Auden’s Ironic Masquerade: Criticism as Morality Play

AUDEN'S IRONIC MASQUERADE: CRITICISM AS MORALITY PLAY EDWARD CALLAN I Poets sometimes carryover their skill in "arranging ... and placing/ carefully" from the making of poems to the significant arrangement of pieces in anthologies or collections. W. H. Auden, for example, appears to have arranged the essays in his collected criticism, The Dyer's Hand and Other Essays ( Random House, 1962), in an ascending hierarchy related to Kierkegaard's aesthetic, ethical, and religious categories. Of the book's eight divisions, the first three, "Prologue," "The Dyer's H and," and 'Well of Narcissus," are devoted to the aesthetic sphere; for their subject-matter is, chiefly, the artist, the artistic process, and the work of art. The next three divisions, ''The Shakespearian City," ''Two Bestiaries," and "Americana," deal with works of literature that have attempted to represent human beings in their historical setting. Auden believes that such literature is a product of the Christian consciousness, and that there is, invariably, a tension between its aesthetic and ethical dements. The last two divisions, "The Shield of Perseus" and "Homage to Igor Stravinsky," treat comedy and music: the two artistic modes which can, in Auden's view, most nearly represent the religious sphere. He holds that music is the one artistic medium that can represent the religious significance of temporal acts, and also that "Every high C accurately struck demolishes the theory that we are irresponsible puppets of fate or chance." (The Dyer's Hand, 474. ) Auden had previously revealed this theory of art in another deliber· ately arranged volume, For the Time Being (1944), where he set two long semi·dramatic poems in complementary arrangement: The Sea and the Mirror: A Commentary On Shakespeare's "The Tempest," and For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio. Auden's poetic commentary on The Tempest in this volume is both a criticism of literature paving the way for the religiOUS themes of the Christmas Oratorio, and a work of art in which the abstractions of theoretical criticism take flesh and prance On stage like the characters in Morality plays. Volume :nxv, Number 2, January, 1966 134 EDWARD CALLAN The Sea and the Mirror epitomizes the critical theory underlying Auden's essays in The Dyer's Hand. In it he takes up the theme of Shakespeare's playas the characters embark for the voyage home-as they step from the mirror of art into the sea of life-a time when they can look backward on the aesthetic world of the play where time could be conjured with, and forward to the future where, until death, time is "a prim magistrate whose court never adjourns." His more compelling reason for choosing the end of The Tempest as a point of departure may have been the implication in Prospera's "Epilogue" (sometimes read as an abjuration of art) that the artistic life could be incompatible with ethical or spiritual values: And my ending is despair, Unless I be reliev'd by prayer, Which pierces so that it assaults Mercy itself and frees all faults. As you from crimes would pardon'd be, Let your indulgence set me free. Auden's point of departure, then, suggests that concern of an artist for the ultimate value of his work which troubled Chaucer, Tolstoy, and (in some interpretations of The Tempest) Shakespeare. By presenting his solution in the form of a work of art, Auden undercuts the "dilemma"; for, while he rejects Romanticism's speCial stress on the autonomy of the imagination, he reaffirms the value of art in this technically brilliant work prodigal with apt verse-forms. The Sea and the Mirror is arranged like a triptych with separate panels for the artist, the work of art, and the audience: Part One, "Prospero to Ariel," is a dramatic monologue in three movements marked by interpolated lyrics; Part Two, "The Supporting Cast sotto voce," is a cycle of lyrical monologues broken in upon by the voice of Antonio who stands alone; Part Three, "Caliban to the Audience," is an artful prose symposium in which Caliban, speaking for the audience, echoes their various attitudes to art. A "Preface" spoken by the "Stage Manager to the Critics," and a brief "Postscript" from...