The Common Life by W.H. Auden - Analysis

'The Common Life' is neither common nor easy when it comes to interpretation. The poem reflects multiple meaning and, as Roland Barth's Death of The Author, interpretation and introspection of an author's work (poem, novel, story etc) must be according to the perspective of the reader. Each individual has their own insight and it's not up to the author to decide how the reader should look at the work he created.

This poem is structured within 19 stanzas composed of 4 lines each, free verse, making it a poem consisting of 76 lines. 

1st stanza

 A living-room, the catholic area you
    (Thou, rather) and I may enter
    without knocking, leave without a bow, confronts
    each visitor with a style,

These lines portray the narrator's surrounding and neighbourhood. 'Thou', in the 2nd line, which is an archaic(old) word, could refer to the narrator's partner whose understanding about life belongs to the old generation. I would not use the terms such as husband or wife for certain possibilities which we will encounter as we go down the poem. 'Catholic area' could refer to the people who follow the religion and its practices seriously. 'Without knocking, leave without a bow' point towards the lack of concern regarding the other person. This lack of concern could also mean the differences in their relationship. Confronts each visitor with a style, clearly shows that the couple is trying to conceal their complicated relationship from society.

2nd stanza

a secular faith: he compares its dogmas
    with his, and decides whether
    he would like to see more of us. (Spotless rooms
    where nothing's left lying about

 

2nd stanza continues from the break of 1st stanza i.e. with a visitor in the house. 'A secular faith' stands for the faith accepted by everyone. The visitor in the poem represents society. He carries the norms and notions practised in a stereotypical world and visited the house wearing society's conventional lense. If his principles resonate with that of the couple's, he would come again to see them. This stanza talks about comparison and also shows an attempt in order to be one with secular faith I.e. societal norms.

3rd stanza

chill me, so do cups used for ash-trays or smeared
    with lip-stick: the homes I warm to,
    though seldom wealthy, always convey a feeling
    of bills being promptly settled

again, a continuation of the previous stanza allows the reader to create a picture of the narrator's room. The details which have been mentioned (from the end of the 7th line till the beginning of 13th line) about the room signifies the financial status of the narrator. Ash-tray or smeared with lipstick shows the existence of a woman in the house.  Cheques that don't bounce in the 13th line tells that the couple has enough money to depict their wealth to the visitors.

4th stanza

with cheques that don't bounce.) There's no We at an instant,
    only Thou and I, two regions
    of protestant being which nowhere overlap:
    a room is too small, therefore

This stanza alone adds up and reveals the drama, being performed by the couple in order to live without being criticized by society. As mentioned earlier in the explanation of 1st stanza, catholic stand for the religious society with secular faith. Also, from the beginning of 1st stanza, the narrator is giving hints about the differences in relationship with his wife. The term 'protestant' represents the protestors of catholic rudiments. In this poem, 'catholic' stand for stereotypical society. Hence 'protestant' means a rebel against society as well. Apparently, the couple mentioned in the poem so far is protestant, not only to societal norms but also to each other. A couple revolting against the norms of marriage or let's say catholic marriage(marriage of man and woman), makes the reader recognize the essence of involvement of homosexuality. In easier words, the narrator of this poem is homosexual(gay) and that is, even today, an act of protest against societal norms.

5th stanza

if its occupants cannot forget at will
    that they are not alone, too big
    if it gives them any excuse in a quarrel
    for raising their voices. What,

When we re-read the lines from the end of 4th stanza, it helps the reader understand that if the couple, to be precise, the protestant couple, do not forget their differences, the well-arranged spotless room will become too small for them to be together due to their contradictive ideas. 

6th & 7th stanza

 quizzing ours, would Sherlock Holmes infer? Plainly,
    ours is a sitting culture
    in a generation which prefers comfort
    (or is forced to prefer it)

to command, would rather incline its buttocks
    on a well-upholstered chair
    than the burly back of a slave: a quick glance
    at book-titles would tell him

Both 6th & 7th stanza throws the impression of the narrator's life at the reader. It's true that the whole poem talks about his life but these two stanzas act as a guide to educate the reader about the narrator's preference. By sitting culture, it's possible that he could be comparing the generation to which he belongs with the people who would like to sit despite the possession of power and command. 'Upholstered chair' is parallelly mentioned to comfort and 'burly back of a slave' is parallel to command. 

8th & 9th stanza

    that we belong to the clerisy and spend much
    on our food. But could he read
    what our prayers and jokes are about, what creatures
    frighten us most, or what names

    head our roll-call of persons we would least like
    to go to bed with? What draws
    singular lives together in the first place,
    loneliness, lust, ambition

1st two lines of 8th stanza arise at the end of 7th. It refers to the intelligent detective 'Sherlock Holmes' who can, just by glancing at their book- title, consider the couple as clerisy which means the educated class. Here the book title could also point the collections of work published by the poet and his wife. Auden's wife Erika Mann was also a writer. 

As we resume, the speaker doubts if Holmes( also a visitor) could tell what is going on in their mind actually apart from the materialistic things. The speaker also narrates if he knows with whom the speaker wants to make love. These are the things which no one can interpret unless said or expressed. Not even the intelligent detective.

The next few lines (what draws singular lives.......clear enough) are probably talking about the poet's own unconsummated married life. Auden's wife, Erika Mann, married him for a British passport. These lines give the impression of one's selfish purpose to get married. Hence the pillar of marriage, i.e. love, has not been mentioned among the reasons he provided for the question (what draws singular life together) asked in 9th stanza.

10th & 11th stanza

  or mere convenience, is obvious, why they drop
    or murder one another
    clear enough: how they create, though, a common world
    between them, like Bombelli's

    impossible yet useful numbers, no one
    has yet explained. Still, they do
    manage to forgive impossible behavior,
    to endure by some miracle

'Bombelli's numbers' is an allusion to Italian mathematician 'Rafael Bombelli' who managed to solve the problems with the help of imaginary numbers. The essence of humour could be witnessed in these lines where the speaker compares a selfish relation with Bombelli's impossible numbers.

12th stanza

conversational tics and larval habits
    without wincing (were you to die,
    I should miss yours). It's a wonder that neither
    has been butchered by accident,

This stanza shares a similar purpose of the previous stanza. Here, the speaker compares a selfish relation to a larva, to be precise, characteristics of the larva. An insect, during its larval phase, depends on food for its development and take shelter to reduce competition with its adult population. It sometimes accepts food from the adult as well. This larval habit, same as a selfish person's habit, of taking shelter and depending on its adult population could also be the analogy of the narrator.

13th & 14th stanza

or, as lots have, silently vanished into
    History's criminal noise
    unmourned for, but that, after twenty-four years,
    we should sit here in Austria

    as cater-cousins, under the glassy look
    of a Naples Bambino,
    the portrayed regards of Strauss and Stravinsky,
    doing British cross-word puzzles,

From 13th stanza, the poem takes a happy tone. Till here the speaker never mentioned 'we' for two individuals rather he was using Thou and 'I'.' After twenty-four years' mentioned in the 3rd line of 13th stanza, could refer to the time span since his marriage to Erika Mann or since the 1st time he met his gay lover, Chester Kallman.

In 1958, Auden bought a farmhouse i Austria with the money he got with Feltrinelli Prize. Kallman and Auden spent their summers in Austria, proclaimed as cousins to the natives.

There's a specific reason for Auden to mention Naples because, before Austria, Auden and Kallaman spent their summers in the Gulf of Naples. Strauss and Stravinsky stand for orchestra music collection. W.H. Auden has also collaborated with English opera composed by Igor Stravinsky.

15th & 16th stanza

 is very odd indeed. I'm glad the builder gave
    our common-room small windows
    through which no observed outsider can observe us:
    every home should be a fortress,

    equipped with all the very latest engines
    for keeping Nature at bay,
    versed in all ancient magic, the arts of quelling
    the Dark Lord and his hungry

The farmhouse which Auden bought in Austria has a window through which a person visible to the speaker cannot see what's inside the house. This mere feeling of not being seen by an outsider provides a great relief to the speaker for which he has compared the farmhouse to a fortress. The Nature could be referred to anything and anyone outside the house which means no one can or isn't allowed inside the house. The Dark Lord and his animivorous chimaeras could be the people who are against homosexual relation.

17th & 18th stanza

 animivorous chimaeras. (Any brute
    can buy a machine in a shop,
    but the sacred spells are secret to the kind,
    and if power is what we wish

    they won't work.) The ogre will come in any case:
    so Joyce has warned us. Howbeit,
    fasting or feasting, we both know this: without
    the Spirit we die, but life

Any brute....won't work could mean that anyone, no matter how cruel, may buy materials giving money, but it takes more than money to serve the intention.

'The ogre' warned by Joyce is an allusion to James Joyce's play 'Exiles' the story of 'the dead'. People to oppose homosexuality has been compared to the 'Ogre' from Joyce's play. Fasting and Feasting is a Christian practice to lower ourselves in order to be humble and strengthen our spirit.

19th stanza

without the Letter is in the worst of taste,
    and always, though truth and love
    can never really differ, when they seem to,
    the subaltern should be truth

The last stanza of the poem vindicates the whole point of the poem. Truth and love don't have any difference to be differentiated, but when it does, love always subjugates the truth. 

'The Common Life' starts with the prospect of lack of love but as we proceed to read and interpret it gives the effects and causes for lack of love. However, the poem ended in a hopeful note conveying the theme of 'love above all'.