"For the Time Being" is a pivotal book in the career of one of
the greatest poets of the twentieth century. W. H. Auden had
recently moved to America, fallen in love with a young man to whom
he considered himself married, rethought his entire poetic and
intellectual equipment, and reclaimed the Christian faith of his
childhood. Then, in short order, his relationship fell apart and
his mother, to whom he was very close, died. In the midst of this
period of personal crisis and intellectual remaking, he decided to
write a poem about Christmas and to have it set to music by his
friend Benjamin Britten. Applying for a Guggenheim grant, Auden
explained that he understood the difficulty of writing something
vivid and distinctive about that most cliched of subjects, but
welcomed the challenge. In the end, the poem proved too long and
complex to be set by Britten, but in it we have a remarkably
ambitious and poetically rich attempt to see Christmas in double
focus: as a moment in the history of the Roman Empire and of
Judaism, and as an ever-new and always contemporary event for the
believer. "For the Time Being" is Auden's only explicitly religious
long poem, a technical tour de force, and a revelatory window into
the poet's personal and intellectual development. This edition
provides the most accurate text of the poem, a detailed
introduction by Alan Jacobs that explains its themes and sets the
poem in its proper contexts, and thorough annotations of its
references and allusions."
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