deserves it, but if achievement alone is the writer's mission than the work will suffer and fail to take root in order to grow into a larger, more complex form. To leave the childish need for attention behind while still remaining accessible to the reader is a worthy though likely difficult goal for any writer, and to complicate that goal still further is Auden's declaration that the writer must also change as he or she matures. To write the same first novel over and over again must be a kind of purgatory for any writer who wishes to accomplish something beyond mediocrity, though it may be a satisfactory existence for a writer with few desires beyond popular acceptance and notoriety.

Auden's final stanzas continue his examination of what it means to write as a creative form of art, but on a more personal level with the writer:

For, to achieve his lightest wish, he must

Become the whole of boredom, subject to

Vulgar complaints of love, among the Just

Be just, among the Filthy filthy too,

And in his own weak person, if he can,

Must suffer dully all the wrongs of Man.

Here Auden dances again with the Romantic stereotype of the poet, and this time the purpose behind the writer and his or her work is called into question. A common belief holds that a writer's job is to explore humanity and enrich the human experience, but this task is far more complex than it may seem on the surface. Every human experience is the human experience, and to express them all has taken lifetimes of work from talented individuals and will continue to do so, as this mission to encompass every human story is an impossible one to finish. Auden surely knows this, yet he recognizes that there may be something to it all the same. However, here he seems to advocate something a little different from the usual frivolity and sentimentality usually associated with the fiction or poetry commonly associated with writing about the all-important 'human experience'. He seems to advocate a kind of normality in the writer's life, going back again to his declaration that a poet or novelist does not necessarily need to feed back into the unhealthy and unproductive cycle of the damaged artist in order to experience the best and the worst offered by the gamut of average human emotions and come out on the other side with something to show for it. In this way he gives permission for the writer to be a normal human being, and for the normal human being to be a writer. There is nothing for a writer to fear in undergoing the everyday trauma of human living, and if the ultimate goal of writing is to portray the human experience, then there is no reason to avoid human life. The writer is and should be no different from other human beings, and this is what makes the writer's work possible in the first place.

Auden's "The Novelist" spans a wide array of topics without ever really leaving one. Altogether, the fourteen lines of "The Novelist" read as a manifesto of what a writer can expect from a creative lifestyle in a modern context. In a world of shallow bestselling lists, print-on-demand vanity presses, and ever-increasing competition from both worthy contemporaries and the ever-present derivative hacks, no imagination, no creativity, is needed to see why poets, novelists, and writers of every other description might struggle with the pressures of creating meaningful work and finding meaning in creation. As a poet and a devoted conversationalist, Auden knows the importance of creativity and expression and knows the impact that being a writer can have on an individual. Over the course of his life, he also saw how that impact could alter his fellow writers, leaving them encased in uniforms of conformity or perhaps outgrowing boyish talents into fully fledged artists. He acted as a mentor and a friend to dozens of writers of many types and interests, most of whom were either already respected or would achieve some status as worthy creators. Some, of course, never made it as household names, but Auden still saw real talent where real talent wrote and certainly wouldn't have held any lack of fame against his cadre of 'true' poets.