You know the terror that for poets lurks
Beyond the ferry when to Minos brought.
Poets must utter their Collected Works,
Including Juvenilia.. . .
--from "Letter to Lord Byron" (1936)
Regardless of how poets feel about their youthful attempts at
verse, their early poems not only enrich our understanding of their
artistic growth, but also reveal much about the nature of literary
genius. No other twentieth-century poet has left behind such a
wealth of early poetry as did W. H. Auden. By bringing together for
the first time all the poems written by Auden between the ages of
fifteen and twenty-one (1922-1928), this book allows us a rare,
detailed look at the literary personality, development, and
preoccupations of a major poet. Auden's readers will be fascinated
to find in these poems the earliest evidence of his interest in
psychoanalysis, his conflicted attitude toward his homosexuality,
his self-conscious approach to poetry, and his life-long journey
toward a religious sense of the world.
This collection includes over two hundred poems, most of them
never published before, concluding with the contents of Auden's
privately printed volume, "Poems" (1928). The poems are generously
annotated with information on Auden's education, reading, literary
concerns, and personal life. In her introduction, Katherine
Bucknell traces important themes relating to the poet's entire
career, and describes crucial but hitherto unknown aspects of his
youth during his years at Gresham's School and at Christ Church,
Oxford. Throughout this work we see in Auden an admirable instinct
for experiment, a thorough testing of tradition, and a gathering
mastery of technique and thematic argument.
General
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