W. H. AUDEN'S THEOLOGY OF HISTORY IN HORAE CANONICAE: ‘PRIME’, ‘TERCE’, AND ‘SEXT’

Horae Canonicae, as a poetic construct, provides an analogue of the Christian philosophy of history, but the Divine Office, as a liturgical pattern of devotion, suggests, not only analogy, but a sacramental re-enactment of the events of salvation history. Auden's study of the unfolding of sacred history, beginning with the fall of universal Adam in the morning hour of 'Prime', is informed by the work of Reinhold Niebuhr and Paul Tillich. Like Niebuhr and Tillich, Auden develops a theology of history which depends on the central ity of Christ and rejects the credo of human perfectibility as inadequate for an interpretation of our nature and destiny. Also, from a Christian perspect ive history is not an unredeemable process of deterioration, as it is interpreted in non-historical religions, but an original, unique reality characterized by the freedom of creativity which is analogous to the activity of God in history. The framework of the Divine Office provides Auden not only with a structure within which he shapes his philosophy of history, nature, and art, but a verbal rite, rich in metaphor and symbol, that has been developing since the pre-Constantian period.1 The Divine Office, the official prayer of the Roman Church, has an accepted pattern of norms, expectations and theological presuppositions which belong to the history and form of worship, just as the sonnet has its particular generic conventions belonging to the history of literature. By choosing the canonical hours as a poetic form, Auden chose a wealth of accumulated meaning and a ritual pattern of worship which he transforms into his own unique poetic structure. In the summer of 1947 Auden began research on the Divine Office, and consulted Ursula Niebuhr about the development of worship in general, and the historical origins and purpose of the canonical hours in particular. Mrs Niebuhr provided Auden with histories and texts of the office. The Shape of the Liturgy (1945) by Dom Gregory Dix was probably one of the historical studies Auden used while preparing the structure of Horae Canonicae. In an © Oxford University Press 1997 This content downloaded from 207.46.13.83 on Fri, 13 May 2016 07:14:08 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms