W. H. Auden

This study reads Auden's poetry and plays through the shifts from modernism to postmodernism. It analyzes the experiments in Auden's writings for their engagement with crucial contemporary problems: that of the individual in relation to others, loved ones, community, society, but also transcendental truths. It shows that rather than providing firm answers, Auden's poetry emphasized the absence of certainties. Yet far from becoming nihilistic, it generates hope, affection, and most importantly an ethical challenge of responsibility of its discoveries.

This study reads Auden's poetry and plays through the shifts from modernism to postmodernism. It analyzes the experiments in Auden's writings for their engagement with crucial contemporary problems: that of the individual in relation to others, loved ones, community, society, but also transcendental truths. It shows that rather than providing firm answers, Auden's poetry emphasized the absence of certainties. Yet far from becoming nihilistic, it generates hope, affection, and most importantly an ethical challenge of responsibility of its discoveries.

Booknews

In this detailed analysis of Auden's (1907-73) poetry and plays, Emig (English, U. of Wales-Cardiff) shows how the British poet first engaged with modernism, then eventually rejected its nostalgia for lost certainties and attempts at renewed wholeness. He finds that Auden's work recognizes the riskiness of questions of the self, and challenges the individual to act responsibly in the face of an absence of guarantees, guidelines, and truths. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Rainer Emig is Lecturer in English Literature and a member of the Center for Critical and Cultural Theory at the University of Wales.