Editing W. H. Auden (section)

====1931–1935====
[[File:DanceOfDeathProgramme.jpg|thumb|Programme of a Group Theatre production of ''[[The Dance of Death (Auden)|The Dance of Death]]'', with unsigned synopsis by Auden]]

Auden's next large-scale work was ''[[The Orators]]: An English Study'' (1932; revised editions, 1934, 1966), in verse and prose, largely about hero-worship in personal and political life. In his shorter poems, his style became more open and accessible, and the exuberant "Six Odes" in ''The Orators'' reflect his new interest in [[Robert Burns]].<ref name="FullerNoPage"/> During the next few years, many of his poems took their form and style from traditional ballads and popular songs, and also from expansive classical forms like the ''[[Odes (Horace)|Odes]]'' of [[Horace]], which he seems to have discovered through the German poet [[Hölderlin]].<ref name="EarlyNoPage"/> Around this time his main influences were [[Dante]], [[William Langland]], and [[Alexander Pope]].<ref>{{cite book
| last = Auden
| first = W. H.
| editor-first= Edward
| editor-last = Mendelson
| editor-link=Edward Mendelson
| title = Prose, Volume II: 1939–1948
| publisher = Princeton University Press
| location = Princeton
| year = 2002
| page = 92
| isbn = 978-0-691-08935-5}}</ref>

During these years much of his work expressed left-wing views, and he became widely known as a political poet although he was privately more ambivalent about revolutionary politics than many reviewers recognised,<ref>Carpenter (1981) pp. 256–257.</ref> and Mendelson argues that he expounded political views partly out of a sense of moral duty and partly because it enhanced his reputation, and that he later regretted having done so.<ref>[[Edward Mendelson|Mendelson]], ''Early Auden'', pp. 257–303.</ref> He generally wrote about revolutionary change in terms of a "change of heart", a transformation of a society from a closed-off psychology of fear to an open psychology of love.<ref name="RDH-NoPage"/>

His verse drama ''[[The Dance of Death (Auden)|The Dance of Death]]'' (1933) was a political extravaganza in the style of a theatrical revue, which Auden later called "a nihilistic leg-pull."<ref>{{cite book
| last1 = Auden
| first1 = W. H.
| first2 = Christopher
| last2 = Isherwood
| editor-first = Edward
| editor-last = Mendelson
| editor-link = Edward Mendelson
| title = Plays and other dramatic writings by W. H. Auden, 1928–1938
| publisher = Princeton University Press
| location = Princeton
| year = 1988
| pages = xxi
| isbn = 978-0-691-06740-7
| no-pp = true
| url = https://archive.org/details/playsotherdramat0000aude
}}</ref> His next play ''[[The Dog Beneath the Skin]]'' (1935), written in collaboration with Isherwood, was similarly a quasi-Marxist updating of [[Gilbert and Sullivan]] in which the general idea of social transformation was more prominent than any specific political action or structure.<ref name="FullerNoPage"/><ref name="EarlyNoPage"/>

''[[The Ascent of F6]]'' (1937), another play written with Isherwood, was partly an anti-imperialist satire, partly (in the character of the self-destroying climber Michael Ransom) an examination of Auden's own motives in taking on a public role as a political poet.<ref name="EarlyNoPage"/> This play included the first version of "[[Funeral Blues]]" ("Stop all the clocks"), written as a satiric eulogy for a politician; Auden later rewrote the poem as a "Cabaret Song" about lost love (written to be sung by the soprano [[Hedli Anderson]], for whom he wrote many lyrics in the 1930s).<ref name="Plays"/> In 1935, he worked briefly on documentary films with the [[GPO Film Unit]], writing his famous verse commentary for ''[[Night Mail]]'' and lyrics for other films that were among his attempts in the 1930s to create a widely accessible, socially conscious art.<ref name="FullerNoPage"/><ref name="EarlyNoPage"/><ref name="Plays"/>