W.H. Auden
1907–1973 · Poet
Christ Church undergraduate, then Professor of Poetry 1956–1961, returned to a Christ Church cottage in 1972 — Pulitzer for The Age of Anxiety.
W.H. Auden came up to Christ Church on a biology scholarship and changed to English by his second year. Three decades later he returned to Oxford as the University's Professor of Poetry from 1956 to 1961 — an elected post that brings the poet back to give public lectures rather than to teach a college.
In February 1972, when his New York life had become unsustainable, Christ Church offered Auden a cottage on its grounds; he moved his books and possessions back to Oxford that September and lived there until shortly before his death in Vienna in September 1973. He is buried at Kirchstetten in Austria, with a memorial stone added to Westminster Abbey a year later. His later Oxford period — short, frail, and largely private — is the least-known phase of a life that otherwise belongs to England, Berlin, and New York.
Sources: Wikipedia: W. H. Auden
Last verified: Sat May 02 2026 01:00:00 GMT+0100 (British Summer Time)