Collected Poems (Modern Library) - Hardcover

Auden, W. H.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0679643508 ISBN 13: 9780679643500

Verlag: Modern Library, 2007

Inhaltsangabe

To commemorate the centennial of W. H. Auden’s birth, the Modern Library offers this elegant edition of the collected poems of one of the greatest poets of the twentieth century.

This volume includes all the poems that Auden wished to preserve, in a text that includes his final revisions, with corrections based on the latest research. Auden divided his poems into sections that corresponded to what he referred to as chapters in his life, each one beginning with a change in his inner life or external circumstances: the moment in 1933 when he first knew “exactly what it means to love one’s neighbor as oneself”; his move from Britain to America in 1939; his first summer in Italy in 1948; his move to a summerhouse in Austria in 1958; and his return to England in 1972.

Auden’s work has perhaps the widest range and the greatest depth of any English poet of the past three centuries. From the anxious warnings of his early verse through the expansive historical perspectives of his middle years to the celebrations and thanksgiving in his later work, Auden wrote in a voice that addressed readers personally rather than as part of a collective audience. His styles and forms extend from ballads and songs to haiku and limericks to sonnets, sestinas, prose poems, and dozens of other constructions of his own invention. His tone ranges from spirited comedy to memorable profundity–often within the same work. His poems manage to be secular and sacred, philosophical and erotic, personal and universal.

“All the poems I have written were written for love,” Auden once said. This book includes his famous early poems about transient love (“Lay your sleeping head, my love,” “Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone”) and his later poems about enduring love (“In Sickness and in Health,” “First Things First”). The book also includes Auden’s longer, more thematically varied poems, from the expressionist charade “Paid on Both Sides” to the formal couplets of “New Year Letter”; the darkly comic sequel to The Tempest, “The Sea and the Mirror”; and a baroque eclogue set in a wartime bar, “The Age of Anxiety.”

This new edition includes a critical appreciation of Auden by Edward Mendelson, the editor of the present volume and Auden’s literary executor.

“W. H. Auden had the greatest gifts of any of our poets in the twentieth century, the greatest lap full of seed.”
–James Fenton, The New York Review of Books

“At the beginning of the new century, [Auden] is an indispensable poet. Even people who don’t read poems often turn to poetry at moments when it matters, and Auden matters now.”
–Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

W. H. Auden was born in York, England, in 1907. His first book of poems was published in 1930, followed by a dozen volumes of shorter and longer poems. He collaborated on three plays with Christopher Isherwood and wrote books about his travels to Iceland (with Louis MacNeice) and wartime China (with Christopher Isherwood). In 1939 he settled in New York and became an American citizen in 1946. In collaboration with his companion Chester Kallman, he composed opera libretti for Igor Stravinsky, Hans Werner Henze, and Nicholas Nabokov. In 1972 Auden left his winter home in New York and returned to Oxford. He died in Vienna in 1973.

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Chapter 1

PART I

PAID ON BOTH SIDES

A Charade

To Cecil Day-Lewis

Characters

LintzgarthNattrass

John NowerAaron Shaw*****

DickSeth Shaw

George****The Spy—Seth’s Brother

WalterBernard

KurtSeth’s Mother***

CulleyAnne Shaw

Stephen**

Zeppel—John Nower’s Servant

Number Six

Sturton

Joan—Mother of John Nower

Trudy***

Father Christmas*

The Doctor

Bo****

Po*****

The Man-Woman

The Doctor’s Boy**

The Photographer*

The Announcer*

The Chief Guest*

The Butler*

The Chorus

The starred parts should be doubled

[No scenery is required. The stage should have a curtained-off recess. The distinction between the two hostile parties should be marked by different coloured arm-bands. the chorus, which should not consist of more than three persons, wear similar and distinctive clothing.]

[Enter trudy and walter.]

trudy: You’ve only just heard?

walter: Yes. A breakdown at the Mill needed attention, kept me all morning. I guessed no harm. But lately, riding at leisure, Dick met me, panted disaster. I came here at once. How did they get him?

trudy: In Kettledale above Colefangs road passes where high banks overhang dangerous from ambush. To Colefangs had to go, would speak with Layard, Jerry and Hunter with him only. They must have stolen news, for Red Shaw waited with ten, so Jerry said, till for last time unconscious. Hunter was killed at first shot. They fought, exhausted ammunition, a brave defence but fight no more.

walter: Has Joan been told yet?

trudy: Yes. It couldn’t be helped. Shock, starting birth pangs, caused a premature delivery.

walter: How is she?

trudy: Bad, I believe. But here’s the doctor.

[Enter doctor.]

Well, Doctor, how are things going?

doctor: Better thanks. We’ve had a hard fight, but it’s going to be all right. She’ll pull through and have a fine infant as well. My God, I’m thirsty after all that. Where can I get a drink?

walter: Here in the next room, Doctor.

[Exeunt. Back curtains draw. joan with child and corpse.]

joan:

Not from this life, not from this life is any

To keep; sleep, day and play would not help there,

Dangerous to new ghost; new ghost learns from many,

Learns from old termers what death is, where.

Who’s jealous of his latest company,

From one day to the next final to us,

A changed one, would use sorrow to deny

Sorrow, to replace death? Sorrow is sleeping thus.

Unforgetting is not today’s forgetting

For yesterday, not bedrid scorning,

But a new begetting,

An unforgiving morning.

[Baby squeals.]

O see, he is impatient

To pass beyond this pretty lisping time:

There’ll be some crying out when he’s come there.

[Back curtains close.]

chorus:

Can speak of trouble, pressure on men

Born all the time, brought forward into light

For warm dark moan.

Though heart fears all heart cries for, rebuffs with mortal beat

Skyfall, the legs sucked under, adder’s bite.

That prize held out of reach

Guides the unwilling tread,

The asking breath,

Till on attended bed

Or in untracked dishonour comes to each

His natural death.

We pass our days

Speak, man to men, easy, learning to point,

To jump before ladies, to show our scars:

But no,

We were mistaken, these faces are not ours.

They smile no more when we smile back:

Eyes, ears, tongue, nostrils bring

News of revolt, inadequate counsel to

An infirm king.

O watcher in the dark, you wake

Our dream of waking, we feel

Your finger on the flesh that has been skinned,

By your bright day

See clear what we were doing, that we were vile.

Your sudden hand

Shall humble great

Pride, break it, wear down to stumps old systems which await

The last transgression of the sea.

[Enter john nower and dick.]

john nower: If you have really made up your mind, Dick, I won’t try and persuade you to stop. But I shall be sorry to lose you.

dick: I have thought it all over and I think it is the best thing to do. My cousin writes that the ranch is a thoroughly good proposition. I don’t know how I shall like the Colonies but I feel I must get away from here. There is not room enough . . . but the actual moving is unpleasant.

john nower: I understand. When are you thinking of sailing?

dick: My cousin is sailing to-morrow. If I am going I am to join him at the Docks.

john nower: Right. Tell one of the men to go down to the post-office and send a wire for you. If you want anything else, let me know.

dick: Thank you.

[Exit dick. Enter zeppel.]

zeppel: Number Six wishes to see you, sir.

john nower: All right, show him in.

[Enter number six.]

Well, what is it?

number six: My area is Rookhope. Last night at Horse and Farrier, drank alone, one of Shaw’s men. I sat down friendly next till muzzed with drink and lateness he was blabbing. Red Shaw goes to Brandon Walls to-day, visits a woman.

john nower: Alone?

number six: No, sir. He takes a few. I got no numbers.

john nower: This is good news. Here is a pound for you.

number six: Thank you very much, sir.

[Exit number six.]

john nower: Zeppel.

zeppel: Sir.

john nower: Ask George to come here at once.

zeppel: Very good, sir.

[john gets a map out. Enter george.]

john nower: Red Shaw is spending the day at Brandon Walls. We must get him. You know the ground well, don’t you, George?

george: Pretty well. Let me see the map. There’s a barn about a hundred yards from the house. Yes, here it is. If we can occupy that without attracting attention it will form a good base for operations, commands both house and road. If I remember rightly, on the other side of the stream is a steep bank. Yes, you can see from the contours. They couldn’t get out that way, but lower down is marshy ground and possible. You want to post some men there to catch those who try.

john nower: Good. Who do you suggest to lead that party?

george: Send Sturton. He knows the whole district blindfold. He and I as boys fished all those streams together.

john nower: I shall come with you. Let’s see: it’s dark now about five. Fortunately there’s no moon and it’s cloudy. We’ll start then about half-past. Pick your men and get some sandwiches made up in the kitchen. I’ll see about the ammunition if you will remember to bring a compass. We meet outside at a quarter past.

[Exeunt. Enter kurt and culley.]

kurt: There’s time for a quick one before changing. What’s yours?

culley: I’ll have a sidecar, thanks.

kurt: Zeppel, one sidecar and one C.P.S. I hear Chapman did the lake in eight.

culley: Yes, he is developing a very pretty style. I am not sure though that Pepys won’t beat him next year if he can get out of that double kick. Thanks. Prosit.

kurt: Cheerio.

[Enter walter and trudy.]

walter: Two half pints, Zeppel, please. [To kurt.] Can you let me have a match? How is the Rugger going?

kurt: All right, thank you. We have not got a bad team this season.

walter: Where do you play yourself?

kurt: Wing 3Q.

walter: Did you ever see Warner? No, he’d be before your time. You remember him don’t you, Trudy?

trudy: He was killed...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Modern Library
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2007
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0679643508
• ISBN 13: 9780679643500
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 976
• Herausgeber: Mendelson Edward
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar