柏拉图是有势力的人，他说要把诗人逐出理想国，果然就害得一代代诗人苦于辩护。柏拉图的大意是：诗在形而上的意义上是二手货——因为它模仿现实、而现实模仿理念、于是诗无非是所谓的“模仿的模仿”；而就道德而言，诗害人沉醉于感官的浮浅，以至忘记追寻至善至真，所以堪称“腐败”。诗人们当然不愿背这副既“衍生”又“腐败”的黑锅，就连柏拉图的徒弟亚里士多德都看不下去了，他在《诗学》中主张“模拟”是人类天性，而诗不仅能满足这种天性，更是能够触及绝对真理——相比于历史，诗所涉及的主题并非偶尔性的“已/正/将发生”，而是必然性的“理应发生”。亚里士多德之后，诗人们纷纷挺身而出：西德尼说诗不仅触及绝对真理，而且能够通过感动、教育、与愉悦把这真理奉之于人——其实已经开始强调美的独立功用；雪莱的口气更大，把诗人叫做这个世界的匿名立法者，俨然要反攻柏拉图的哲人王理想国；阿诺德身处信仰危机年代——科学逼迫文艺，理性驱逐宗教——于是他要以诗为教，一方面对抗科学的鲸吞，一方面抢占宗教退潮所让出的地盘；爱略特也算紧随阿诺德，虽然他喟叹西方文明已衰落至荒原状态，但重建基督教文化的重任，诗人终究要肩负。
身为诗人，奥登也做诗辩，却看不惯那些唱高调的人。雪莱的“立法者”之说很是冠冕堂皇，奥登却够绝，竟说：立法者不是秘密警察吗，关诗人何事？他还嘲笑阿诺德或爱略特的事业：所谓上帝的归上帝，恺撒的归恺撒，“基督教文化”是个自相矛盾的概念，上帝的教和恺撒的文化怎么能混为一谈呢？虽然观念相左，奥登和阿诺德等人却从不同方向为世俗化贡献着自己的力量。阿诺德口口声声要以诗兴教，虽然兴教的诚心可鉴，但诗的加入，到底显示（甚至加剧）了宗教独权的分崩离析。奥登也是一副护教的作风，但他分裂宗教和文化，其目的并不在于号召广大诗人都来颂神，而是要为诗争取“轻浮”（frivolity）的权力。
奥登心目中的理想诗人，应该不是籍华美诗艺礼赞基督的霍普金斯，而是热衷于戏谑小调的多恩。然而，奥登为绝不能因“肆无忌惮地游戏于鸡毛蒜皮”而被误解为一轻到底的轻骨头。他的游戏诗论来自齐克果“审美－道德－宗教”三段论中的审美阶段，所谓轻浮游戏，毕竟有另外两个阶段来制衡，而对于三段论，需要补充极其重要的一条解释：这三个阶段并非层层递进，而是始终并存的三种状态。换句话说，从审美到道德的跳跃并不意味着我们就此脱离了审美阶段。所以，奥登想要维持诗歌在审美意义上的独立性，他强调诗歌不能等同于现实，而是某个独立的传统，这个传统中，诗歌在语言的层面上自行游戏，在文本与文本之间互相影射。然而，奥登却不是唯美主义者，更不是逃避主义者。诗对于奥登而言，在独立的同时，更是谦卑的。因为谦卑，所以不做虚妄的高调，不妄言神圣；然而，不妄言神圣不等于说不尽力表达与神圣遭遇时的敬畏，这是一种知其不可而为之的无奈——这种无奈需要以“寓言”（parable）的形式来表达，因为不可言之言不能直言，只能寓意于言他。再者，诗虽然不是现实，但它不能不关注现实。 奥登的诗作曾经被推崇内心探幽的批评家贬为“新闻报道”，由此可见社会现实对“独立”的诗歌传统的深重影响。
奥登熟习齐克果的辩证法，以至他的诗辩也颇为辨证：一方面，诗不应涉足道德和宗教的领域，因为审美的境界是独立而骄傲的；另一方面，骄傲和谦卑其实是同一枚硬币的两面，诗的谦卑使得它在肆意张扬的同时，不仅不会害人沉醉，更是能把一点微光照向无数unknown citizens——所谓的“轻浮”与“崇高”的对立，谁说不是无名小卒与高雅士绅的天壤之别呢？在这种意义上，历来的诗辩都先是设定了精英贵族的“先天”存在，倒只有奥登带着民主的“有色”眼镜，到底是经历过粉色三十年代的人。
简介观念之后，来看具体作品。“In Memory of W. B. Yeats”是悼念叶芝之作，既怀人，又做诗辩。全诗分三个部分，第一部分写诗人辞世，一派萧杀冬景造足气氛。第一个stanza里的airports（空间上的交通）和public statues（时间上的铭记）把已经隐约有些开阔的气象，而第二和第六stanzas则分别写自然界的狼群河流和人世间的掮客穷人，在这自然/社会的双重世界里，诗人的身体被比作政体，有行省和广场——这仿佛在回应柏拉图对诗人的放逐令：柏拉图的城邦里没有诗人的位置，而奥登的笔下，诗人自己就是理想国。
第二部分写诗的所是所不是。诗不是现实，不能及物（“…poetry makes nothing happen”），但它是一种发生（“a way of happening”），有其自给自足和自生自灭 (“…it survives/in the valley of its making”)。这一部分以“a mouth”做结，正好引出下一部分的主题：诗人之口，该做怎样的歌吟？
奥登忽然在第三部分换上了trochee（重轻）和iamb（轻重）交替出现的节奏，基本上（个别行除外）用tetrameter(四音步)，第四个音步只有一个重音（总共七音节）且用韵，所以是所谓的强韵（strong rhyme）--这样的音韵铿锵有力掷地有声，很是凸现奥登所主张的诗观：谦卑简朴，敢于低头直视诅咒的藤园、人的失败、心灵的荒漠、时日的牢狱——这就是所谓的琐碎轻浮吧。谦卑之诗却又是慷慨的——With your unconstraining voice/Still persuade us to rejoice。诗人沉到夜的最深处，是为了用她无拘无束的歌声领我们走向光亮，然而，谦卑的她却在我们迈进光的那一刻松手，引领而不求荣耀，劝说并教诲，却不声称救赎——就像是渡人之舟吧，自己从不曾登上彼岸。
◎In Memory of W. B. Yeats
W. H. Auden
I
He disappeared in the dead of winter:
The brooks were frozen, the airports almost deserted,
And snow disfigured the public statues;
The mercury sank in the mouth of the dying day.
What instruments we have agree
The day of his death was a dark cold day.
Far from his illness
The wolves ran on through the evergreen forests,
The peasant river was untempted by the fashionable quays;
By mourning tongues
The death of the poet was kept from his poems.
But for him it was his last afternoon as himself,
An afternoon of nurses and rumours;
The provinces of his body revolted,
The squares of his mind were empty,
Silence invaded the suburbs,
The current of his feeling failed; he became his admirers.
Now he is scattered among a hundred cities
And wholly given over to unfamiliar affections,
To find his happiness in another kind of wood
And be punished under a foreign code of conscience.
The words of a dead man
Are modified in the guts of the living.
But in the importance and noise of to-morrow
When the brokers are roaring like beasts on the floor of the Bourse,
And the poor have the sufferings to which they are fairly accustomed,
And each in the cell of himself is almost convinced of his freedom,
A few thousand will think of this day
As one thinks of a day when one did something slightly unusual.
What instruments we have agree
The day of his death was a dark cold day.
II
You were silly like us; your gift survived it all:
The parish of rich women, physical decay,
Yourself. Mad Ireland hurt you into poetry.
Now Ireland has her madness and her weather still,
For poetry makes nothing happen: it survives
In the valley of its making where executives
Would never want to tamper, flows on south
From ranches of isolation and the busy griefs,
Raw towns that we believe and die in; it survives,
A way of happening, a mouth.
III
Earth, receive an honoured guest:
William Yeats is laid to rest.
Let the Irish vessel lie
Emptied of its poetry.
In the nightmare of the dark
All the dogs of Europe bark,
And the living nations wait,
Each sequestered in its hate;
Intellectual disgrace
Stares from every human face,
And the seas of pity lie
Locked and frozen in each eye.
Follow, poet, follow right
To the bottom of the night,
With your unconstraining voice
Still persuade us to rejoice;
With the farming of a verse
Make a vineyard of the curse,
Sing of human unsuccess
In a rapture of distress;
In the deserts of the heart
Let the healing fountain start,
In the prison of his days
Teach the free man how to praise.
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