This article is about the poem by W. H. Auden. For other uses, see For the Time Being (disambiguation).
For the Time Being
First edition, published by Random House
Author
W. H. Auden
Language
English
Published
1944 (1944)
Publication place
USA
For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio, is a long poem by W. H. Auden, written in 1941 and 1942, and first published in 1944. It was one of two long poems included in Auden's book also titled For the Time Being, published in 1944; the other poem included in the book was "The Sea and the Mirror."
The poem is a series of dramatic monologues spoken by the characters in the Christmas story and by choruses and a narrator. The characters all speak in modern diction, and the events of the story are portrayed as if they occurred in the contemporary world.
Its mood is sombre regarding the future of the world. For instance:
Reason will be replaced by Revelation. Instead of Rational Law, objective truths perceptible to any who will undergo the necessary intellectual discipline, Knowledge will degenerate into a riot of subjective visions ... Whole cosmogonies will be created out of some forgotten personal resentment, complete epics written in private languages, the daubs of schoolchildren ranked above the greatest masterpieces. Idealism will be replaced by Materialism. Life after death will be an eternal dinner party where all the guests are 20 years old ... Justice will be replaced by Pity as the cardinal human virtue, and all fear of retribution will vanish ... The New Aristocracy will consist exclusively of hermits, bums and permanent invalids. The Rough Diamond, the Consumptive Whore, the bandit who is good to his mother, the epileptic girl who has a way with animals will be the heroes and heroines of the New Age, when the general, the statesman, and the philosopher have become the butt of every farce and satire.
Auden wrote the poem to be set to music by Benjamin Britten, but it was far too long for this purpose, and Britten set only two fragments, including one ("Shepherd's Carol") that Auden dropped before the work was published. A 1952 radio broadcast of the work by BBC included music by Mátyás Seiber.
The poem is dedicated to the memory of Auden's mother, Constance Rosalie Bicknell Auden.
and 23 Related for: For the Time Being information
Being and Time (German: Sein und Zeit) is the 1927 magnum opus of German philosopher Martin Heidegger and a key document of existentialism. Being and...
TheTimeBeing is a 2012 American mystery film directed by Nenad Cicin-Sain, written by Nenad Cicin-Sain and Richard N. Gladstein, and starring Wes Bentley...
was inducted into the Connecticut Women's Hall of Fame for Writing and Journalism. In 2000, Dillard's FortheTimeBeing received the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel...
Globe Award for Best Screenplay. In 2015, the Library of Congress selected Being There for preservation in the National Film Registry, finding it "culturally...
TheBeing is a 1983 American horror film written and directed by Jackie Kong in her directorial debut, starring Martin Landau, José Ferrer, Dorothy Malone...
Beingthe Ricardos is a 2021 American biographical drama film written and directed by Aaron Sorkin, about the relationship between I Love Lucy stars Lucille...
On Being is a podcast and a former public radio program. Hosted by Krista Tippett, it examines what it calls the "animating questions at the center of...
United Arab Emirates Standard Time or UAE Standard Time is thetime zone forthe UAE. It is given by Gulf Standard Time, being 4 hours ahead of GMT/UTC (UTC+04:00)...
The Importance of Being Earnest, a Trivial Comedy for Serious People is a play by Oscar Wilde. First performed on 14 February 1895 at the St James's Theatre...
disabling Group FaceTimeforthetimebeing. The bug was named "FacePalm" by security researchers, and affects iOS devices running FaceTime on iOS 12.1 or...
Heidegger's Being and Time (1927), which uses the method of Husserlian phenomenology as a lens for examining ontology. Sartre attributed the course of his...
Famous forbeing famous is a term, usually used pejoratively, for someone who attains celebrity status for no clearly identifiable reason (as opposed...
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (Czech: Nesnesitelná lehkost bytí) is a 1984 novel by Milan Kundera, about two women, two men, a dog, and their lives...
The great chain of being is a hierarchical structure of all matter and life, thought by medieval Christianity to have been decreed by God. The chain begins...
books and films, including the novels My Year of Meats (1998), All Over Creation (2003), A Tale fortheTimeBeing (2013), and The Book of Form and Emptiness...
Being Maria (French: Maria) is a 2024 biographical drama film directed by Jessica Palud from a screenplay by Palud and Laurette Polmanss, freely adapted...
(not being a compound forthetimebeing specified in sub-paragraph (a) above) structurally derived from fentanyl by modification in any of the following...
Being or Not Being (Spanish: Estar o No Estar) is a 2015 Mexican drama film, directed by Marcelo González. The film stars Flavio Medina and Aislinn Derbez...
The Perks of Being a Wallflower is a 1999 young adult novel by American author Stephen Chbosky. Set in the early 1990s, the novel follows Charlie, an...