Tom and Wystan

Now, I do not know whether Auden is to be considered as an English or as an American poet: his career has been useful to me in providing me with an answer to the same question when asked about myself, for I can say: “whichever Auden is, I suppose I must be the other.” — T. S. Eliot in 1953 One was born in St. Louis but became a British subject; the other was born in York and became an American citizen. One was straight, the other was gay. One was born into a Unitarian family but later became an Anglican; the other was born into an Anglican family, was for many years an unbeliever, and eventually returned to a very different kind of Anglicanism. One was famously precise and fastidious, and lived in monastically spare accommodations; the other was (equally famously) slovenly and lived in utter squalor. One lived most of his adult life in London, a city that he loved; the other despised London and visited only when he had to. One came to fame by writing free verse; the other made a…