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The publication of this slender volume was inspired by the runawaysuccess of Four Weddings and a Funeral, in which Auden's "Funeral Blues" practically stole the show. Yet every poem in the collection delivers some grandiose or mundane truth about love. There is, for example, the playful "Calypso," in which the recently transplanted Briton anticipates a rendezvous at New York's Grand Central Station: "For there in the middle of that waiting-hall, / Should be standing the one that I love best of all." Several of the pieces here share that jolly air and belting rhythm--in fact, Auden wrote a few of them as cabaret songs. Yet in a poem like "Funeral Blues," the poet's Cole Porter-like flippancy can't mask the underlying sense of grief. "Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves," he suggests, and declares the very emblems of romance redundant: "The stars are not wanted now; put out every one." Finally, there is "Lullaby," one of the great love poems of this century. With immense mystery and power, Auden evokes the preciousness of a single night of passion.

Time and fevers burn away
Individual beauty from
Thoughtful children, and the grave
Proves the child ephemeral:
But in my arms till break of day
Let the living creature lie,
Mortal, guilty, but to me
The entirely beautiful.

Customer Reviews (4)

Auden on Love
Much of Auden's poetry is not easily accessible-- at least to this reader-- but these ten love poems are. This small volume was published after the success of the film "Four Weddings and a Funeral" and the inclusion of "Funeral Blues" which a grieving man recites at the funeral of his lover. Auden wrote these poems between 1932 and 1939 and many of them were set to music by Benjamin Britten.

If we are to believe Auden, love is elusive, often transitory, marred by war, unfaithfulness, time and death but ultimately worth it all. In "O Tell Me the Truth About Love," the poet humorously asks if love will come "without warning/Just as I'm picking my nose?" and does not answer his final question: "Will it alter my life altogether?" It is "more important than/Even a priest or a politician (Calypso). My goodness, we can only hope so. Otherwise we are in dire straits.

In "As I Walked Out One Evening" the narrator of the poem hears a lover sing that love has no ending. Then the chiming clocks remind him that neither we nor love can conquer time. "Funeral Blues," the last of the ten poems printed here, is a lament for the death of a lover/friend and contains these sad, beautiful lines:

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

"Lullaby," perhaps the most famous Auden poem included here, is a perfect example of why poetry still matters:

Lay your sleeping head, my love,
Human on my faithless arm;
Time and fevers burn away
Individual beauty from
Thoughtful children, and the grave
Proves the child ephemeral:
But in my arms till break of day
Let the living creature lie,
Mortal, guilty, but to me
The entirely beautiful.

A similar version of this volume made the bestseller list in the UK but sadly not in these United States.

Ten unforgettable poems from the master
This little volume `Tell Me the Truth about Love' only contains ten poems, but the small number is easily compensated by the sheer warmth and authenticity of the ten pearls it contains. The poetry of W. H. Auden belongs clearly to one of the most beautiful created in the twenties century. It is never complex or high-flown, but gets its timeless charm exactly form its simplicity and remarkable honesty. Just to read that love does not look like a pair of pyjamas or the ham in a temperance hotel, can only bring a smile on the readers face, without making it sound like a lot of twaddle.

Of course, the most famous of all the poems listed in this book is bound to be `Funeral Blues', simply because is the heartbreaking center point of the funeral scene in the popular movie Four Weddings and a Funeral. But the other poems too make clear that Auden has until today not lost anything of its eloquence.

A romantically wonderful introduction to Auden's work!
This brief volume presents the reader with 10poems covering different aspects of love. "O Tell Me the Truth About Love" asks what does love look like and how will it be recognised, using everydaymetaphors."At Last the Secret is Out" talks of an affair discovered and thegossip spreading. "Funeral Blues" was made famous by the movie"Four Weddings and a Funeral".This book is great for the romanticat heart and the reader will be able to identify with the struggles andheartache that comes from being in love!

Save Your Money, buy Auden's reading!
Poor reader; one of my favorite poems is 'As I Walked out One Evening' andthis man mangles it beyond recognition.Just listen to the author'srendition and you will hear what the poem is really saying....just getAuden and save yourself some grief. ... Read more

Book Description
The third volume of Auden Studeis presents Auden in maturity, and includes a large amount of previously unpublished prose by him.The book concentrates on the relatively unexplored area of Auden's post-1940 writings, and the letters, essay, and lectures printed here demonstrate the Goethean scope of his intellect, which ranged easily from psychoanalysis to theology, archaeology to politics.In Solitude, for Company contains two hitherto unpublished and little-known lectures.The first of these, introduced by Nicholas Jenkins, is on the theme of vocation, delivered during the troubled war years when Auden was examining his own vocation.The second lecture was given near the end of the poet's life, on the subject of the value of the work of Sigmund Freud.Katherine Bucknell precedes this with the first full-length examination of Auden's intensely ambivalent relation to Freud.Auden's correspondence with his close friends James and Tania Stern reveals much new and important biographical information, and Edward Mendelson's further supplement to the Auden Bibliography provides an extensive listing of all published letters by Auden.In addition, distinguished literary critics, including David Bromwich, Lawrence Lipking, Edna Longley, and Michael Wood, together with the nonagenarian communist Edward Upward, contribute to a symposium on one of this century's most famous poems, 'In Praise of Limestone'. ... Read more

Book Description
One of the modern masters of the extended poem, W. H. Auden has selected for this volume the longer poems he originally published between 1930 and 1947, which are among his most enduring achievements, both for their technical virtuosity and for the emotional and intellectual precision with which he dissects the spiritual illnesses of our times. Collected Longer Poems includes Paid on Both Sides, Letter to Lord Byron, For the Time Being, The Sea and the Mirror, and The Age of Anxiety.

With its companion volume, Collected Shorter Poems, published by Random House in 1967, this collection represents all of his past work that Auden wishes to preserve.

This edition is set from the first American edition of 1969 and commemorates the seventy-fifth anniversary of Random House. ... Read more

Book Description

You know the terror that for poets lurks
Beyond the ferry when to Minos brought.
Poets must utter their Collected Works,
Including Juvenilia.. . .
--from "Letter to Lord Byron" (1936)

Regardless of how poets feel about their youthful attempts at verse, their early poems not only enrich our understanding of their artistic growth, but also reveal much about the nature of literary genius. No other twentieth-century poet has left behind such a wealth of early poetry as did W. H. Auden. By bringing together for the first time all the poems written by Auden between the ages of fifteen and twenty-one (1922-1928), this book allows us a rare, detailed look at the literary personality, development, and preoccupations of a major poet. Auden's readers will be fascinated to find in these poems the earliest evidence of his interest in psychoanalysis, his conflicted attitude toward his homosexuality, his self-conscious approach to poetry, and his life-long journey toward a religious sense of the world.

This collection includes over two hundred poems, most of them never published before, concluding with the contents of Auden's privately printed volume, Poems (1928). The poems are generously annotated with information on Auden's education, reading, literary concerns, and personal life. In her introduction, Katherine Bucknell traces important themes relating to the poet's entire career, and describes crucial but hitherto unknown aspects of his youth during his years at Gresham's School and at Christ Church, Oxford. Throughout this work we see in Auden an admirable instinct for experiment, a thorough testing of tradition, and a gathering mastery of technique and thematic argument.

Book Description
In this Readers' Guide, Paul Hendon introduces some critical paths through Auden's demanding poetry by drawing upon material ranging from contemporary reviews and comments by fellow poets, to more recent scholarly and theoretical approaches. There is an overview of Auden's life and works, useful for readers new to the poet, while subsequent chapters discuss key critical themes through selected extracts. Issues such as the ambiguity of Auden's politics, his return to Christian faith, and his attitude to history, criticism, and art are discussed, while the critical arguments surrounding his 'defection' to America and the significance of the increasingly domestic nature of his later work are assessed. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Van Gogh, a man worth getting to know.
In his early years as an artist, Vincent Van Gogh vividly related his concept of art to his brother Theo in two separate letters from July of 1882, numbered 218 and 221. In this book of Vincent's letters, translated by W.H. Auden, these letters can be more carefully read than if I were to paraphrase or quote bits and pieces here. His letters are a portal into the mind of a great artist and a misunderstood man. While there are more complete books of Van Goghs writings available, this collection gets to the core of Vincent as a man and as an artist.
Vincent was not some wacko who cut off part of his ear and shot himself from insanity, he was rather, a deeply caring man, a genius who observed life so far over the heads of the so-called art experts that they could not see his vision. I did not become a lover of Vincent's art work until after I had read this book of his letters and was able to see more clearly what he was conveying on canvas. I have admired Auden as a poet for many years and this translation of his is far more readable than other translations I have read since. For anyone who has ever admired Van Gogh's paintings, this book is a must read, but for anyone who has seen them and not appreceiated his perception of the world, read this book and you will change your mind and your heart as well. You might even come to understand and love this great man's artwork. JJ

An excellent selection of letters
The British poet WH Auden has compiled a wonderful selection from Van Gogh'sletters. Auden makes his selection..."What," I asked myself, "is the single most important fact about Von Gogh?" To that there seemed only one answer - "That he painted pictures". Hence the selection focuses on those letters which contain his reflections on the art of painting and the problems of being a painter. Other letters, eg to his father and brother, are included as they throw light upon Van Gogh's career as a painter. Also included are descriptions of VG by his acquaintances, 40 illustrations and a brief biography by his nephew. Of interest to artists as well as admirers of Van Gogh's works. ... Read more

Book Description

''To read Randall Jarrell on W. H. Auden is to read the best-equipped of American critics of poetry of the past century on the best-equipped of its Anglo-American poets, and we rush to read, perhaps, less out of an academic interest in fair judgment than out of a spectator's love of virtuosity in flight.'' From Adam Gopnik's foreword

Randall Jarrell was one of the most important poet-critics of the past century, and the poet who most fascinated and infuriated him was W. H. Auden. In Auden, Jarrell found a crucial poetic influence that needed to be both embraced and resisted. During the 1940s, Jarrell wrestled with Auden's work, writing a series of notorious articles on Auden that remain admired and controversial examples of devoted and contentious criticism. While Jarrell never completed his proposed book on Auden, these previously unpublished lectures revise and reprise his earlier articles and present new insights into Auden's work. Delivered at Princeton University in 1951 and 1952, Jarrell's lectures reflect a passionate appreciation of Auden's work, a witty attack from an informed opponent, and an important document of a major poet's reception.

Jarrell's lectures offer readings of many of Auden's works, including all of his long poems, and illuminate his singular use of a variety of stylistic registers and poetic genres. In the lecture based on the article ''Freud to Paul,'' Jarrell traces the ideas and ideologies that animated and, at times, overwhelmed Auden's poetry. More precisely, he considers the influence of left-liberal politics, psychoanalytic and evolutionary theory, and the idiosyncratic Christian theology that characterized Auden's poems of the 1940s.

While an admiring and sympathetic reader, Jarrell does not avoid identifying Auden's poetic failures and political excesses. He offers occasionally blistering assessments of individual poems and laments Auden's turn from a cryptic, feeling, impassioned poet to a rhetorical, self-conscious one. Stephen Burt's introduction provides a backdrop to the lectures and their reception and importance for the history of modern poetry.

Book Description
The essays in this collection were written as reviews, mainly for The New York Review of Books and The New Yorker, on books by or about Alexander Pope, Vincent van Gogh, Thomas Mann, Virginia Woolf, Oscar Wilde, and A. E. Housman, or as introductions to editions of the classical Greek writers, the Protestant mystics, Shakespeare, Goethe, Kierkegaard, Tennyson, Grimm and Andersen, Poe, G. K. Chesterton, Paul Valéry, and others.  Throughout, these prose pieces reveal the same wit and intelligence--as well as the vision--that sparked the brilliance of Auden's poetry. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

"A Civilised Voice"
Just as W.H. Auden's verse of the 1930s came to define a specific poetic epoch (that of Spender, MacNeice, Day Lewis - the so-called "Auden generation"), so his body of essays and reviews has assumed an important place among the canon of literary criticism. Still, when we want a concise account of that troubling term "modernism" it is to Auden's "The Dyer's Hand" that we turn; his essays on Shakespeare remain among the best ever composed. The writings collected as "Forewords and Afterwords" serve to reinforce this status. Here Auden's great love of the written word (and of opera, too) is beautifully evinced. While a reasonable proportion of the essays deal with the Germans (Auden, after all, chose to live his final years in Austria), it is when he turns south, beyond the alps, that he is perhaps most interesting. I think it was Clive James who noted Auden's almost Bloomian fascination with Dante, and it is in "The Greeks and Us" (the opening essay of this volume) that we see this preoccupation with the Mediterranean emerge. Here Auden charts a wonderment with the Greeks which begins, as a boy, with the tales of Homer, flowers when one reads the tragedians, and is so inseparable from us that even today "everyone is born either a Platonist or an Aristotelian" (5). This essay - in its erudition, enthusiasm, in its thematic demands - then lays a groundwork from which all his other examinations grow. What is his essay on Kierkegaard but an affirmation of that need to "become fully conscious" (32) which he attributes to the Greeks? Even Wagner, "the greatest of the monsters", comes to embody someone "for better or worse, fully human" (32) when thought of in the terms he constructs in his first essay. Auden himself exemplifies that "civilsed voice" - refreshing, complete, humane, and which he associates with Pope - as he lays parts of the western literary tradition bare in "Forewords and Afterwords". Here his initial essay is a seed from which the others appear to grow, each representing a shoot - at once a departure but each feeding from the same root - on the same tree of human understanding.

A Learned and Thoughtful Collection by a Master
W.H. Auden was, of course, one of the 20th Century's greatest poets. This collection of essays, forewards and reviews illuminates his carefully thought out positions on poetry, literature, art, artists and religion. The book covers a period of over thirty years and the organization of the book is not chronological. Though this obscures the development of Auden's thoughts over time, it does serve as a useful almost biographical device. Beginning with the most esoteric discussions of Christian mysticism, the editor proceeds to go deeper and deeper into Auden himself, until he ends with a semi-autobiograhical account.Read in conjunction with the poetry, one feels sometimes that the poems do illustrate the philosophy more clearly than the prose, but notwithstanding, these essays are well worth reading. The essays on Goethe and Wagner are arresting insights about the relationship between the artist and his life that might startle those used to the conventional view of art derives from life. The format leads inevitably to repetition but the repetition is welcome as the concepts are often difficult and benefit from being brought forth in different contexts.

A Learned and Thoughtful Collection by a Master
W.H. Auden was, of course, one of the 20th Century's greatest poets. This collection of essays, forewards and reviews illuminates his carefully thought out positions on poetry, literature, art, artists and religion. The book covers a period of over thirty years and the organization of the book is not chronological. Though this obscures the development of Auden's thoughts over time, it does serve as a useful almost biographical device. Beginning with the most esoteric discussions of Christian mysticism, the editor proceeds to go deeper and deeper into Auden himself, until he ends with a semi-autobiograhical account.Read in conjunction with the poetry, one feels sometimes that the poems do illustrate the philosophy more clearly than the prose, but notwithstanding, these essays are well worth reading. The essays on Goethe and Wagner are arresting insights about the relationship between the artist and his life that might startle those used to the conventional view of art derives from life. The format leads inevitably to repetition but the repetition is welcome as the concepts are often difficult and benefit from being brought forth in different contexts.

A wonderful review of spirituality
In the first half of the book, Auden has written a brilliant set of essays on Christian doctrine, thought and mysticism. The essays on Protestant Mysticism and Kierkegaard are worth the price of the entire volume. Thosewhose tastes run more to the literary will enjoy the bulk of the work. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

hard to find!
Combo of two great playwrights. Ascent of F6 is exceptionally hard to find. Great deal, recommended. ... Read more