ROBERT L. CHAPMAN
AUDEN IN ANN ARBOR
Early last year I took down the memorial volume W. H. Auden:
A Tribute, edited by Stephen Spender, anticipating a feast of
nostalgia, wondering who would cover the year 1941-42 when
Auden was visiting professor of English at Ann Arbor. I was
consternated to find only one line, not in a reminiscence but
in a formal chronology, noting "Autumn [1941]: Begins a year
of teaching at the University of Michigan."
A single paltry line for that fateful war year, his two courses,
and for me a seedtime that has determined much of my life.
I decided to correct the lapse by canvassing the reminiscences
of my classmates in Auden's two courses, adding my own, and
writing this modest increment to literary history.
Auden's fall semester course in 1941 was English 135, "Fate
and the Individual in European Literature," with an enrollment
of twenty-two. The spring semester course in 1942 was English
136, "Analysis of Poetry," with twenty-one students. Four students, including me, took both courses, and the total pool of
students was thirty-eight. I was able to find the addresses of
twenty-eight, and seventeen responded.
I sent each one a very simple questionnaire, asking what they
remembered of Auden as teacher, host, and man; whether he
had any notable effect on them; and whether they had seen him
at all after the course. Their replies ranged from a few lines
on the questionnaire itself to several closely typed or handwritten pages, personal essays quite escaping the simple format. In
what follows I will variously summarize, epitomize, and quote
my classmates in an attempt to get the essence of the students' year into a brief space. I will add in the same condensed
way the responses of several faculty or staff members, in particular a remarkable memoir from Angelyn and A. K. Stevens that
bears on what Auden was writing at the time.
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