It is at least possible, as Edward Mendelson has suggested, that the substance of this poem, if not its light-hearted tone, was shaped by an event in the poetic world, not at all world-historical, or not apparently so, that had occurred earlier in 1946. Bennett Cerf, Auden’s publisher at Random House, had announced that he would excise from a forthcoming anthology of American poetry all poems by Ezra Pound on the grounds that Pound, who had made radio broadcasts from Italy during the war in support of Mussolini’s government, was a traitor. Auden wrote on January 29 to tell Cerf that in light of this decision he saw “no alternative for me but to sever my connection with your firm.” He made a point of insisting that he made this protest not because he admired Pound’s poems: “I do not care for them myself particularly,” but for a different reason: “Begin by banning his poems not because you object to them but because you object to him, and you will end, as the Nazis did, by slaughtering his wife and children.” And Auden truly did not believe he was exaggerating. He continued,
As you say, the war is not over. This incident is only one sign — there are other and far graver ones — that there was more truth than one would like to believe in Huey Long’s cynical observation that if fascism came to America it would be called Anti-fascism. Needless to say, I am not suggesting that you desire any such thing — but I think your very natural abhorrence of Pound’s conduct has led you to take the first step which, if not protested, will be followed by others which would horrify you.
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It is telling that Auden read this poem at Harvard. One of the dominant figures of American culture at that time was James Bryant Conant, a former professor of chemistry who had become Harvard’s president in 1933. He participated enthusiastically in the techno-utopian mood of the mid-1940s and played a significant role in Washington: he was a member of the secret Interim Committee that had advised President Truman to drop atomic bombs on Japanese cities, and Auden suspected that Conant’s vote to bomb had been decisive. When back in Cambridge, Conant was striving to transform Harvard from a finishing school for cultured gentlemen into a frankly Apollonian research powerhouse focused on science and technology. In so doing, he dramatically de-emphasized the humanities, believing them to have little to contribute to the postwar Pax Americana. Some months after his visit to Harvard, Auden told Alan Ansen, “When I was delivering my Phi Beta Kappa poem in Cambridge, I met Conant for about five minutes.” In the poem, he had characterized the Hermes-Apollo dichotomy as “Falstaff the fool confronts forever / the prig Prince Hal,” and he said of Conant, “he is the real Prince Hal and gives the notion of sheer naked power.” Auden was polite to Conant, but: “‘This is the real enemy,’ I thought to myself. And I’m sure he had the same impression about me.”
Alan Jacobs, The Year Of Our Lord 1943: Christian Humanism In An Age Of Crisis
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