Product Description
This significantly expanded edition of W. H. Auden’s Selected Poems adds twenty poems to the hundred in the original edition, broadening its focus to better reflect the enormous wealth of form, rhetoric, tone, and content in Auden’s work. Newly included are such favorites as “Funeral Blues” and other works that represent Auden’s lighter, comic side, giving a fuller picture of the range of his genius. Also new are brief notes explaining references that may have become obscure to younger generations of readers and a revised introduction that draws on recent additions to knowledge about Auden.

As in the original edition, the new Selected Poems makes available the preferred original versions of some thirty poems that Auden revised later in life, making it the best source for enjoying the many facets of Auden’s art in one volume. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Start from the back
The poems are arranged chronologically.I started at the front and got stuck - the language is thick and too abstracted for my taste.I almost gave up on him, but decided to read his later stuff before putting it down.I then read the book back to front and enjoyed his material from the 1960's the very best.I'm glad I didn't give up.My suggestion, start from the back.

A passionate soul
WH Auden is one of the most beautiful writers and poets on love and loss, deeply intellectual, inherently questioning, this collection from evocative countryside penscapes to beautiful, beautiful words on relationships and the inner turmoil and joy they cause.This book is essential to anyone who knows and loves Auden or has yet to meet the vibrant passions within his words.

A First Auden, better than ever
Over four Christmases, this title sat on my Amazon wish list, ignored by my wife. This year, I bought it myself and let her wrap it for me. How lucky that, while my wish for this book sat ungranted, Edward Mendelson added explanatory notes and twenty poems to his original selection. The additional poems in this "Expanded Edition" include the lovely "Funeral Blues," whose recitation in "Four Weddings and a Funeral" provided most of that movie's emotional heft and social import.

The poems that Mendelson, Auden's literary executor, selected for this volume are printed here in their first book-published versions. Mendelson also edited Auden's "Collected Poems," from which Auden himself excluded some poems and for which he revised others. Mendelson discusses the choice between "Selected Poems" and "Collected Poems" in the Introduction to this book:

"The present selection ... [reprints] the texts of Auden's early editions and [includes] poems that he later rejected. A historical edition of this kind, one that reflects the author's work as it first appeared in public rather than his final version of it, is not intended as an argument that Auden's revisions or rejections were arbitrary or misguided; he had strong literary and ethical motives for choosing them, and in almost every instance they produced versions of his poems that were more coherent and complex than the originals. Probably the best way to experience Auden's work is to read the early versions first for their greater immediate impact, and the revised versions afterward for their greater subtlety and depth. For most readers this book will be a First Auden, and the edition of his 'Collected Poems' that was published posthumously according to his final intentions may be recommended as a Second."

For lovers of Auden's poetry
W.H. Auden was a twentieth century English poet. He emphasized the individual, past and present, in their frail condition.

Auden's writing varied as to subject, style, and type as he aged. Love poems, politics, culture, morals, individuals; what a wealth of poetry the public has from Auden because of the number of years he lived and wrote. Twenty poems have been added to this expanded edition including some of Auden's lighter poems. This aids the reader, student, or lover of Auden to see a more complex, complete, fuller and well-rounded poet.

A nice touch within the volume was the inclusion of brief notes explaining references that might be unclear. Other positive features consisted of chronological arrangement of material, and an index of titles and first lines.

Armchair Interviews says: A must for all Auden students, whether a casual reader or lover of his poetry. ... Read more

Product Description
To commemorate the centennial of W. H. Auden’s birth, the Modern Library offers this elegant edition of the collected poems of one of the greatest poets of the twentieth century.

This volume includes all the poems that Auden wished to preserve, in a text that includes his final revisions, with corrections based on the latest research. Auden divided his poems into sections that corresponded to what he referred to as chapters in his life, each one beginning with a change in his inner life or external circumstances: the moment in 1933 when he first knew “exactly what it means to love one’s neighbor as oneself”; his move from Britain to America in 1939; his first summer in Italy in 1948; his move to a summerhouse in Austria in 1958; and his return to England in 1972.

Auden’s work has perhaps the widest range and the greatest depth of any English poet of the past three centuries. From the anxious warnings of his early verse through the expansive historical perspectives of his middle years to the celebrations and thanksgiving in his later work, Auden wrote in a voice that addressed readers personally rather than as part of a collective audience. His styles and forms extend from ballads and songs to haiku and limericks to sonnets, sestinas, prose poems, and dozens of other constructions of his own invention. His tone ranges from spirited comedy to memorable profundity–often within the same work. His poems manage to be secular and sacred, philosophical and erotic, personal and universal.

“All the poems I have written were written for love,” Auden once said. This book includes his famous early poems about transient love (“Lay your sleeping head, my love,” “Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone”) and his later poems about enduring love (“In Sickness and in Health,” “First Things First”). The book also includes Auden’s longer, more thematically varied poems, from the expressionist charade “Paid on Both Sides” to the formal couplets of “New Year Letter”; the darkly comic sequel to The Tempest, “The Sea and the Mirror”; and a baroque eclogue set in a wartime bar, “The Age of Anxiety.”

This new edition includes a critical appreciation of Auden by Edward Mendelson, the editor of the present volume and Auden’s literary executor.

“W. H. Auden had the greatest gifts of any of our poets in the twentieth century, the greatest lap full of seed.”
–James Fenton, The New York Review of Books

“At the beginning of the new century, [Auden] is an indispensable poet. Even people who don’t read poems often turn to poetry at moments when it matters, and Auden matters now.”
–Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker ... Read more

Customer Reviews (19)

Twice No. --Poems for little people.
This, among books this reviewer has bothered to purchase from a bookstore new, is the SOLE volume I've ever taken back out of disgust. Banal, boorish, vapid, insipid: If I continue, there will be a Thesaurus entry of Babel for "Garbage" as a metaphor. --And I was led to believe Allen Ginsberg&CO., followed by Kurt Vonnegut Jr., with Herman Melville and Saul Bellow taking up the rear were the main gods of the Anglophone pantheon of overrated writers. I see now that was quite mistaken; they were mere ciphers.--

Hail Caesar: W H AUDEN. The quintessential 'English Man'. . . romantic eunuch, milchsop, bore. He will have no ciphers since he's etched his texts on the bottom of the well . . . all roads lead AWAY from Auden . . . CS Lewis is more compelling, even as a proselytizing fantast . . .

Funeral Blues
I consider Auden to be one of the most important poets of last century. As it happened, he was also found from a movie (my other passion) 'Four Funerals and One Wedding'. I especially like that he is not so overwhelmingly romantic but tickles my taste for sarcasm - the thing that in my mind comes closest to real life.

No.
This is a poet who has no emotional or spiritual depth. He is poet of shame. His sarcasm and wit is anything but remarkable. I was actually looking foward to reading his poetry in my class, but was terribly disappointed. It's not worth it.

My favorite poet
Since the first time I read Auden's "The Unknown Citizen" in the 10th grade, I have been captivated by his writing style and the pure emotion his poems express. The meaning isn't lost in needless words, but is clear and passionate. I could spend hours just reading his works and oftentimes do. Everyone should read a poem or two of his.

Auden's collected poems
The softcover book arrived in excellent condition and in a timely manner. ... Read more

Product Description
W. H. Auden wrote some of the greatest love poetry of the twentieth century.This book contains ten of his poems about love.They range in mood from the exhilaration of a new love affair, through love's anxieties and fears, to the sorrow that comes with the end of love.Amazon.com Review
The publication of this slender volume was inspired by the runaway successof Four Weddings and a Funeral, in which Auden's "Funeral Blues"practically stole the show. Yet every poem in the collection delivers somegrandiose or mundane truth about love. There is, for example, the playful"Calypso," in which the recently transplanted Briton anticipates arendezvous at New York's Grand Central Station: "For there in the middle ofthat waiting-hall, / Should be standing the one that I love best of all."Several of the pieces here share that jolly air and belting rhythm--infact, Auden wrote a few of them as cabaret songs. Yet in a poem like"Funeral Blues," the poet's Cole Porter-like flippancy can't mask theunderlying sense of grief. "Put crepe bows round the white necks of thepublic doves," he suggests, and declares the very emblems of romanceredundant: "The stars are not wanted now; put out every one." Finally,there is "Lullaby," one of the great love poems of this century. Withimmense mystery and power, Auden evokes the preciousness of a single nightof passion.

Time and fevers burn away
Individual beauty from
Thoughtful children, and the grave
Proves the child ephemeral:
But in my arms till break of day
Let the living creature lie,
Mortal, guilty, but to me
The entirely beautiful.

Customer Reviews (4)

Auden on Love
Much of Auden's poetry is not easily accessible-- at least to this reader-- but these ten love poems are. This small volume was published after the success of the film "Four Weddings and a Funeral" and the inclusion of "Funeral Blues" which a grieving man recites at the funeral of his lover. Auden wrote these poems between 1932 and 1939 and many of them were set to music by Benjamin Britten.

If we are to believe Auden, love is elusive, often transitory, marred by war, unfaithfulness, time and death but ultimately worth it all. In "O Tell Me the Truth About Love," the poet humorously asks if love will come "without warning/Just as I'm picking my nose?" and does not answer his final question: "Will it alter my life altogether?" It is "more important than/Even a priest or a politician (Calypso). My goodness, we can only hope so. Otherwise we are in dire straits.

In "As I Walked Out One Evening" the narrator of the poem hears a lover sing that love has no ending. Then the chiming clocks remind him that neither we nor love can conquer time. "Funeral Blues," the last of the ten poems printed here, is a lament for the death of a lover/friend and contains these sad, beautiful lines:

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

"Lullaby," perhaps the most famous Auden poem included here, is a perfect example of why poetry still matters:

Lay your sleeping head, my love,
Human on my faithless arm;
Time and fevers burn away
Individual beauty from
Thoughtful children, and the grave
Proves the child ephemeral:
But in my arms till break of day
Let the living creature lie,
Mortal, guilty, but to me
The entirely beautiful.

A similar version of this volume made the bestseller list in the UK but sadly not in these United States.

Ten unforgettable poems from the master
This little volume `Tell Me the Truth about Love' only contains ten poems, but the small number is easily compensated by the sheer warmth and authenticity of the ten pearls it contains. The poetry of W. H. Auden belongs clearly to one of the most beautiful created in the twenties century. It is never complex or high-flown, but gets its timeless charm exactly form its simplicity and remarkable honesty. Just to read that love does not look like a pair of pyjamas or the ham in a temperance hotel, can only bring a smile on the readers face, without making it sound like a lot of twaddle.

Of course, the most famous of all the poems listed in this book is bound to be `Funeral Blues', simply because is the heartbreaking center point of the funeral scene in the popular movie Four Weddings and a Funeral. But the other poems too make clear that Auden has until today not lost anything of its eloquence.

A romantically wonderful introduction to Auden's work!
This brief volume presents the reader with 10poems covering different aspects of love. "O Tell Me the Truth About Love" asks what does love look like and how will it be recognised, using everydaymetaphors."At Last the Secret is Out" talks of an affair discovered and thegossip spreading. "Funeral Blues" was made famous by the movie"Four Weddings and a Funeral".This book is great for the romanticat heart and the reader will be able to identify with the struggles andheartache that comes from being in love!

Save Your Money, buy Auden's reading!
Poor reader; one of my favorite poems is 'As I Walked out One Evening' andthis man mangles it beyond recognition.Just listen to the author'srendition and you will hear what the poem is really saying....just getAuden and save yourself some grief. ... Read more

Product Description
This edition presents the original versions of many poems, which Auden revised to conform to his evolving political and literary attitudes later in his career. In this volume, Edward Mendelson has restored the early versions of some thirty poems generally considered to be superior to the later versions, allowing the reader to see the entire range of Auden's work. Selected and edited by Edward Mendelson
... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Poetry to "disenchant and disintoxicate"
W.H. Auden is truly, as noted by editor Edward Mendelson, a twentieth century poet.Auden had a firm grasp on the essence of contemporary politics and culture and possessed a knack for bringing a reader into his world.This selection spans the entire body of Auden's work, and contains several early poems which are hard to find, as Auden refused to have them republished in later collections of his work.It is a good introduction to Auden, but I recommend reading it along with Collected Shorter Poems 1927-1957, as that contains the revisions that Auden made to his poems over time, in his fervor for complete honesty in his work.

While Mendelson's selection is well put together and a good representation of Auden's early craft, the revised poems are generally much stronger (though often bleaker in tone).Many changes, such as the famous revision of September 1, 1939 to read "we must love one another and die" rather than "we must love one or die" were made to reflect the author's shifting attitudes.However, other poems improve significantly with Auden's editing, and if this book is the only Auden you read, you'll miss out on the full depth of his power as a poet.

About suffering they were never wrong : The old masters
Auden wrote much poetry in many different forms. He was a very learned poet with strong connection to English poetic tradition. Among his most known poems are those which are also my favorites,"Musee des Beaux Arts", "In Memory of W. B. Yeats" and "September 1,1939". The concluding stanza of this last poem gives a good idea of the special colloquial power of Auden's rhyme and rhythm.

"Defenceless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.

In that poem also contains the great stanza, " Lest we should see we are/ Lost in a dark haunted wood/ Children afraid of the night/ Who have never been happy or good."
Auden wastoo a considerable critic of Literature, an outstanding Anthologist, a man-of- letters in a true sense.
I do not know the range of his poetry well, but the anthology pieces are filled with memorable lines.
Edward Mendelson, a well- known Auden scholar, in this work presents a number of original poems which Auden as he was wont to do improved for the worse.

The Quintessential Collection
For many of us,the poems that we read in childhood and adolescence are those that stick with us the most.When I was fifteen, I bought this volume and promptly fell in love with Auden's poetry.His work showed a restlessness with the social and political state of his world, and I found that I could connect with it both intellectually and emotionally.To this day, I can revisit this book's pages feeling like I am visiting a childhood friend.Auden expressed some feelings I shared with him, and I was moved by his ability to express them better than I ever could: with frankness, wit, and grace.A must for any literary enthusiast (or any curious fifteen-year-old, for that matter).

A marvelous introduction
I can do little more than echo the other reviewers here.This is all a 'selected poems' shoud be: introductory and selective.Yes, "Funeral Blues" is missing.But no one can complain about what is here, which includes "In Time of War", the great sonnet sequence; "The Quest", another long sequence; and the entirety of THE SEA AND THE MIRROR, which is based on Shakespeare's THE TEMPEST.If you are, however, only interested in his love poems, I'd have to steer you toward TELL ME THE TRUTH ABOUT LOVE, a nice little chapbook containing only those.

My own personal experience with this book may be relevant.It has served to introduce me to one of the finest poets of the last century and sparked a desire to read THE COLLECTED POEMS, also edited by Mendelson, to see how Auden re-wrote thirty of the brilliant poems here included.I'm continuing on my voyage; hope you are starting on yours.

Worth singing about
The poetry is splendid -- Auden is a brilliant, sensitive, musical and entertaining writer -- and the selection is fairly representative. Mendelson prefers Auden's later poems to his earlier ones, so the twee middle-aged sequences "Bucolics" and "Horae Canonicae" are included complete, while most of "Twelve Songs" (which has some terrific love poems like "Fish in the unruffled lakes", "Funeral Blues" and "Tell me the truth about love") is not. Still, there is enough in here, esp. in the first two-thirds of the book, to give you a fair enough taste of Auden's verse to entice you to buy his Collected Poems.

(You'll still need the Selected; it has a couple of good poems that Auden decided not to republish, and superior versions of some early poems.) ... Read more

Product Description
One of the modern masters of the extended poem, W. H. Auden has selected for this volume the longer poems he originally published between 1930 and 1947, which are among his most enduring achievements, both for their technical virtuosity and for the emotional and intellectual precision with which he dissects the spiritual illnesses of our times. Collected Longer Poems includes Paid on Both Sides, Letter to Lord Byron, For the Time Being, The Sea and the Mirror, and The Age of Anxiety.

With its companion volume, Collected Shorter Poems, published by Random House in 1967, this collection represents all of his past work that Auden wishes to preserve.

This edition is set from the first American edition of 1969 and commemorates the seventy-fifth anniversary of Random House. ... Read more

Product Description
Some of the most enduring poetry of the twentieth century, read by the legendary Auden himself.This collection features such favorites as "As I Walked Out One Evening," "Musee des Beaux Arts" and "The Shield of Achilles," among many others.

A companion book is included with these never-before-released recordings.Amazon.com Review
W.H. Auden describes the experience of poems read aloud:

The formal structure of a poem is not something distinctfrom its meaning but as intimately bound up with the latter as thebody is with the soul. When one reads a poem in a book one grasps theform immediately, but when one listens to a recitation, it issometimes very difficult to "hear" the structure.

Customer Reviews (2)

Voice of the Poet: W.H. Auden
This a an excellent collection of auden's poetry, read by the poet. The CD is well recorded and presented in an attractive package, and comes with a book of the poems on the CD in words.

Outstanding!
Not all poets make great readers of their own work.But Auden's voice-- so warm, so musical, so passionate-- is a joy to listen to.The recordings, done in many places over many years, are of a varying quality.But in each the voice comes shining through.

The poem selections are top-notch across the board, containing such favorites as "As I Walked Out One Evening," "Fish in the Unruffled Lakes," "Musee des Beaux Arts," four sonnets from "In Time of War," "Under Which Lyre," "The More Loving One" and "The Shield of Achilles."The CD version is supposedly abridged, but it is 57 minutes compared to the Audio Cassette version's hour.This also comes with a book containing the final text of the selected poems (sometimes slightly different than what he reads).The book also contains a nice introduction and background on Auden by poet J.D. McClatchy.

My favorite tracks have to be "Under Which Lyre," read with such wit that it made me laugh several times, and the powerful "Friday's Child".I believe one can listen to a streaming version of "Under Which Lyre" on poets.org -- although it sounds much better on this CD since streaming audio is generally scratchy.It could give you an idea if this CD is right for you.

This could hardly be bad when it contains such great poetry, but it manages to be appropriate for both long-time Auden fans and those who are just beginning.An outstanding product.5/5 stars. ... Read more

Product Description
The Everyman's Library Pocket Poets hardcover series is popular for its compact size and reasonable price which does not compromise content. Poems: Auden is just another reminder of his exhilarating lyric power and his understanding of love and longing in all their sacred and profane guises. One of English poetry's great 20th century masters, Poems: Auden is the short collection of an exemplary champion of human wisdom in its encounter with the mysteries of experience.Amazon.com Review
"You can never step in the same Auden twice," wrotethe critic Randall Jarrell, alluding both to the etymology of Auden'sname--which comes from river--and the rapid transformations ofhis poetic style.Wystan Hugh Auden began as a cryptic voice of theThirties, with alluring yet mysterious creations like "The SecretAgent." Next he made himself into the very model of anengagé artist with "Refugee Blues" or"Spain"--explicitly political utterances that the poet laterrenounced. Finally, Auden shocked his public by moving from England tothe United States, where he fulfilled his ambition to become a"minor Atlantic Goethe" (although many would insist oncalling him a major one). Early or late, however, the music of Auden'sverse is instantly recognizable, and fantastically memorable. Readersneed only hear "In Praise of Limestone" or "The Fall ofRome" or "O Tell Me the Truth About Love" a single timeto have selected lines imprinted on their brains. Nor did Auden everlose his touch as one of the sublime love poets of our age, which wasevident from the moment he published his celebrated"Lullaby": "Lay your sleeping head, my love, / Human onmy faithless arm; / Time and fevers burn away / Individual beauty from/ Thoughtful children, and the grave / Proves the child ephemeral: /But in my arms till break of day / Let the living creature lie /Mortal, guilty, but to me / The entirely beautiful." So what ifhis face got all wrinkled? ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Beautiful
If you know someone in your family that is interested in defining poems in their own way, Auden is the poet to buy. I have covered the pages with my observations and rhyme patterns. This is a wonderful little book.

Claudia
My poetry volume was exactly as advertised, in very good condition.
It arrived on time

excellent service
I received the book in record time, and it was in superb condition - very well packaged also.

Pleasurable Volume
Auden reaches the general public in a way most poets, especially contemporary literary poets, fail. His themes, language, rhythm, imagery and form are no less brilliant for being understood. So many of his pieces reach across decades to contemporary experience, and most general readers come to his anthologies having heard one of his poems used effectively in contemporary media. Everyone who saw "Four Weddings and a Funeral" fell in love with "Funeral Blues," which was read in the funeral scene. This volume has it.

His poem "September 1, 1939" circulated widely, especially via e-mail, as the anniversary of September 11 came around, is also attracting new interest. Unfortunately, that particular work is not included in this collection. All the same, it is a fine sampling of what Auden did across a long and prolific career. The edition has a nice physicality--a well produced hardcover, at a bargain price--perfect for leaving on the bedside or on an occasional table. This is poetry in an accessible package made for reading. It makes a good gift.

Some of the best poetry of the last century
This substantial selection from Auden's poems may well help the American reader get a first impression of one of the best poets of the last century. Born in England in 1907, Auden moved to the US in 1940 and became an important influence on many American poets of his time.Unfortunately heusually seems to be regarded as too British to become part of the canon.While there is a very British sense of irony and self-deprecation in manyof these poems, the feelings they express are truly universal.

Whatalways strikes me about Auden is the musical quality of his poems and thehuge number of memorable lines. There are so many verses which you won'tforget although you've only read them one time or two, from the quirky:

"I'll love you, dear, I'll love you /Till China and Africameet, /And the river jumps over the mountain /And the salmon singin the street." to the more serious: "If equal affection cannotbe /Let the more loving one be me."

As these lines do alreadyshow, you do not need a dictionary do understand Auden. In contrast to thegeneration of Eliot and Pound before them, Auden and his friends wanted towrite for the common reader and express the feelings of the people aroundthem. Even today people can relate to this, as the Auden renaissance afterthe reading of one of his poems in the movie "Four Weddings and aFuneral" proved. ... Read more

Product Description
W. H. Auden's first ten years in the United States were marked by rapid and extensive change in his life and thought. He became an American citizen, fell in love with Chester Kallman, and began to reflect on American culture and to explore the ideas of Reinhold Niebuhr and other Protestant theologians. This volume contains every piece of prose that Auden wrote during these years, including essays and reviews he published under pseudonyms. Most have never been reprinted in any form since their initial publication in such magazines and newspapers as the Nation, the New Republic, Common Sense, Vogue, and the New York Times.

Auden's prose during this period is frequently directly autobiographical even as he comments on literature, psychology, politics, and religion. The writings range from a dialogue about W. B. Yeats through a respectful parody of Gertrude Stein to Jamesian essays on Henry James. They also include lively and often profound responses to ancient and modern history as well as to contemporary issues in politics and religion. Other highlights include writings on opera and poetry as well as reports of Auden's lectures and the text of an unfinished autobiographical book, The Prolific and the Devourer. Throughout, Edward Mendelson's extensive and illuminating editor's notes explain all contemporary and private allusions.

By making available a large cache of important but previously difficult-to-obtain writings on key subjects, this volume will be of obvious appeal to Auden's legions of admirers. It will also be enjoyed by everyone interested in twentieth-century literature, religion, and culture. ... Read more

Product Description
"W. H. Auden, poet and critic, will conduct a course on Shakespeare at the New School for Social Research beginning Wednesday. Mr. Auden has announced that in his course . . . he proposes to read all Shakespeare's plays in chronological order." The New York Times reported this item on September 27, 1946, giving notice of a rare opportunity to hear one of the century's great poets comment on one of the greatest poets of all time. Published here for the first time, these lectures now make Auden's thoughts on Shakespeare available widely.

Painstakingly reconstructed by Arthur Kirsch from the notes of students who attended, primarily Alan Ansen, who became Auden's secretary and friend, the lectures afford remarkable insights into Shakespeare's plays as well as the sonnets.

A remarkable lecturer, Auden could inspire his listeners to great feats of recall and dictation. Consequently, the poet's unique voice, often down to the precise details of his phrasing, speaks clearly and eloquently throughout this volume. In these lectures, we hear Auden alluding to authors from Homer, Dante, and St. Augustine to Kierkegaard, Ibsen, and T. S. Eliot, drawing upon the full range of European literature and opera, and referring to the day's newspapers and magazines, movies and cartoons. The result is an extended instance of the "live conversation" that Auden believed criticism to be. Notably a conversation between Auden's capacious thought and the work of Shakespeare, these lectures are also a prelude to many ideas developed in Auden's later prose--a prose in which, one critic has remarked, "all the artists of the past are alive and talking among themselves."

Reflecting the twentieth-century poet's lifelong engagement with the crowning masterpieces of English literature, these lectures add immeasurably to both our understanding of Auden and our appreciation of Shakespeare.Amazon.com Review
After transplanting himself from England to the United States in 1939, W.H. Auden immediately became a kind of academic knight-errant, teaching at five different schools in as many years. Little evidence survives of most of these gigs. But in 1946, Auden gave a course on Shakespeare at Manhattan's New School, and luckily, several of the students attending took maniacally assiduous notes. Now Arthur Kirsch has collated the whole batch--and, one assumes, done some major nip-and-tuck work on this textual nightmare. The result is an insightful, eccentric, and perhaps essential slice of Bardolatry, which tells us as much about Auden as his subject.

Nobody can accuse Auden of parroting the party line on this greatest of English writers. In one of the nuttier moments in the lecture series, in fact, he expressed his distaste for The Merry Wives of Windsor by declining to say a word about it--instead he simply played a recording of Verdi's Falstaff for the perplexed audience. Elsewhere his tendency was to view Shakespeare's creations as flesh-and-blood characters rather than poetic constructs: "If Antony and Cleopatra have a more tragic fate than we do, that is because they are far more successful than we are, not because they are essentially different." He's harder pressed to locate any success stories in Julius Ceasar: the protagonist strikes him as a fading despot, Octavius is "a very cold fish," and Cassius "a choleric man--a General Patton." And sometimes, as in this discussion of Falstaff's role in the double-decker Henry IV, Auden spins off his own freestanding riffs, which amount to short prose poems on Shakespearean themes:

A fat man looks like a cross between a very young child and a pregnant mother. The Greeks thought of Narcissus as a slender youth, but I think they were wrong. I see him as a middle-aged man with a corporation, for, however ashamed he may be of displaying it in public, in private a man with a belly loves it dearly--it may be an unprepossessing child to look at, but he's borne it all by himself.

Customer Reviews (7)

Most enlightening and entertaining.
How fortuitous we are to have such a book! I just happened to stumble upon it browsing a discount book store and it is now one of my most precious finds.

Who would have thought! W.H. Auden announces in "The New York Times" in late September, 1946, that he will offer a course on Shakespeare, lecturing once weekly, commencing in October and continuing through May, 1947.

The lectures were held at the New School for Social Research in Greenwich Village in the neighborhood where W. H. Auden lived. The lectures were enormously popular; tickets were sold at the door, and as many as 500 people attended, some coming quite a distance to hear the great poet speak.

Auden's material for these lectures is not available, but several students, one in particular, took very good notes, and the editor of this compilation, Arthur Kirsch, has done an outstanding job obtaining and editing the notes, making the collection a coherent, fascinating look at both W.H. Auden and Shakespeare.

Auden lectured on all the plays except "Titus Andronicus" and "The Merry Wives of Windsor," as well as on the "Sonnets."

The essays vary in length, some very short, and some quite long. It would be interesting to know if the lectures themselves varied in length; if so, some lectures might have been quite short.

I would strongly recommend reading Auden's lecture notes after one has a good understanding of the play being considered. These are not Cliffs Notes. These are essays on Shakespeare's plays by one of literature's foremost poets and critics. Alongside similar works by Harold Bloom, these essays are absolutely superb.

Others have alluded to Auden's lecture on "The Merry Wives of Windsor." The student's notes - W. H. Auden's comments - are precious: "The Merry Wives of Windsor is a very dull play indeed. We can be grateful for its having been written, because it provided the occasion of Verdi's "Falstaff," a very great operatic masterpiece. Mr. Page, Shallow, Slender, and the Host disappear. I have nothing to say about Shakespeare's play, so let's hear Verdi."

Quick and Collected
What we read as Aristotle is actually nothing he wrote, but rather notes collected from students of his, compiled into something that looks like a lecture.This is exactly what we have here in the form on Auden's Lectures on Shakespeare.He gave a Shakespeare course at New College in New York one summer and this book is a transcription of some copious scribes and pupils.Let me say first that they are wonderful.Auden's insight is not only a poet's-though it is that-but a scholar's also, and one of such penetrating originalityhe makes these works appear sometimes without the heavy critical histories they worry under.This is aided by the fact that he reads all of Shakespeare's plays (one per week) for this course, even the lesser known ones, and also by the fact that the notes can't help but distill his lectures only into their most interesting points.As such, it seems that he effortlessly moves from one new vision to the next with a nonchalance that I can only assume is British, or else a character marking of someone so consistently called "Augustain."We know of Auden as a reader of Shakespeare primarily from his long poem about The Tempest, now we have another, more direct view of his reading.

Tabloid Shakespeare?
WH Auden's poem Funeral Blues is arguably one of the most powerful poems of loss ever written - vide the last stanza:

"The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood,
For nothing now can ever come to any good."

One would expect Auden on Shakespeare to be a marvel. However, the views attributed to Auden in this book have a tabloid feel - or the feel of a collection of essays written by very industrious but hopelessly lost English undergraduates. One is left with the surmise (expressed by other reviewers) that because, like all of Aristotle's works, this is a compilation of lecture notes taken by students, what we may have here is a collection of views with which WH Auden would have taken very strong issue. The views attributed to Auden re Shakespeare's play Hamlet - universally agreed by literary scholars such as James Joyce, CS Lewis, Harold Bloom et alia to be Shakespeare's master work - are a good example:

1. "I would question whether anyone has succeeded in playing Hamlet without appearing ridiculous.... Hamlet, the one inactive character, is not well integrated into the play and not adequately motivated, though the active characters are excellent" (pages 159, 162).

If you've seen the Kenneth Branagh version of Hamlet, or are well read in Hamlet, you understand how inexplicable that first remark is. Next, Hamlet refuses to "cast to earth" his mourning clothes in defiance of accepted norms and the King's command; he pursues and speaks with his father's ghost against his friends' pleading, then resolves to avenge his murdered father; he conceives of the mousetrap play "to catch the conscience of the king"; he savagely berates his mother (Act III sc 4) after slaying Polonius; he foils the deadly scheme of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern then engineers their deaths; he out-fences Laertes then successfuly avenges his father by slaying the "adulterate and incestuous" King Claudius. Hamlet does all these things - but we're to understand he is "the one INactive" character?

2. "The soliloquies of Hamlet as well as other plays of this period are *detachable* both from the character and the plays.... Hamlet's disgust and revulsion towards his mother, for example, seem out of all proportion to her actual behavior" (page 162).

Again, could Auden really have said this? Let's examine the play: The ghost of Hamlet's father implies that Hamlet's mother had an extramarital affair with the fratricidal Claudius. If true, the unforeseen consequences of that adultery implicate her both in the murder of Hamlet's father and the consequent moral poisoning of all Denmark. Further, her marriage to her brother-in-law in the medieval-Renaissance context of the play is a public scandal and "incestuous". Moreover, her decision to marry while still in mourning led to Hamlet's not becoming King. Do such unfortunate events justify Hamlet's anger with his mother - "in all proportion"? (For brevity, there's no need also refuting the similarly questionable remarks about the four soliloquies of Hamlet.)

3. "Ophelia is a silly, repressed girl and is obscene and embarrassing when she loses her mind over her father's death.But though her madness is very shocking and horrible, it is not well motivated" (page 163).

Had Auden forgotten what this play was about since reading it as an Oxford undergraduate - or was he misquoted? (Would Auden have considered anyone profoundly moved by his own Funeral Blues as similarly "obscene", "repressed", and "silly"? My guess is not.) As written, the play indicates Ophelia is desperately in love with Hamlet - the sort of transporting passion for which women have been known to give up empires and even their lives. Her father and brother both repeatedly impress upon Ophelia that this man she desperately loves is just flirting her to bed her, and that she certainly isn't good enough for him; she discovers Hamlet has apparently gone mad, presumably because of love for her - love thwarted by her father's cynicism; she is compelled - again by her father - to allow her intimate love letter from Hamlet to be read before the King and Queen; she is impressed - again by her father - into an attempt to entrap Hamlet, thus provoking his wounded rage; finally, Ophelia learns Hamlet has murdered her father. Isn't it logical this "silly, repressed girl" is under the horrible impression that her beloved Hamlet has murdered her father out of unrequited love - the love her father repeatedly frustrated - leading to Hamlet's madness, and that somehow she is therefore to blame? Isn't it clear Ophelia can now never marry Hamlet, her father's murderer? And isn't her "following" Hamlet in madness an awful testimony of the power of cynicism and lies to destroy a woman's heart? No, none of this is clear, apparently.

The specious reasoning attributed to Auden is not confined to assessments of Hamlet. The Taming of the Shrew Auden [?] calls "the only play of Shakespeare's that is a complete failure" (page 63). Auden's remarks [?] on Othello are plain odd, eg, "It's easy for us to see that Othello and Desdemona should not have married, but he [Othello] never does" (page 205). While WH Auden has been described as a sardonic Oxonian, it strains belief this book of redacted student lecture notes is a faithful representation of Auden's literary insight. At best, the views in this work are indefensible on purely literary grounds; at worst, what we may have here is a work of posthumous literary libel.

Not recommended for the reasons noted.

Auden's lectures are enjoyable conversations on the plays
Reading each of Auden's lectures will not make you an expert on any aspect of the plays or poems - he doesn't aim to be comprehensive. Instead, Auden engages you in one or two key aspects from each play. Subsequently, the book could have been called "Conversations about Shakespeare."

Occasionally, as in "Julius Caesar" or "King Lear," Auden is direct and focused. Here you will get a good, general view of these plays. But more often he dives into a theme, leaving the specifics of the play far behind. Reading some lectures I would ask myself, "Is he going to talk about the play or is he going to stick with this?" In the lecture about "As You Like It," he goes on for the first seven pages about the pastoral play. You would think this would be annoying, but Auden's easy manner keeps you hooked. Then in the end you will have learned something new, something special to Auden's perspective.

Some of the themes can be pretty high brow, but usually the are educational and entertaining. And this off-the-beaten-path approach is what makes the lectures unique.

If you're looking for the exact historical context of a play or a lengthy essay about some character, read the introduction from a paperback copy of a play. Auden's lectures will teach you a little extra you won't find anywhere else.

An astonishing piece of literary detective work
Imagine trying to assemble lectures made close to 50 years ago from assorted notes and other papers. This is what Kirsch has managed to achieve in an excellent book that is superbly edited and written. W.H. Auden appears as a sensible and balanced critic of Shakespeare and his observations are always telling. I really like his chapter on Macbeth even though Auden claims that he has nothing to offer. I am just so pleased that Kirsch took the time to research and compile this book. An intense labour of love that will repay countless readings. ... Read more

Product Description
In this volume, W. H. Auden assembled, edited, and arranged the best of his prose writing, including the famous lectures he delivered as Oxford Professor of Poetry.The result is less a formal collection of essays than an extended and linked series of observations--on poetry, art, and the observation of life in general.The Dyer's Hand is a surprisingly personal, intimate view of the author's mind, whose central focus is poetry--Shakespearean poetry in particular--but whose province is the author's whole experience of the twentieth century. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Razor-Sharp Distinctions.
This collection of essays dealing with every type of literature -- poetry, plays, operas, comedies, tragedies -- and (almost) every essay is superb. In practically every essay Auden says things that make you slap your thigh and say, "dammit, so THAT'S why I feel like that about this play [or poem, or critic, or character in a play, etc.]". The main reason is that Auden has a superb understanding of the all-important, yet subtle, differences between different concepts, characters, types of literature, and so on.

To give some examples, in one essay Auden defines perfectly the difference between PRETENDING to be in love, WISHING to be in love, THINKING one is in love, and actually being in love. In another, the difference between a comedy which makes us accept our imperfection, and a satire that makes us wish to change them. In yet another, the difference between two Shakespearian outsiders -- the Jewish Shylock and the Moore, Othello, and how their different type of "outsiderness" (Shylock, the lender, is despised but also despises the Italians, while Othello thinks his military prowess made him acceptable, which is not so); the difference between the "I" and the "self"; between a "bore" and "a boring" person -- and show why they matter.

In addition to making fine distinction, Auden is also extremely perceptive in other ways. E.g., Auden hits right on the head the problem with most literary theory written by poets: namely, that it amounts to "read me, don't read the other fellow". He notes there are numerous ways to write good poetry, and his own expertise is by no means the only way. But all this, he explains, doesn't refute the claim that poetry is a craft, and a difficult one, with words, a craft that must be learned before one can be a poet, giving in detail the curriculum of his imaginary "school for poets". He says of D. H. Laurence that he is an extremely interesting poet -- not because he disagreed with Auden's views of poetry and still wrote good poetry (Auden notes that it's easy to then say, "he forgot his theories and wrote MY way that time"), but because he wrote poetry that is best precisely *when* it violates Auden's own recommendations. This is not only perceptive, but a brave, thing to write about a fellow poet.

In almost every essay you will find deeply perceptive and fine-honed observations. One need not agree with all of them, or be interested in the subject of all of them (e.g., it is doubtful many readers would be interested in Auden's advice about how to translate Opera libretti, as good as it is in showing Auden's obvious deep love of music and understanding of same). But Auden's brilliance shines through in all of them, putting (again, almost) all other literary criticism to shame. He shows us here a little of what made him a great poet.

Christianity, Poetry, and Art
A wonderful but uneven collection of Auden's prosaic yet poetic musings on art, philosophy, and religion. The first couple sections are the best - a collection of Auden's snarky aphorisms about poetry, art, and reading ("Readers are like the young boys who scribble mustaches on the faces of girls in magazine advertisements"). The essay "The Virgin and the Dynamo" is an understated but forceful attack on philosophical materialism and determinsim, while "The Poet and the City" examines the relation of the individual versus the faceless mob. The "Postscript on Christianity and Art" is also quite good. The rest are more specific essays on various poets and playwrights - read them for your lit crit class but not on your own.

Both instructive and enjoyable.
From the first to last page of "The Dyer's Hand", the characteristic that stands out most to me is W. H. Auden's mastery of language in expressing his ideas.

With clarity and precision, he advances penetrating psychological interpretations of some of the most famous works of world literature. Goethe's Faust, Don Quixote, Othello, King Lear, The Tempest, The Merchant of Venice, Henry IV, and Henry V are some of the more notable works about which Auden had many interesting things to say.

His analysis of these works is interwoven, so that the insights he has revealed in discussing Don Quixote and his squire, Sancho Panza may also be applied to King Lear and his Fool, as well as to Faust and Mephistopheles. One of his most interesting theses, to me, was his development of the idea that these pairs could be viewed as complementary elements, ego and self, which together make up a total personality. For example, Don Quixote represented ego while Sancho Panza represented self. But Auden does not merely assign labels to these mythic characters; he shows how his concepts can help explain the ways in which the stories progress, and their outcomes. For instance, as Lear becomes totally mad, the Fool disappears from the drama, as ego completely eclipses self.

Besides the considerable number of pages devoted to those major works of literature there is a study of the Sherlock Holmes-type detective story; why the detective story must follow a certain formula to be effective for its devotees; why the character of the detective must be such as it is; how the reader derives his "escape" from this escapist literature.

Dickens' Mr. Pickwick and Shakespeare's Iago and Falstaff receive a good deal of analysis; Iago as an extreme case of the sinister undercurrent in practical jokers; Falstaff and Mr. Pickwick as types of mythic innocents.

There are critiques and opinions given on several authors and poets, among which are: Lord Byron, Robert Frost, Marianne Moore, D.H. Lawrence, Nathanael West, and Franz Kafka. These are by no means cursory studies, but proceed from well-constructed backgrounds to develop meaningful and substantial statements about the work of these writers. I found the chapter on Kafka to be especially interesting, as Auden made use of the knowledge of a work by an earlier author, about a castle and its inhabitants, which he suggests gives us clues as to Kafka's real feelings about the situation of K.

There are elements of philosophy, classical culture and history, psychology, and morality woven into these discussions. All save a very small portion, which dealt with writing opera libretti, I found very stimulating. W. H. Auden was a writer of immense learning, which he put to excellent use in formulating clear and plausible opinions on a wide variety of subjects. I think he occasionally exhibited a slight haughtiness due to his awareness of himself at the top of the intellectual totem pole, so to speak. But this book is well worth having on hand for anyone who takes the study of literature seriously and values the input of one who can provide such pertinent insight.

This is a book you can take down from the shelf and open to almost any chapter at random to find something well worth your time. After reading a library copy, I have ordered a copy to have on hand, so that when I read or re-read any of the authors or titles Auden mentioned, I can refer back to his perspectives on them. The sheer immensity of the book and the limited capacity of my memory ensure that I will want to reread parts of it, anyway, to better absorb and retain its ideas.

I don't mean to imply that I believe Auden's views on the topics discussed are the only "correct" ones, but his expertly developed opinions, backed up by an evidently deep familiarity with Western culture and literature as well as his own success as a poet, are eminently worthy of respect and consideration.

excellent, thoughtful work of general criticism
This book of essays is a wonderful and surprising work, by the clear-minded and perceptive poet W.H. Auden.It is not a formal methodical work, like one would expect from a critic, but rather a poetic creation that provokes thought rather than defining thoughts.Auden's way of relating all sorts of things to each other, from opera to art to Shakespeare to everyday life, makes for a very mind-refreshing read.For anyone who has an interest in literature, art, or philosophy, this is a great choice.

An enjoyable read
Casual in a sense, not twist your brain all up in the ugly way that a lot of "theorists" seem to like to. It's straight talk about poetry. Great length too. ... Read more

Product Description
Offering original perspectives from new amd established Auden critics and others, this volume brings together specially commissioned essays by some of the world's leading experts on the life and work of W.H. Auden, one of the major English-speaking poets of the twentieth century. The volume's contributors include prize-winning poets, Auden's literary executor and editor, and his most recent, widely acclaimed biographer. The Companion also examines his language, style and formal innovation, his prose and critical writing and his ideas about sexuality, religion, psychoanalysis, politics, landscape, ecology, and globalization. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A Really Wonderful Overview and Certainly Worth the Money
Some great, great essays (19) here on every aspect of Auden's life and career & writing though as usual quite a few of the essayists lapse into anecdotal style (v. frustrating for those of us interested purely in language). You won't find much post-modern musings in here but you will find a host of sensible commentaries as befits Cambridge UP.

Certainly worth the money. I found the essay on theory a bit thin particularly as John Boly's own book on Auden's poetry is a rave. Rainer Emig features and he too has a book, Toward a Postmodern Poetics, which is very interesting, provocative and moves away from some of the orthodox views of Auden. -Sorry, but so many books purporting to be about Auden's poetry lapse into sly portraits of his life fine if you like that kind of thing (see John G. Blair on "the major failing" of Auden criticism.).

Anyway, these essays are value for money, quite detailed, pointing in all kinds of directions. You will not find a better series of introductory essays though ed. George Bahlke's essays (1991), featuring some of the (then) leading lights of Auden Studies, might be a good companion purchase, if it is still in print. ... Read more

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W. H. Auden disapproved of literary biography. Or did he? The truth is far more equivocal than at first seems apparent. There is no denying he delivered himself of such unambiguous pronouncements as 'Biographies of writers are always superfluous and usually in bad taste'; and that he asked for his friends to burn his letters at his death, but, against that, Auden himself often reviewed literary biographies and normally with enthusiasm. Moreover he argued for biographies of writers such as Dryden, Trollope, Wagner and Gerard Manley Hopkins as their lives would tell us something about their art. Humphrey Carpenter himself nicely summarizes Auden's ambiguity on this question. 'Here (referring to literary biography), as so often in his life, Auden adopted a dogmatic attitude which did not reflect the full range of his opinions, and which he sometimes flatly contradicted.' Although the biography was not authorized it did receive the co-operation of the Auden Estate which gave permission for letters and unpublished works to be quoted. The result is a biography that was widely praised on first publication in 1981 and which continues to hold its own.Now is the obvious time to reissue it with the character of Humphrey Carpenter playing an important role in Alan Bennett's "The Habit of Art". In his introduction Alan Bennett writes 'When I started writing the play I made much use of the biographies of both Auden and Britten written by Humphrey Carpenter and both are models of their kind. Indeed I was consulting his books so much that eventually Carpenter found his way into the play.' 'Carpenter is a model biographer - diligent, unspeculative, sympathetic, and extremely good at finding out what happened when and with whom ...admirably detailed and researched study' - John Bayley, "The Listener". 'An illuminating book; full of information, unobtrusively affectionate, it describes with unpretentious elegance the curve of a great poet's life and work' - Frank Kermode, "Guardian". 'Sharpens and usually lights up even the most canvassed parts of the Auden life and myth ...a deeply interesting book about a deeply interesting life' - Roy Fuller, "Sunday Times" ' ...the story of a remarkable man told by one of the best living biographers' - David Cecil, "Book Choice". ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

"We must all love each other or die"
I think that some of the reviews of Humphrey Carpenter's book on Auden have undervalued its contribution to a genuine understanding of both Auden the man and his work.

To begin with, no life of Auden could avoid the taint of being "gossipy." Auden led a completely messy life complete with all manner of free and easy sexual encounters.Auden not only led this kind of life, but documented it for the amusement of similarly inclined friends. No one who examines the primary source documents, letters, diaries and even poetry can do anything more than to write a gossipy life.When not only menages a trois, but menages a quatre are the norm, it is impossible to write any other kind of biography unless the naughty bits were rendered in Latin as they were formerly in Suetonius..

What I liked about the book is that Carpenter breaks Auden's inner life into three distinct phases. At Oxford he was under the spell of D.H. Lawrence and even Freud. During the hungry thirties, like most European intellectuals, it was Marx and Communism. It appears that time in Spain contributed to Auden's disillusionment with "the God that failed."His third intellectual period was more orthodox embracing the Anglicanism of his youth and Kirkegaard coincided with his the beginning of his years in New York City.

For me, Carpenter's book filled in a number of blanks for me, mainly concerning Auden's emigration.Knowing more of the work than the man, I was under the impression that Auden decided to take up residence in America at the beginning of World War II rather than nearly a year before.His return to Oxford and Britain coincided with failing health and desire to return to his native land (though still an American citizen).

Another aspect of the work that I noticed was a shift in Auden's work in his later years. Critics have, I think unfairly, blamed the decline in quality of the poems on residence in America.What I think Carpenter demonstrates is that while Auden's poetry lost some of its edge, Auden was becoming more settled, more domestic in his later years and perhaps for this reason the themes involved more commonplace topics. Perhaps in reaction to these critiques, Auden tended to disown some of his more important poems, including the famous "September 1 1939", with its indictment of the thirties as "a low dishonest decade" (a poem that had particular resonance for me after the financial crash of 2008).

The picture that Carpenter paints of Auden is a person who probably would be better read than lived with.He was in a constant state of dishevelment and his living quarters were always characterized by visitors for the profound state of untidiness. Still Auden did write some of the best verse of the 20th century and even branched out less successfully into the fields of opera (Stravinsky's "Rake's Progress) and even the theatre (the work here seems to be dreadful, proving no one can be good at everything).As a teacher, his methods appear to be original and oriented more toward making students think about what they were reading (a sample exam on Elizabethan literature, "explain why the devil is both sad and honest.").

I think that Carpenter does an admirable job in this life of Auden.I think that other than a thorough read of Auden's collected works (and there is yet to be published a single good collection), this is probably as good a work on Auden as one is likely to find.
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W. H. Auden's transformative anthology, assembled when his own work was at its most provocative and searching, is a rethinking of the history of English-language poetry. Taking full account of popular traditions, Auden includes ballads, chanteys, ditties, nursery rhymes, street calls, bathroom graffiti, tombstone epitaphs, folk songs, vaudeville turns, and blues, not to mention limericks and clerihews. In lieu of the cloudy effusions and sentimental intimations of the post-Romantic lyric, Auden looked for a poetry that was clear, enjoyable, and absolutely modern. These are poems of wit, sarcasm, color, and plain brilliance, from Chaucer to Byron and beyond. This new edition restores previously censored poems. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A Mixed Bag
I finished reading W.H. Auden's Book of Light Verse and I found it to be a mixed bag.First some definitions:this book was originally published as part of the Oxford University Press' collection of books of poetry.Commissioned in the 1930s, it is not, simply stated, a book of comedic verse, although many of the pieces are quite humorous.

It is rather a collection of poetry of popular verse, beginning with poems in Middle English ("Sitteth alle stile and herkneth to me ! / the kyng of Alemaignr, bi mi leaute,") and carrying through to Auden's contemporaries ("Spirits of well-shot woodcock, partridge, snipe / Flutter and bear him up the Norfolk sky:").Representing many forms, from nursery rhymes (the original "Jack and Gill went up the Hill" is in here -- Gil, who knew it was Gil) to elegies to limericks to odes, and many voices (some American, Irish and Scottish, though mostly British) it is a thorough collection.

And therein lies my problem with it.As a collection, I found myself thumbing through, looking at particular pieces and savoring them, and skipping others completely.It is collection which, to me, is often excellent, and occasionally horrible.

One of my favorite pieces (which I have marked since I am sure to read and re-read it) is "The Careless Gallant" by Thomas Jordon.It begins "Let us drink and be merry, dance, joke, and rejoice, / With claret and sherry, thorbo and voice ... In frolics dispose your pounds, shillings, and pence / For we shall be nothing a hundred years hence."

Another seemed particularly relevant to our current time.John Gay's "Ode for the New Year" makes fun of King George, and I drew some inspiration from it, and wrote my own re-interpretation of this poem, titled "Ode for a Second Inauguration."Much of the piece is based on the original John Gay piece -- grab the original to compare and see for yourself.

So, in short, a worthwhile piece to add to a poetry collection, but not one to start your library.


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W. H. Auden called opera the "last refuge of the High Style," and considered it the one art in which the grand manner survived the ironic levelings of modernity. He began writing libretti soon after he arrived in America in 1939 and abandoned his earlier attempts to write public, political drama. Opera gave him the opportunity to rise to the high style in public, not in an attempt to elevate his own status as a poet, but in service of the heroic voice of the singers. These works present their mythical actions with a direct intensity unlike anything in even his greatest poems. In this volume of Auden and Chester Kallman's libretti, extensive historical and textual notes trace the history of the production and revision of the works and provide full texts of early scenarios, as well as abandoned and rewritten scenes.

Almost all the works included here were previously published in incomplete and often inaccessible editions--or were never published at all. The book prints for the first time the full text of Paul Bunyan, Auden's first libretto, which he wrote for music by Benjamin Britten. It also includes Auden and Kallman's The Rake's Progress, written for Igor Stravinsky, and Delia, written for Stravinsky but never set to music. The book continues with Auden and Kallman's two libretti written for music by Hans Werner Henze, Elegy for Young Lovers and The Bassarids, and their adaptation of Love's Labour's Lost, composed by Nicolas Nabokov. It also contains their translation of The Magic Flute, with its scenes reordered for greater dramatic coherence and added dialogue for sharper mythical significance, and their antimasque, The Entertainment of the Senses, for music by John Gardner.

The book contains two radio plays--The Dark Valley, a monologue written by Auden alone, and The Rocking Horse Winner, written with James Stern and based on a story by D. H. Lawrence. Also included are the unpublished masque that Auden wrote for Kallman's twenty-second birthday, the unpublished versions of The Dutchess of Malfi that Auden prepared with Bertolt Brecht, scenarios for a film script and a libretto that were never completed, Auden's narrative for the medieval Play of Daniel, two narratives for documentary films, and his song lyrics written for Man of La Mancha before the producer decided to use a different lyricist. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Enjoyable
A very unusual and enjoyable travel book by the British poets WH Auden and Louis MacNeice.In the mid-30s, Auden and MacNeice undertook a tour of Iceland.Auden and MacNeice were then apparently supporting themselves partly by journalism and writing, and apparently had a contract for a travel book.Auden had an interest in Scandinavian mythology and the saga literature dating back to his childhood.The result is a unusual and rather entertaining book.To a large extent, this book is a pastiche.Much of the book is ostensible letters to friends in Britain describing the trip.Many of the letters are in the form of verse and several of Auden's letters are addressed to Lord Byron using a verse form of which Byron was fond.The poetry is a combination of description of the trip, witty commentary on current events, and some more serious reflections.The technical quality of the poetry is often impressive.Other parts of the book are equally unusual.In a set of prose letters written by MacNeice, he adopts the character of a single woman traveling with a group of English schoolgirls.Another section is a set of selections from prior travel books on Iceland.The real focus of the book is not Iceland but the authors' preoccupations.Much of the poetry is very enjoyable and some of it is excellent.

Despite the virtues of this book, it is somewhat dated.A fair amount of the book will be hard to understand without a fairly detailed knowledge of interwar Britain.To make it more readily comprehensible to most readers would require a fair amount of annotation, something no publisher would be willing to pay for at this time.This book is probably of most interest to individuals (like me) very fond of and curious about Auden and his milieu. ... Read more

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