W. H. Auden in Context

The authoritative essays in this collection provide helpful contextual models for engaging with W. H. Auden's poetry.

Tony Sharpe (Edited by)

9780521196574, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 21 January 2013

424 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.7 cm, 0.79 kg

'A valuable addition to Auden studies, this book opens many windows to this quintessential 20th-century author … required reading for scholars and Auden aficionados. Highly recommended. All readers.' B. Wallenstein, Choice

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.

Acknowledgements
List of contributors
A note on editions and abbreviations
Introduction Tony Sharpe
Part I. Contexts of Place: 1. Auden's northerliness Tony Sharpe
2. Two cities: Berlin and New York Patrick Deer
3. Ideas about England Stan Smith
4. Ideas of America Aidan Wasley
5. At home in Italy and Austria Justin Quinn
Part II. Social and Cultural Contexts: 6. Auden and the class system Adrian Caesar
7. The Church of England: Auden's Anglicanism Tony Sharpe
8. British homosexuality, 1920–39 Gregory Woods
9. American homosexuality, 1939–72 Richard Bozorth
10. Auden among women Janet Montefiore
11. Auden and the American literary world Aidan Wasley
12. Atlantic Auden Michael Wood
Part III. Political, Historical and Theoretical Contexts: 13. Communism and fascism in 1920s and 1930s Britain Matthew Worley
14. Auden and wars Patrick Deer
15. Auden and Freud: the psychoanalytic text John Boly
16. Auden's theology Alan Jacobs
17. In history Susannah Young-ah Gottlieb
Part IV. Creative Contexts (i): 18. The body Edward Mendelson
19. The cinema Keith Williams
20. 1930s British drama Steve Nicholson
21. The documentary moment David Collard
22. Travel writing Tim Youngs
23. Auden and post-war opera Michael Symmons Roberts
(ii) Precursors and Contemporaries: 24. Earlier English influences Chris Jones
25. Shakespeare Stephen Regan
26. Yeats Michael O'Neill
27. Eliot Hugh Haughton
28. Some modernists in early Auden Gareth Reeves
29. In German Rainer Emig
30. Auden and Isherwood James J. Berg and Chris Freeman
Part V. The 'Most Professional' Poet: 31. Auden in prose Sean O'Brien
32. Auden and little magazines Andrew Thacker
33. Double take: Auden in collaboration Richard Badenhausen
34. Auden and prosody Sean O'Brien
35. Auden's forms Seamus Perry
Further reading
Index.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: poetry & poets [DSC], Literary studies: from c 1900 - [DSBH]