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 135
... body and mind , body being the larger , but mind being the wittier . They were sundered by our own determination to let the mind tyrannize over the body , a tyranny which has led to illness ; and Freud has given back to the body some of ...
... body and mind , body being the larger , but mind being the wittier . They were sundered by our own determination to let the mind tyrannize over the body , a tyranny which has led to illness ; and Freud has given back to the body some of ...
Page 142
... body / body politic fails at the same time : he becomes his admirers in that he now exists only as they read and remember his words . But if he is no longer a city , " he is scattered among a hundred cities , " in a way that I think is ...
... body / body politic fails at the same time : he becomes his admirers in that he now exists only as they read and remember his words . But if he is no longer a city , " he is scattered among a hundred cities , " in a way that I think is ...
Page 348
... body in particular . The body , in obedience to laws of its own , works on undisturbed , " restoring / The order we try to destroy , the rhythm / We spoil out of spite ... " Our spitefulness consists of our heretical impulse to blame ...
... body in particular . The body , in obedience to laws of its own , works on undisturbed , " restoring / The order we try to destroy , the rhythm / We spoil out of spite ... " Our spitefulness consists of our heretical impulse to blame ...
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Common terms and phrases
acknowledged addressed admired allowed appears Auden authority become begins believe body Byron called Christian claim clear close Collected comes composed concerns continues course death described dream earlier early effect Eliot entirely essay example expressed eyes fact feel figure final follows give heart hero hope human important innocent interest kind language later least less Letter lines living look means mind moral nature never night once opening pass passage past perhaps play poem poet poetry political possible prayer present reader reason recall reference regard religious represent seems sense serious sexual social society sort speaks stanza suggests things thought turn voice writing written wrote Yeats