From one of the great modern writers, the acclaimed lectures, in which he draws on a lifetime of experience to take the measure of Shakespeare's plays and sonnets "W. H. Auden, poet and critic, will conduct a course on Shakespeare at the New School for Social Research beginning Wednesday. Mr. Auden... proposes to read all Shakespeare's plays in chronological order." So, the New York Times reported on September 27, 1946, giving notice of a rare opportunity...

This edition presents the original versions of many poems, which Auden revised to conform to his evolving political and literary attitudes later in his career. In this volume, Edward Mendelson has restored the early versions of some thirty poems generally considered to be superior to the later versions, allowing the reader to see the entire range of Auden's work. Selected and edited by Edward Mendelson.

About half of these poems are about the rooms in the author's house in Vienna; the others are new poems on various subjects, previously uncollected.

This volume - Mr. Auden's first collection of new poems since About the House (1965) - reveals the continuing development of one of the most remarkable poetic voices of our time. Mr. Auden's new book opens on a note of dread and anger, though touched with irony, and concludes with a prologue which celebrates the well-remembered world that made him, acknowledges with some affection the city that now houses him, and prays that he and an increasingly...

Discussion of the primary worlds of the senses and historical reality, and the secondary worlds of imagination and poetry.