What a great pleasure it was to hear Simon Callow reading WH Auden’s famous poem, Funeral Blues, at Poet in the City’s WH Auden event this week.
Simon Callow is of course famous for playing the role of the ebullient Gareth in the movie Four Weddings and a Funeral, whose premature death results in the eponymous funeral. In an unforgettable scene Gareth’s lover (played by John Hannah) reads the Auden poem in the church. Simon Callow recalls amusingly how often people praise him for his role in the funeral scene!
It is 100 years since the birth of WH Auden. The event, held jointly with the Auden Society, provided a fitting culmination to the centenary year, which has seen many fantastic celebrations of the poet’s life and works. However, I have not myself attended an event which so succinctly summarised the range and brilliance of Auden’s poetry, and his enduring appeal for new generations. As usual with Poet in the City the event was also full of poetry.
We were immensely lucky, of course, to have some of the world’s leading Auden specialists on the panel. Katherine Bucknell, Auden specialist and acclaimed novelist, started by talking about the many different hats worn by Auden, from the wide-brimmed felt hat of a bohemian, to a shop-keeper’s bowler hat and a working man’s flat cap. The hats, she said, could be seen as a metaphor for the chameleon-like character of the poet himself.
Peter Mudford, who was formerly married to Auden’s niece Rita, recalled some of his own personal memories of the poet, including a supper at Simpson’s on the Strand when Wystan spontaneously sang ‘Take back your Mink, take back your pearls…’ to the bemused waiters and clientele. More seriously he commented on how often lines from the poems come back to him in his daily life.
John Fuller, a distinguished Auden specialist, said that newcomers to Auden’s poetry should not worry too much about catching the meaning of every last phrase. They should just let the beauty of the language wash over them. Amongst other things he read the extraordinary poem The Age of Anxiety.
Lachlan Mackinnon, another leading Auden expert, read the fascinating and complicated poem Streams, with its extraordinary, humorous and disturbing images, such as a cream and golden coach drawn by two baby locomotives.
Simon Callow spoke very interestingly about the camp and theatrical side of Auden’s persona and how, unlike his friend Christopher Isherwood, he always seemed to remain slightly uncomfortable with his homosexuality. Although Lachlan also noted that, for much of Auden’s life, being gay had been a criminal offence punishable by imprisonment.
Simon’s wonderful readings of Epitaph on a Tyrant, Night Mail, and Funeral Blues reminded us of Auden’s nearly universal popularity and accessibility. He was almost the last English poet whose publications were public events, with queues forming outside bookshops, and first editions sold out within 24 hours. Without sacrificing any of its complexity or its emotional depth his poetry reached out to large numbers of people.
When John Hannah recited the lines ‘Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone…’ in the movie, the film-makers unintentionally ignited a new passion for WH Auden’s poetry amongst many people who did not regard themselves as poetry fans. It was like that again at the Poet in the City event this week. The audience of 230 people in the Great Room at Christie’s sat in complete silence as the Auden poems were read. I for one had shivers running down my spine all over again!
