February 21, 2007

It being Auden's Centenary, here's an article about him. Here's a link to some of his poetry. Here, and here, and here are links to Auden reading his own poetry. Here is contemporary pastiche. The Auden Society, if you're interested, is here.
posted by bobboggis 17 years ago
  • Thanks for this - it will help me repair a gap in my education.
  • Ditto the thanks. John Hannah's reading of Funeral Blues in Four Weddings and a Funeral deserved to be in a much better movie. Epitath on a Tyrant is one of my favourite short poems.
  • Tritto the thanks.
  • Comprehensive! Thanks, bb. Love the pastiche.
  • I've never heard Auden before. Thank you! But I'm listening to Larkin. Actually, I've got Thomas and Sitwell and Larkin all going at once. Not all that's needed is a beat.
  • Auden truly rocks. I'm most familiar with his works that have been set to music: he collaborated with Chester Kallman on the libretto for Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress, and many of his texts were set by Benjamin Britten. His text for Britten's St Cecilia, in particular, was written at the time he was trying to get Britten into bed, and it's thought that the second movement was a dig at Britten's general attitude.
  • Does anyone have a link for Isherwood's voice?
  • What a treat! I haven't read him since I were a nipper, and I don't remember him being this good. What a thick kid I must've been!
  • Gentle Pallas, those are interesting links, but I must tell you that the image of Auden and Britten doing it has caused me some small but irreparable mental damage. You recall, perhaps, that it was said of Auden "if he gets any more wrinkled, we'll have to unroll his face to find out who he is" and it was also said: "If that's his face, what do his balls look like?"