Relandscaping Eden: Northern European Topography as Theology in Auden’s Poems

• Main Author: Brouder, Merrill
• Format: Text
• Language: unknown
• Published: Creative Matter 2022
• Subjects: landscape; Northern Europe; Auden; poetry; pastoral; Christian existentialism; English Language and Literature; European Languages and Societies; Literature in English; British Isles; Other English Language and Literature; Other Philosophy; Norway; Iceland; Northern Norway
• Online Access: https://creativematter.skidmore.edu/eng_stu_schol/64; https://creativematter.skidmore.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1062&context=eng_stu_schol

This paper explores the contradiction Auden creates in his simultaneous description of the European North (The English and Scottish Highlands, Scotland, Iceland, and northern Norway) as an “Eden” and his awareness of the violent and pagan history of these places. It proposes that these dialectically opposed visions of the European landscape can be reconciled through a synthesis rooted in Auden’s eclectic version of history—both theological and secular—and his own desire for an Eden that is informed by the spontaneity of the Homeric Arcadia, the gravity of the Christian Eden, and apophatic theology.