The Hidden Law: The Poetry of W.H. AudenIn this study - the fruit of a lifelong critical and imaginative engagement with W H. Auden's works - Anthony Hecht identifies and traces consistent habits of thought and belief within the poet's extensive and varied writings and through his celebrated conversions and repudiations, literary and otherwise. Hecht acknowledges that Auden's poems "both invite the intrusive scrutiny of the cryptographer and deny him access". Yet the readings he offers of poems from every phase of Auden's career, along with dramatic works and critical essays, manage to explicate and illuminate Auden's rich (and often cryptic) allusiveness without murdering to dissect. Among the themes that connect Auden's works are his deep interest in the workings of language; his notion of the ultimate frivolity of art; his interest in the nature of heroism; his understanding of the relation of public to private life; the development of his religious thought; and what Auden called the "hidden law" that governs human existence - a strict and retaliatory force, something like poetic justice, that gives form to our best literature and shapes our personal fates. Hecht identifies these preoccupations in Auden's work - and shows how they cut across the many genres in which he wrote - without losing sight of each poem's individual history and context. As one of Auden's most distinguished poetic heirs, Anthony Hecht is uniquely qualified to illuminate both the reading and the writing of these essential works of twentieth-century literature. |
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Page 101
... passing through the Marlovian and pagan defiance of his great novel seems , from Auden's point of view , to make Melville's own quest ... pass his test and 999 prove oneself civilized . As for the talismanic properties of Another Time 101.
... passing through the Marlovian and pagan defiance of his great novel seems , from Auden's point of view , to make Melville's own quest ... pass his test and 999 prove oneself civilized . As for the talismanic properties of Another Time 101.
Page 104
... pass Like vibrations of a bell , And fashionable madmen raise Their pedantic boring cry : Every farthing of the cost , All the dreaded cards foretell , Shall be paid , but from this night Not a whisper , not a thought , Not a kiss nor ...
... pass Like vibrations of a bell , And fashionable madmen raise Their pedantic boring cry : Every farthing of the cost , All the dreaded cards foretell , Shall be paid , but from this night Not a whisper , not a thought , Not a kiss nor ...
Page 204
... pass degree : But little children bless your kind that knocks Away the edifying stumbling blocks . There is , again , a slightly insolent religious note in the allusion to the First Epistle of Peter ( 5 : 4 ) : " A Crown of glory that ...
... pass degree : But little children bless your kind that knocks Away the edifying stumbling blocks . There is , again , a slightly insolent religious note in the allusion to the First Epistle of Peter ( 5 : 4 ) : " A Crown of glory that ...
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Common terms and phrases
acknowledged addressed admired Alan Ansen appears Auden's poem begins Byron called celebrated Chester Kallman Christian claim composed course death described doctrine dream early Edward Mendelson essay expressed eyes fact father feel final stanza Freud heart hero Hidden Law homosexual human identified innocent John the Red kind landscape language least Letter lines living Lord Byron lyric means mind Moby-Dick moral mother never night passage perhaps play poem's poet poetry political prayer present reader recall religious remind represent rhyme romantic second stanza secular seems sense serious sexual social society song sonnet sort soul speaks spirit stanza suggests symbolic T. E. Lawrence T. S. Eliot things thought tion trimeter turn verse vision voice W. B. Yeats W. H. Auden words writing wrote Yeats Yeats's