The Hidden Law : The Poetry of W. H. Auden

In This Study - The Fruit Of A Lifelong Critical And Imaginative Engagement With W H. Auden's Works - Anthony Hecht Identifies And Traces Consistent Habits Of Thought And Belief Within The Poet's Extensive And Varied Writings And Through His Celebrated Conversions And Repudiations, Literary And Otherwise. Hecht Acknowledges That Auden's Poems Both Invite The Intrusive Scrutiny Of The Cryptographer And Deny Him Access. Yet The Readings He Offers Of Poems From Every Phase Of Auden's Career, Along With Dramatic Works And Critical Essays, Manage To Explicate And Illuminate Auden's Rich (and Often Cryptic) Allusiveness Without Murdering To Dissect. Among The Themes That Connect Auden's Works Are His Deep Interest In The Workings Of Language; His Notion Of The Ultimate Frivolity Of Art; His Interest In The Nature Of Heroism; His Understanding Of The Relation Of Public To Private Life; The Development Of His Religious Thought; And What Auden Called The Hidden Law That Governs Human Existence - A Strict And Retaliatory Force, Something Like Poetic Justice, That Gives Form To Our Best Literature And Shapes Our Personal Fates. Hecht Identifies These Preoccupations In Auden's Work - And Shows How They Cut Across The Many Genres In Which He Wrote - Without Losing Sight Of Each Poem's Individual History And Context. As One Of Auden's Most Distinguished Poetic Heirs, Anthony Hecht Is Uniquely Qualified To Illuminate Both The Reading And The Writing Of These Essential Works Of Twentieth-century Literature. I. Everything That Counts Is Well Veiled: Poems -- Ii. The Curative Power Of Love: On This Island -- Iii. Poetry Makes Nothing Happen: Another Time -- Iv. A Sort Of Practical Holiday: Letter To Lord Byron -- V.a Civitas Of Sound: New Year Letter -- Vi. God Will Cheat No One: For The Time Being -- Vii. Amor Loci: Nones -- Viii. In Solitude, For Company: The Shield Of Achilles -- Ix. The Hidden Law. Anthony Hecht. Includes Indexes. Review text: A work of the most keen-sighted love for the most keen-sighted poet of our century. The Hidden Law's dispassionate critical voice unfolds a powerful meditation on the vicissitudes of the poetic life ... It is at its most significant level a narrative of Anthony Hecht's emergence as a poet, and for all that the book tells us by implication, it takes its place alongside MacNeice's Yeats and Berryman's Crane. I know of no other instance of a poet of comparable mastery of his art and his experience taking up in such loving detail the work of a predecessor (and near contemporary). This is a book about poetry, about a poet who was dedicated to the art like few others of our time, whose poetic technique only another poet as gifted as Hecht could gloss ... The richness of reference in this book to history, prosody, theology, poetry, punctuation, makes for a long swim in the heady liquor of poetry--not only Auden's poetry but that of the hundreds of authors whom Auden read ... It is a pleasure to read A work of the most keen-sighted love for the most keen-sighted poet of our century. __The Hidden Law__'s dispassionate critical voice unfolds a powerful meditation on the vicissitudes of the poetic life...It is at its most significant level a narrative of Anthony Hecht's emergence as a poet, and for all that the book tells us by implication, it takes its place alongside MacNeice's __Yeats__ and Berryman's __Crane__. I know of no other instance of a poet of comparable mastery of his art and his experience taking up in such loving detail the work of a predecessor (and near contemporary). This is a book about poetry, about a poet who was dedicated to the art like few others of our time, whose poetic technique only another poet as gifted as Hecht could gloss...The richness of reference in this book to history, prosody, theology, poetry, punctuation, makes for a long swim in the heady liquor of poetry--not only Auden's poetry but that of the hundreds of authors whom Auden read...It is a pleasure to read. A work of the most keen-sighted love for the most keen-sighted poet of our century. The Hidden Law 's dispassionate critical voice unfolds a powerful meditation on the vicissitudes of the poetic life...It is at its most significant level a narrative of Anthony Hecht's emergence as a poet, and for all that the book tells us by implication, it takes its place alongside MacNeice's Yeats and Berryman's Crane . I know of no other instance of a poet of comparable mastery of his art and his experience taking up in such loving detail the work of a predecessor (and near contemporary). This is a book about poetry, about a poet who was dedicated to the art like few others of our time, whose poetic technique only another poet as gifted as Hecht could gloss...The richness of reference in this book to history, prosody, theology, poetry, punctuation, makes for a long swim in the heady liquor of poetry--not only Auden's poetry but that of the hundreds of authors whom Auden read...It is a pleasure to read. In this text - the result of a life-long critical and imaginative engagement with Auden's works - Anthony Hecht identifies and traces consistent habits of thought and belief within the poet's extensive and varied writings and through his celebrated conversions and repudiations. Anthony Hecht is the author of six volumes of poetry, for which he has received the Pulitzer Prize, the Bollingen Prize and the Prix de Rome, among other honours. He has served as Poetry Consultant to the Library of Congress. Contents Preface I. Everything That Counts Is Well Veiled: Poems II. The Curative Power of Love: On This Island III. Poetry Makes Nothing Happen: Another Time IV. A Sort of Practical Holiday: Letter to Lord Byron V. A Civitas of Sound: New Year Letter VI. God Will Cheat No One: For the Time Being VII. Amor Loci: Nones VIII. In Solitude, for Company: The Shield of Achilles IX. The Hidden Law Acknowledgments Index of Auden’s Works General Index