LA MAISON MORALISÉEIN W. H. AUDEN'S ‘THANKSGIVING FOR A HABITAT’
Heidi Hartwig
In an encomiac poetic sequence about his house in Austria entitled ‘Thanksgiving for a Habitat’, the Anglo-American poet W. H. Auden described it as space that simultaneously fosters intimacy and secures sacrosanct privacy. shifts Habitat’ from writing various forms of paysage moralisé – psychological, symbolic, or allegorical landscapes to composing maison moralisée. What symbolizes allows is civilizing act creating common world. This domestic ethos presents over-determined alternative several ‘problems’: loneliness middle-aged Auden; sentimentalized Freudian family romance; apocalyptic fears twentieth century.
European Journal of English Studies