Word: auden
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Owen's poems seemed to speak for all the war's suffering and brought English poetry down to earth with blunt, homely words. Auden, Spender, T. S. Eliot and a whole generation of English poets acknowledged their debt to Owen. Now Owen's poems have been published in the most complete edition to date. Editor Lewis has added several un published poems that were written in Owen's youth and were in his brother's possession; in addition many other poems have been corrected...
Spears is most successful in suggesting the breadth of Auden's interests, his wit, and the complexity of his thought. He is least successful in telling you anything interesting about the poet's life and in nurturing any desire to read Auden's poetry...
This is the worst aspect of Spears' book: it does not compel you to refer to Auden's exciting verse itself. And even if Spears' reticence about the poet's life was conceived with a sense of decorum, the questions it leaves un-answered are much...
...What was Auden's relationship to Christopher Isherwood, his collaborator with whom he travelled for many years? Surely no important critical biography of a psychologically-oriented poet can avoid this question. What was his relationship with his mother, with his wife, with his contemporaries? Spears says nothing...
...have read widely in Auden's poetry and prose, The Disenchanted Island is helpfully systematic. The book is full of important insights, sunk in the tedium of unselective research. But for readers who have not thoroughly considered the poems and important essays, this book may push in the wrong direction. It might be better, instead, to continue reading the poetry itself...