ABSTRACT
Author of cryptic early poems, of fiercely engagée works, of verse and plays explicitly connected to Marxism, and of a series of statements denying that poetry could have any effect in the world whatsoever, Auden seems to present a paradox, or at any rate a muddle. Beneath the turbulent surface, though, flows a continuous current. This is his disposition toward camp—a kind of ludic and aestheticizing attitude. Auden’s camp is a camp of the intellect: he camps ideas. That is, he sees them primarily in terms of their aesthetic value, and only secondarily as useful or true. The political and economic crisis of the 1930s, though, led readers to underestimate the playful and the aesthetic aspects of his work.
