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W. H. Auden is undoubtedly one of the greatest English poets of the twentieth century. He had been a great admirer of Freud since his childhood. He wrote and acted on plays during his school days. Initially a student of science Auden was intently influenced by various other disciplines at a very young age. Philosophy and politics in particular caught his attention right from the very beginning. Auden studied a wide variety of subject during his college days. He was a man of heightened interest in various fields that brought universality in his theme and style of writing. Not only this but Auden also happened to belong to a group of poets who advocated liberal thoughts and ideas in their poems that might bring some effect on the political scenario of their country as a whole. Auden was also a travel lover and many of his poems contain vivid description of the places that he travelled far and wide and the people whom he met there and the impression that they created in his mind. Besides this, Auden was highly sensitive to his surrounding and nature. His education combined with the keen sense of observation and travelling experience has made him a man of stature.

In the 1930s W.H. Auden taught at several public schools in Britain while simultaneously embarking on his poetic career. Later in life, he lectured at various educational institutions and returned to Oxford, his alma mater, in the 1950s as Oxford Professor of Poetry. His experience of teaching allowed Auden to reflect upon the pitfalls of Britain's interwar educational system and its social function. Therefore, this article diverts attention from the prevailing scholarly focus on Auden's poetry to his critical prose in order to examine the poet's concerns about the content, purpose and role of education in society, his views on the structure of the educational system and disquiet about the tension between the utilitarian and humanistic dimensions of the educational process. At a more general level, the paper points out the relation that Auden maintained existed between education, democracy, humanity, art and the "crystallizing" power of poetry. ; Na počátku své básnické kariéry ve třicátých letech W.H. Auden vyučoval v několika soukromých školách. Později přednášel v řadě vdělávacích institucí a dokonce se v 50. letech vrátil do Oxfordu, své alma mater, aby se tam stal profesorem poezie. Tyto praktické zkušenosti Audenovi umožnily zhodnotit britský meziválečný vzdělávací systém, jeho nedostaky a společenskou funkci. Tento článek proto nechává stranou Audenovo básnické dílo a soustředí se na jeho prózu s cílem zmapovat Audenovy názory na obsah, strukturu, poslání a roli vzdělávání ve společnosti. Cílem je také představit Audenovo znepokojení napětím mezi utilitářským a humanistickým rozměrem vzdělávacího procesu. Na obecnější úrovni se tato práce zabývá vztahem, který Auden spatřoval mezi vzděláním, demokracií, lidskostí a schopností poezie "vyjasňovat" nepochopené.