What is it about?
This paper examines W.H. Auden's views on education between the Wars. Himself a teacher, Auden wrote prose defining the faults of interwar education in Britain while simultaneously suggesting changes. He was in favour of cultivating general civic skills (rather than specific vocational knowledge) as a means to nourishing pupils' critical awareness and ability to form an independent judgement. Auden saw such skills as prerequisites for becoming responsible citizens of democratic polities and, at the same time, as antidote to the dehumanizing aspects of 1930s Fascism.
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Why is it important?
It offers a fresh view on Auden as a teacher.
Perspectives
This paper should be useful to readers of W.H. Auden's prose as it expands horizons bezond his poetical works.
Ladislav Vit
University of Pardubice
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: The Poet at the Teacher’s Desk: W.H. Auden on Education, Democracy and Humanity, Prague Journal of English Studies, January 2017, De Gruyter,
DOI: 10.1515/pjes-2017-0002.
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