Just around the block from Vienna’s State Opera, observe this mustard-colored building. Right here, a plaque marks a significant moment. This is the W. H. Auden Plaque. It notes that W.H. Auden died in diesem Haus. This translates to “in this house”.
Auden was staying here. He had just given a reading at the Palais Palffy. Sometime during the night, his heart failed while someone else was eating or opening a window. This quiet end marked the close of a remarkable life.
Wystan Hugh Auden, known as W. H. Auden, was a British-American poet. He lived and worked in Austria for up to six months each year. This happened from April to October, during the last 15 years of his life. He spent this time in Kirchstetten, Lower Austria. He is also buried there.
But why Vienna? Why this plaque for W. H. Auden? To understand, we need to look at Auden’s connection to Austria. He formed a close friendship with Stella Musulin, a writer and historian. She was also an Austrian baroness. Auden lived in New York but bought a yellow farmhouse in Kirchstetten, seventy kilometers west of Vienna. He spent each summer there.
Auden’s companion, Chester Kallman, often left Austria in July. He sought opportunities elsewhere. Auden, meanwhile, developed affections for others. Despite personal struggles, Auden found a creative haven in Austria.
The friendship between Auden and Musulin proved fruitful. Musulin checked Auden’s German translations. She received draft poems for comment. Their bond deepened over time.
In the night of September 28 to 29, 1973, Auden died in his hotel room in Vienna. This followed a poetry reading at the Palais Pálffy. The W. H. Auden Plaque commemorates this event.
Literary historians Timo Fr\u00fchwirth and Sandra Mayer made a chance discovery. While working on a digital edition of Auden’s correspondence with Stella Musulin, they noticed something unusual. There were colorless indented typewriter impressions of poetry lines contained in two documents. These lines were previously unknown. Computer-vision technologies helped reconstruct an early version of Auden’s poem “Epithalamium”. He wrote this wedding poem for his niece Rita’s wedding in 1965.
The impressions came from using the papers as ‘backing sheets’. These sheets were inserted into a typewriter below the paper Auden used for his poetry. According to Sandra Mayer this was a common practice in the typewriter age.
Simon Brenner from the Computer Vision Lab at the University of Technology Vienna (TU Wien) created a 3D surface model.
Auden’s elegy for Yeats speaks to the turmoil of Europe. He wrote: “In the nightmare of the dark/ All the dogs of Europe bark,/ And the living nations wait,/ Each sequestered in its hate”. Even Stefan Zweig, usually optimistic, lost hope during this time.
The W. H. Auden Plaque serves as a reminder. It is a reminder of Auden’s life. It is a reminder of his work and his connection to Vienna. It marks the place where a great poet’s heart came to rest. As you stand here, remember the words of a dead man are modified in the guts of the living.