w.h. auden
-
The History of Literature #479 — Auden and the Muse of History (with Susannah Young-ah Gottlieb)
W.H. Auden (1907-1973) was one of the twentieth-century’s greatest poets – and also one of the most engaged. As he struggled to make sense of the rise of fascism, two world wars, and industrialized murder, his focus turned to the poet’s responsibility in the face of unthinkable horrors. How does a poet begin to address Continue reading
-
History of Literature Episode #138 – Why Poetry (with Matthew Zapruder)
http://traffic.megaphone.fm/ADL9865955051.mp3 In his new book Why Poetry, the poet Matthew Zapruder has issued “an impassioned call for a return to reading poetry and an incisive argument for its accessibility to all readers.” The poet Robert Hass says, “Zapruder on poetry is pure pleasure. His prose is so direct that you have the impression, sentence by sentence, Continue reading
-
History of Literature #70 – Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar
Just after World War II, the poet and critic W.H. Auden said that Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar (ca. 1959) is “of great relevance to our time, though it is gloomier, because it is about a society that is doomed. We are not doomed, but in such immense danger that the relevance is great. [Rome] was a society Continue reading
Jacke Wilson 