W. H. Auden in ContextTony Sharpe W. H. Auden is a giant of twentieth-century English poetry whose writings demonstrate a sustained engagement with the times in which he lived. But how did the century's shifting cultural terrain affect him and his work? Written by distinguished poets and scholars, these brief but authoritative essays offer a varied set of coordinates by which to chart Auden's continuously evolving career, examining key aspects of his environmental, cultural, political and creative contexts. Reaching beyond mere biography, these essays present Auden as the product of ongoing negotiations between himself, his time and posterity, exploring the enduring power of his poetry to unsettle and provoke. The collection will prove valuable for scholars, researchers and students of English literature, cultural studies and creative writing. |
Contents
Audens Northerliness | 13 |
Ideas about England | 35 |
At Home in Italy and Austria 19481973 | 56 |
Auden and the Class System | 69 |
British IIomosexuality 19201939 | 89 |
American Homosexuality 19391972 | 99 |
Io Auden among Women | 107 |
Auden and the American Literary World | 118 |
I7 Auden in History | 181 |
PART 1v 1 CREATIVE CONTEXTS | 195 |
The Cinema | 205 |
The Documentary Moment | 228 |
Travel Writing | 237 |
Auden and Postwar Opera | 246 |
Auden and Shakespeare | 266 |
Eliot | 286 |
Atlantic Auden | 128 |
Communism and Fascism in 19205 and 19305 Britain | 141 |
I4 Auden and Wars | 150 |
The Psychoanalytic Text | 160 |
I6 Audens Theology | 170 |
Auden in German | 306 |
Auden in Prose | 329 |
Auden in Collaboration | 347 |
35 Audens Forms | 369 |
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aesthetic American Auden wrote Auden’s early Auden’s poem Auden’s poetry audience Berlin body Brecht Britain British CCWHA Chester Kallman Christian Christopher Isherwood Clio collaboration conflict context critical culture D. H. Lawrence defined definition difliculty documentary Early Auden Edward Mendelson elegy Eliot England English essay Faber and Faber fascism FéA figure film final finally find first Freud Fuller Goethe homosexual human Iceland identified imagined influence intellectual Ischia Kallman Kirchstetten landscape later Letter literary Louis MacNeice magazine man’s modern modernist one’s opera Orators play poem’s poet poet’s poetic political Praise Prose quoted RD-H readers reflected sense sexual Shakespeare significant social sonnet specific Spender Stan Smith stanza T. S. Eliot Theatre tion University Press verse voice W H Auden W. B. Yeats W. H. Auden words writing written Yeats Yeats’s York