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Product Description
W. H. Auden was born in York in 1907. His first full-length collection, Poems, was published by T. S. Eliot at Faber and Faber in 1930. The many volumes he published thereafter included poetry, plays, essays and libretti, and his ceaseless experimentation, consummate craftsmanship and originality established him as one of the most influential poets of the twentieth century. He died in 1973.
About the Author
W. H. Auden was born in York in 1907, and brought up in Birmingham. He went to Christ Church College, Oxford, where Stephen Spender privately printed a booklet of his poems. After university he lived for a time in Berlin, before returning to England to teach. His first book, Poems, was published by T. S. Eliot at Faber in 1930. Other volumes of poems and plays followed during the 1930s. He went to Spain during the civil war, to Iceland (with Louis MacNeice) and later travelled to China. In 1939 he and Christopher Isherwood left for America, where Auden spent the next fifteen years lecturing, reviewing, writing poetry and opera librettos, and editing anthologies. He became an American citizen in 1946, and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1948. In 1956 he was elected Professor of Poetry at Oxford, and a year later went to live in Kirchstetten in Austria, after spending several summers on Ischia. He died in Vienna in 1973.
John Fuller was educated at New College, Oxford, and was formerly a Fellow and Tutor in English at Magdalen College. An award-winning novelist, he has also published sixteen poetry collections, the most recent of which is The Space of Joy (2006). His Collected Poems appeared in 1996. John Fuller lives in Oxford and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
James Fenton was born in Lincoln in 1949 and educated at Magdalen College, Oxford where he won the Newdigate Prize for poetry. He has worked as political journalist, drama critic, book reviewer, war correspondent, foreign correspondent and columnist. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and was Oxford Professor of Poetry for the period 1994-99. In 2007, James Fenton was awarded the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry.
John Fuller was educated at New College, Oxford, and was formerly a Fellow and Tutor in English at Magdalen College. An award-winning novelist, he has also published sixteen poetry collections, the most recent of which is The Space of Joy (2006). His Collected Poems appeared in 1996. John Fuller lives in Oxford and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
James Fenton was born in Lincoln in 1949 and educated at Magdalen College, Oxford where he won the Newdigate Prize for poetry. He has worked as political journalist, drama critic, book reviewer, war correspondent, foreign correspondent and columnist. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and was Oxford Professor of Poetry for the period 1994-99. In 2007, James Fenton was awarded the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
30 of 33 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
For half a century I have skirted round Auden, apart from some short and well-known lyrics; I feared the longer ones were a bit dry and demanding. Then I agreed to teach him to adults. I bought a 300pp ''Selected'', and then a ''Collected'' up to the mid-50's but kept falling between stools as we all uncovered poems we liked individually but which were never to be found across all collections.
This 900pp. US edition is a huge boon tho' it takes 2 weeks to arrive.It reveals the whole arc of his writing life, his precocious early intelligence, his polymathic interests, how adventurous his emotional and sexual experiences were.... What emerges is a profoundly benign approach to human life, an experience that can be improved but never perfected, and that improvement is effected by facing and integrating our demons and uncertainties.. His poetic obituary to Yeats in 1939 ends:
'' In the deserts of the heart
Let the healing fountain start,
In the prison of his days
Teach the free man how to praise.''
Towards the end of his life he wrote 'Thanksgiving for a habitat', celebrating his house in Austria. Twelve poems each evoking a room and a particular friend who'd stayed there with them. It's a humane, erudite sequence that leaves one with a delighted smile on one's face.
Even here it is not a complete Auden. There are some pieces the editor has not 'selected in' and some are not in because Auden disowned them. This includes the magnificent reflections on the coming war - 'September 1st, 1939'. A final observation - Auden was a fine reader of his own work, not over-emphatic as an actor might be, nor dead-pan as some poets seem to be as if to be animated might reactivate the stresses from which the poems originally emerged. It's worth hunting down some CDs. I found two - "The Spoken Word" - WHA - British Library/BBC.
John Rivers
This 900pp. US edition is a huge boon tho' it takes 2 weeks to arrive.It reveals the whole arc of his writing life, his precocious early intelligence, his polymathic interests, how adventurous his emotional and sexual experiences were.... What emerges is a profoundly benign approach to human life, an experience that can be improved but never perfected, and that improvement is effected by facing and integrating our demons and uncertainties.. His poetic obituary to Yeats in 1939 ends:
'' In the deserts of the heart
Let the healing fountain start,
In the prison of his days
Teach the free man how to praise.''
Towards the end of his life he wrote 'Thanksgiving for a habitat', celebrating his house in Austria. Twelve poems each evoking a room and a particular friend who'd stayed there with them. It's a humane, erudite sequence that leaves one with a delighted smile on one's face.
Even here it is not a complete Auden. There are some pieces the editor has not 'selected in' and some are not in because Auden disowned them. This includes the magnificent reflections on the coming war - 'September 1st, 1939'. A final observation - Auden was a fine reader of his own work, not over-emphatic as an actor might be, nor dead-pan as some poets seem to be as if to be animated might reactivate the stresses from which the poems originally emerged. It's worth hunting down some CDs. I found two - "The Spoken Word" - WHA - British Library/BBC.
John Rivers
18 of 29 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Auden's poetry is one that you can understand. Down-to-earth,it
easily find it's way into my heart.
Most of us already knew "Funeral Blues", but there are atoher gems also.
easily find it's way into my heart.
Most of us already knew "Funeral Blues", but there are atoher gems also.
Enjoy!
1 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I would love to put the book in my bag and carry it with me everyday.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
cheap
everything alright, it was a bit painted inside, which I think they didn't say in the description, but it's a 900p book for only 2 cents.
Published 6 months ago by kak
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I did not recieve this book but a note that it had been returned and I was refunded. I did not return the book and I am now waiting for a replacement. Does it take long?
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Published 22 months ago by Urban
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