Volume 47, Number 6 · April 13, 2000
Auden's Enchantment
By James Fenton
BOOKS MENTIONED IN THIS ARTICLE
Later Auden
by Edward Mendelson
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 592 pp., $16.00 (paper, to be published in May) (paper)
The Dyer's Hand
by W.H. Auden
Vintage, 527 pp., $18.00 (paper)
The English Auden: Poems, Essays, and Dramatic Writings, 1927-1939
by W.H. Auden, edited by Edward Mendelson
Faber and Faber, 496 pp., $33.95 (paper)
W.H. Auden: A Commentary
by John Fuller
Princeton University Press, 640 pp., $35.00
Prose and Travel Books in Prose and Verse, 1926-1938
by W.H. Auden, edited by Edward Mendelson
Princeton University Press, 836 pp., $85.00
The Table Talk of W.H. Auden
by Alan Ansen, edited by Nicholas Jenkins
Ontario Review Press, 119 pp., $15.95
Auden, when an undergraduate at Oxford, took a look at the literary scene in general and decided that it offered an empty stage. 'Evidently they are waiting for Someone,' he said with, Stephen Spender tells us, 'the air of anticipating that he would soon take the center of it.' Auden's fantasy, however, was to be at the center, not to be the sole figure. Christopher Isherwood was to be the novelist. Robert Medley was to be the painter. Cecil Day-Lewis was in there in some poetic capacity, as were Louis MacNeice and Spender. Spender told Auden he wondered whether he, Spender, ought to write prose. But Auden put his foot down. 'You must write nothing but poetry, we do not want to lose you for poetry.' 'But do you really think I'm any good?' gulped Spender. 'Of course,' Auden frigidly replied. 'But why?' 'Because you are so infinitely capable of being humiliated. Art is born of humiliation.'
Review, 6204 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |