description For the Time Being Overview
For the Time Being is a 1944 book by W. H. Auden comprising a long poem framed as a Christmas oratorio, written in the years following his return to Christianity and his immigration to the United States. The work uses the Nativity narrative alongside contemporary and historical vignettes to examine faith, doubt, modernity, and the nature of historical time.
It includes dramatic characters such as Herod, Simeon, and the narrator, and blends biblical diction with colloquial modern speech.
help For the Time Being FAQ
Why did W. H. Auden call For the Time Being a Christmas Oratorio?
The long poem retells the Nativity through choruses, speeches, and meditative sections resembling the structure of an oratorio. Auden mixes biblical characters with modern psychological and political language rather than presenting a conventional stage drama.
Which biblical characters speak in For the Time Being?
The poem gives voices to figures including Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, the Magi, Simeon, and Herod. Its narrator and chorus also comment on what the Incarnation might mean within ordinary modern life.
What does Herod represent in Auden's poem?
Auden's Herod defends rational order and fears that Christ's birth will overturn a manageable secular world. His speech uses administrative and intellectual language to turn the Massacre of the Innocents into a chilling argument for political control.
Was Benjamin Britten involved with For the Time Being?
Auden initially conceived the text in connection with a possible musical work involving Benjamin Britten. Britten did not ultimately set the complete poem, and Auden published it in book form in 1944.
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