“I Can’t Imagine / A Kinder Set-up”: Mapping Networks of Queer Intimacy Through the Auden–Kurka Correspondence

Recently, a previously unknown private collection of correspondence by the British-American poet W. H. Auden (1907-1973) surfaced in Austria. The approximately 90 letters and postcards are addressed to Hugo Kurka, Auden's lover and friend during the poet's Austrian period 1958-1973. The investigation of these papers is contextualized through archival research in Austria and the United States that includes Auden's correspondence to his closest friends, his Kirchstetten guest book, and Austrian law enforcement records. Situating the relationship between W. H. Auden and Hugo Kurka within the repressive environment of 1950s and 1960s Austria-where homosexual acts remained criminalized until 1971-the study yields two main conclusions. First, the correspondence permits mapping a complex network of non-heteronormative, non-monogamous relationships that are at odds with dominant contemporary discourses and ideologies. The materials document how these interconnected relationships were maintained through regular communication, shared spaces, and mutual support systems, revealing opportunities for queer agency within an adverse social context. Second, the archive exposes profound gender asymmetries within this network, which is a men's network in which women would not seem to attain the same degree of agency.