Auden's Apologies for Poetry

197 Pages·1990·4.196 MB·English

by  Lucy McDiarmid

Auden's Apologies for Poetry

Auden's Apologies
for Poetry
Lucy McDiarmid
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY
Copyright © 1990 by Princeton University Press
Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street,
Princeton, New Jersey 08540
In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, Oxford
All Rights Reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
McDiarmid, Lucy.
Auden's apologies for poetry / Lucy McDiarmid.
p. cm.
1. Auden, W. H. (Wystan Hugh), 1907-1973—Criticism and
interpretation. 2. Auden, W. H. (Wystan Hugh), 1907-1973—
Aesthetics. 3. Poetry. I. Title.
PR6001.U4Z757 1990 811'.52—dc20 89-10660
ISBN 0-691-06784-8 (alk. paper)
Publication of this book has been aided by a grant from the
Paul Mellon Fund of Princeton University Press
This book has been composed in Linotron Sabon
Princeton University Press books are printed
on acid-free paper, and meet the guidelines for
permanence and durability of the Committee on
Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of
the Council on Library Resources
Printed in the United States of America by Princeton University Press,
Princeton, New Jersey
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
FOR PHILIP J. ESCOLL
. . . love, or truth in any serious sense,
Like orthodoxy, is a reticence.

Contents
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xv
Abbreviations xix
INTRODUCTION
The Finest Tumbler of His Day 3
CHAPTER ONE
Pardon and "Pardon" 14
CHAPTER TWO
The Generous Hour: Poems and Plays of the 1930s 46
CHAPTER THREE
The Other Side of the Mirror: New Year Letter, For
the Time Being, and The Sea and the Mirror 73
CHAPTER FOUR
Apologies for Poetry: Poems 1948—1973 119
CONCLUSION
Writing This for You to Open When 1 Am Gone 159
Appendix: The Manuscript Drafts of New Year
Letter, Part III, Opening Passage 169
Index 173

Preface
If good literary critics are rarer than good poets or
novelists, one reason is the nature of human ego­
ism. A poet or novelist has to learn to be humble in
the face of his subject matter which is life in gen­
eral. But the subject matter of a critic, before which
he has to learn to be humble, is made up of authors,
that is to say, of human individuals, and this kind
of humility is much more difficult to acquire. It is
far easier to say—"Life is more important than any­
thing I can say about it"—than to say—"Mr. A's
work is more important than anything I can say
about it."
—Auden, "Reading"
AUDEN'S WORK is more important than anything I can say
about it.
In so encouraging the modesty of literary critics, Mr. A. did
not altogether debar their efforts. In spite of "human egoism,"
Auden conceded, a critic can perform a number of valuable
services, such as giving a " 'reading' of a work which increases
my understanding of it" (DH 8). This book offers a reading of
Auden's work, based in part on Auden's own self-commen­
tary: on essays that talk about art, on poems that talk about
themselves, on poems that rewrite and revise earlier poems by
Auden.
"Goody." So Auden commented to Christopher Isherwood
as the boat-train pulled out of London on 18 January 1939,
as he left behind the idealisms of the thirties, all political and
social concerns, and the "magnificent early lyrics," to become
an unserious poet, or, worse still, a minor poet, his poems
empty, agreeable contrivances. Or so the story goes. Spoiled
by the intensities of apocalypse, Auden's critics distort and