Brecht projects an ancient Chinese story onto a realistic setting in Soviet Georgia. In a theme that echoes the Judgment of Solomon, two women argue over the possession of a child. Thanks to the unruly judge, Azdak (one of Brecht's most vivid creations) natural justice is done and the peasant Grusha keeps the child she loves, even though she is not its mother. Written while Brecht was in exile in the United States during the Second World War, The Caucasian Chalk Circle is a politically charged, much-revived and complex example of Brecht's epic theatre. This new Student Edition contains introductory commentary and notes by Kristopher Imbrigotta from the University of Puget Sound, US, offering a much-needed contemporary perspective on the play. The introduction covers: - narrative structure: play about a play within a play ("circle") - songs and music - justice and social systems - context: Brecht, exile, WWII, socialism - notions of collective and class - fable and story adaptation, folk fairy tale

In the summer of 1936, W. H. Auden and Louis MacNeice visited Iceland on commission to write a travel book, but found themselves capturing concerns on a scale that were far more international. 'Though writing in a "holiday" spirit,' commented Auden, 'its authors were all the time conscious of a threatening horizon to their picnic - world-wide unemployment, Hitler growing everyday more powerful and a world-war more inevitable.' The result is the remarkable Letters from Iceland, a collaboration in poetry and prose, reportage and correspondence, published in 1937 with the Spanish Civil War newly in progress, beneath the shadow of looming world war.

Edward Mendelson has significantly expanded his authoritative, chronological ordered edition of Auden's Selected Poems (first published in 1979), adding twenty items to the hundred in the original edition, and broadening the focus to reflect the wealth of forms, the rhetorical and tonal range, and the variousness of content in Auden's poetry, in the confines of one volume. In particular, there are newly included examples of Auden's mastery of light verse: the self-descriptive sequence of haiku called 'Profiles', the barbed wartime quatrains of 'Leap Before You Look', or 'Funeral Blues' itself. Also included are brief notes explaining references that may have become obscure, and a revised introduction drawing on recent additions to Auden scholarship.

Auden's electrifying, enigmatic and extraordinarily influential debut collection was published by Faber in 1930, and simply entitled Poems. For the second edition (1933) he omitted seven items and added new poems in their place. Available again for the first time since 1950, this reissue follows the text of the second edition.

This collection presents all the poems Auden wished to preserve, in the texts that received his final approval. It included the full contents of his previous collected editions along with all the later volumes of his shorter poems. Together, these works display the astonishing range of Auden's voice and the breadth of his concerns, his deep knowledge of the traditions he inherited, and his ability to recast those traditions in modern times.

W. H. Auden was once described as the Picasso of modern poetry - a tribute to his ceaseless experimentation with form and subject matter. Beginning with Anglo-Saxon poetry and ending with an Horatian expansiveness and conversational sweep, this volume is essential reading for anyone seriously interested in modern poetry after T. S. Eliot. In his lifetime a controversial, outspoken, yet enigmatic, writer, Auden has gradually come to seem an intimate poet, as we have learned to read him correctly. This volume is the best possible introduction to his consummate craftsmanship and his unparalleled originality which made him the master-poet of his generation.

Owen Barfield's original and thought-provoking works over three-quarters of a century have made him a legendary cult figure. History in English Words, his classic historical excursion through the English language, is now back in print after five years. This popular book is a brief and brilliant history of the peoples who have spoken the Indo-European tongues. It is illustrated throughout by current English words whose derivation from other languages, whose history in use and changes of meaning, record and unlock the larger history. "In our language alone, not to speak of its many companions, the past history of humanity is spread out in an imperishable map, just as the history of the mineral earth lies embedded in the layers of its outer crust.... Language has preserved for us the inner, living history of our soul. It reveals the evolution of consciousness".

When The Orators was originally published in 1932 it was described by Poetry Review as 'something as important as the appearance of Mr Eliot's poems fifteen years ago'. A long poem written in both prose and verse, it was a powerful addition to the canon of modernist poetry.

In the early 1950s Auden began planning a prose volume that would bring together some of his published essays, lectures, and reviews, together with newly-written notes and aphorisms. In 1956 he was elected Professor of Poetry at Oxford, and The Dyer's Hand appeared in 1962, combining earlier material with revised versions of many of his Oxford lectures: The result is one of Auden's most original works, his only book of prose devised as a single cohesive work about disparate subjects, and containing - as he remarked at the time - 'all the autobiography I am willing to make public'. 'Speaking for myself, the questions which interest me most when reading a poem are two. The first is technical: "Here is a verbal contraption. How does it work?" The second is, in the broadest sense, moral: "What kind of a guy inhabits this poem? What is his notion of the good life or the good place? His notion of the Evil One? What does he conceal from the reader? What does he conceal even from himself?" - W. H. Auden (inaugural lecture as Professor of Poetry at Oxford, June 1956)

First published in 1968, this companion volume to the Collected Shorter Poems was compiled by W.H. Auden to bring together six of his longer poetic works, originally published between 1930 and 1947. Auden was one of the modern masters of the extended poem, and these works are among his most enduring achievements, both for their technical virtuosity and for the emotional and intellectual precision with which they dissected the malaise and turmoil of their age.Collected Longer Poems includes Paid on Both Sides, Letter to Lord Byron, For the Time Being, The Sea and the Mirror, and The Age of Anxiety.

Universally known and admired as a peacemaker, Dag Hammarskjold concealed a remarkable intense inner life which he recorded over several decades in this journal of poems and spiritual meditations, left to be published after his death. A dramatic account of spiritual struggle, "Markings" has inspired hundreds of thousands of readers since it was first published in 1964.
"Markings" is distinctive, as W.H. Auden remarks in his foreword, as a record of "the attempt by a professional man of action to unite in one life the "via activa" and the "via contemplativa."" It reflects its author's efforts to live his creed, his belief that all men are equally the children of God and that faith and love require of him a life of selfless service to others. For Hammarskjold, "the road to holiness necessarily passes through the world of action." "Markings" is not only a fascinating glimpse of the mind of a great man, but also a moving spiritual classic that has left its mark on generations of readers.

This fifth volume of W. H. Auden's prose displays a great writer's mind in its full maturity of wisdom, learning, and emotional and moral intelligence. It contains his most personally revealing essays, the ones in which he wrote for the first time about the full history of his family life, his sexuality, and the development of his moral and religious beliefs. Among these works are the lightly disguised autobiographies that appear in long essays on the Protestant mystics and on Shakespeare's sonnets. The book also features the full text of his T. S. Eliot Memorial Lectures, Secondary Worlds, and many unpublished or unavailable lectures and speeches. Edward Mendelson's introduction and comprehensive notes provide biographical and historical explanations of obscure references. The text includes corrections and revisions that Auden marked in personal copies of his work and that are published here for the first time.

Between 1927 and his death in 1973, W. H. Auden endowed poetry in the English language with a new face.  Or rather, with several faces, since his work ranged from the political to the religious, from the urbane to the pastoral, from the mandarin to the invigoratingly plain-spoken.

This collection presents all the poems Auden wished to preserve, in the texts that received his final approval. It includes the full contents of his previous collected editions along with all the later volumes of his shorter poems. Together, these works display the astonishing range of Auden's voice and the breadth of his concerns, his deep knowledge of the traditions he inherited, and his ability to recast those traditions in modern times.

W. H. Auden was born in York in 1907. His first full-length collection, Poems, was published by T. S. Eliot at Faber and Faber in 1930. The many volumes he published thereafter included poetry, plays, essays and libretti, and his ceaseless experimentation, consummate craftsmanship and originality established him as one of the most influential poets of the twentieth century. He died in 1973.

Another Time was the first volume that Auden published after his departure to America with Christopher Isherwood in January 1939. It was dedicated to Chester Kallman. The poems, some of which date from the early thirties, are about people, places and the intellectual climate of the times, and they show greater variety of tone and technique than in any previous book of Auden's. Some of his most famous and often quoted (or misquoted) lines appear in their original form, including the text of two poems in particular - 'Spain 1937' and 'September 1,1939' - that he later altered or repudiated.

This beautifully designed edition forms part of a series of ten titles celebrating Faber's publishing over the decades.

The first of two volumes of the eagerly anticipated first complete edition of Auden's poems-including some that have never been published before W. H. Auden (1907-1973) is one of the greatest poets of the twentieth century, and his reputation has only grown since his death. Published on the hundredth anniversary of the year in which he began to write poetry, this is the first of two volumes of the first complete edition of Auden's poems. Edited, introduced, and annotated by renowned Auden scholar Edward Mendelson, this definitive edition includes all the poems Auden wrote for publication, in their original texts, and all his later revised versions, as well as poems and songs he never published, some of them printed here for the first time. This volume traces the development of Auden's early career, and contains all the poems, including juvenilia, that he published or submitted for publication, from his first printed work, in 1927, at age twenty, through the poems he wrote during his first months in America, in 1939, when he was thirty-two. The book also includes poems that Auden wrote during his adult career with the expectation that he might publish them, but which he never did; song lyrics that he wrote to be set to music by Benjamin Britten, but which he never put into print; and verses that he wrote for magazines at schools where he was teaching. The main text presents the poems in their original published versions. The notes include the extensive revisions that he made to his poems over the course of his career, and provide explanations of obscure references. The second volume of this edition, Poems, Volume 2: 1940-1973, is also available.

The second of two volumes of the eagerly anticipated first complete edition of Auden's poems-including some that have never been published before W. H. Auden (1907-1973) is one of the greatest poets of the twentieth century, and his reputation has only grown since his death. Published on the hundredth anniversary of the year in which he began to write poetry, this is the second volume of the first complete edition of Auden's poems. Edited, introduced, and annotated by renowned Auden scholar Edward Mendelson, this definitive edition includes all the poems Auden wrote for publication, in their original texts, and all his later revised versions, as well as poems and songs he never published, some of them printed here for the first time. This volume follows Auden as a mature artist, containing all the poems that he published or submitted for publication from 1940 until his death in 1973, at age sixty-six. This includes all his poetry collections from this period, from The Double Man (1941) through Epistle to a Godson (1972). The volume also features an edited version of his incomplete, posthumous book Thank You, Fog, as well as his self-designated "posthumous" poems. The main text presents the poems in their original published versions. The notes include the extensive revisions that he made to his poems over the course of his career, and provide explanations of obscure references. The first volume of this edition, Poems, Volume I: 1927-1939, is also available.

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 to hear one of the century's great poets discuss at length one of the greatest writers of all time. Reconstructed by Arthur Kirsch, these lectures offer remarkable insights into Shakespeare's plays and sonnets while also adding immeasurably to our understanding of Auden.

This volume contains Auden and Christopher Isherwood's dramatic extravaganzas The Dog Beneath the Skin, the Ascent of F 6, and On the Frontier. It also includes the two versions of Paid on Both Sides--which are so different as to constitute two works--and Auden's satiric revue The Dance of Death. Two plays appear in print for the first time, Auden and Isherwood's The Enemies of a Bishop and Auden's The Chase. Also included are Auden's prose and verse written for doucmentary films, a cabaret sketch, and an unpublished radio script. Many of the texts include poems by the young Auden that have never been published before. The extensive historical and textual notes trace the complex history of the production and revision of these plays, including full texts and rewritten scenes. During the years when these works were created, Auden moved from a "poetry of isolation" to more expansive and public writing. After he left Oxford at age twenty-one, during the summer of 1928, he wrote the tragicomic charade Paid on Both Sides. During the next ten years, until he left England for America, he created the increasingly ambitious works for stage, film, and broadcast that appear in this volume. The most important of these plays were written in collaboration with Isherwood. As the world political situation worsened, Isherwood and Auden's style combined the energy of popular entertainment with the urgency of sacramental ritual. Edard Mendelson is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University and the author of Early Auden (Viking). He is the editor of two volumes of Aduen's poetry, Collected Poems (Random House) and The English Auden (Random House). Originally published in 1988. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

This significantly expanded edition of W. H. Auden's "Selected Poems "adds twenty poems to the hundred in the original edition, broadening its focus to better reflect the enormous wealth of form, rhetoric, tone, and content in Auden's work. Newly included are such favorites as "Funeral Blues" and other works that represent Auden's lighter, comic side, giving a fuller picture of the range of his genius. Also new are brief notes explaining references that may have become obscure to younger generations of readers and a revised introduction that draws on recent additions to knowledge about Auden.
As in the original edition, the new "Selected Poems "makes available the preferred original versions of some thirty poems that Auden revised later in life, making it the best source for enjoying the many facets of Auden's art in one volume.

This volume contains Auden and Christopher Isherwood's dramatic extravaganzas The Dog Beneath the Skin, the Ascent of F 6, and On the Frontier. It also includes the two versions of Paid on Both Sides--which are so different as to constitute two works--and Auden's satiric revue The Dance of Death. Two plays appear in print for the first time, Auden and Isherwood's The Enemies of a Bishop and Auden's The Chase. Also included are Auden's prose and verse written for doucmentary films, a cabaret sketch, and an unpublished radio script. Many of the texts include poems by the young Auden that have never been published before. The extensive historical and textual notes trace the complex history of the production and revision of these plays, including full texts and rewritten scenes. During the years when these works were created, Auden moved from a "poetry of isolation" to more expansive and public writing. After he left Oxford at age twenty-one, during the summer of 1928, he wrote the tragicomic charade Paid on Both Sides. During the next ten years, until he left England for America, he created the increasingly ambitious works for stage, film, and broadcast that appear in this volume. The most important of these plays were written in collaboration with Isherwood. As the world political situation worsened, Isherwood and Auden's style combined the energy of popular entertainment with the urgency of sacramental ritual. Edard Mendelson is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University and the author of Early Auden (Viking). He is the editor of two volumes of Aduen's poetry, Collected Poems (Random House) and The English Auden (Random House). Originally published in 1988. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

This is the fifth volume to be published in the ongoing complete edition of Auden's works, under the editorship of Edward Mendelson. It includes the essays, reviews, and other prose that Auden published or prepared for publication between 1949 -- when he wrote his first book of criticism, The Enchafed Flood -- and December 1955, shortly before he was elected Professor of Poetry at Oxford and began the series of lectures that he published, with much else, in The Dyer's Hand. The texts throughout this edition are, wherever possible, newly edited from Auden's manuscripts, and the notes report variant readings from all published versions.

"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."

Written in the midst of World War II after its author emigrated to America, "The Sea and the Mirror" is not merely a great poem but ranks as one of the most profound interpretations of Shakespeare's final play in the twentieth century. As W. H. Auden told friends, it is "really about the Christian conception of art" and it is "my Ars Poetica, in the same way I believe "The Tempest" to be Shakespeare's." This is the first critical edition. Arthur Kirsch's introduction and notes make the poem newly accessible to readers of Auden, readers of Shakespeare, and all those interested in the relation of life and literature--those two classic themes alluded to in its title.

The poem begins in a theater after a performance of "The Tempest" has ended. It includes a moving speech in verse by Prospero bidding farewell to Ariel, a section in which the supporting characters speak in a dazzling variety of verse forms about their experiences on the island, and an extravagantly inventive section in prose that sees the uncivilized Caliban address the audience on art--an unalloyed example of what Auden's friend Oliver Sachs has called his "wild, extraordinary and demonic imagination."

Besides annotating Auden's allusions and sources (in notes after the text), Kirsch provides extensive quotations from his manuscript drafts, permitting the reader to follow the poem's genesis in Auden's imagination. This book, which incorporates for the first time previously ignored corrections that Auden made on the galleys of the first edition, also provides an unusual opportunity to see the effect of one literary genius upon another.