Early Auden, Later Auden

Edward Mendelson is the literary executor of the Estate of W. H. Auden, and the Lionel Trilling Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University. His books include Moral Agents, The Things That Matter, and Lives of the New York Intellectuals.

"It's a wealth of intelligence, knowledge and insight that Mendelson ... brings to this study... With his array of interpretative tools, he solves for the first time the notorious obscurities of Auden's earliest work."--Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, New York Times "Remarkable ... Presents the poet's life and art so vividly as to illuminate the major works and bring out neglected ones."--Grace Schulman, Nation "Rich and suggestive in its generalizations, resourceful in its scholarship, and precise in its readings of Auden's work."--Paul Fussell, New Republic "Mendelson's brilliant anatomy of Auden's career as a poet and magus in America is an intellectual and artistic tour de force."--Economist "[An] astonishing critical study... An absorbing life of the poet's mind ... Exciting and provocative."--Walter Clemons, Newsweek "[Mendelson's] close readings are always meticulous and insightful, and he draws detailed connections between what Auden read and what he wrote... [S]hould be kept on the shelf right next to the Collected Poems."--Adam Kirsch, New York Observer "Could well change the map of modern poetry... A model of condensation, [it] proceeds through the huge, often neglected body of work with grace and wit."--Tom D'Evelyn, Boston Book Review

• Preface to the One-Volume Edition ix Early Auden Introduction to Early Auden 3 Part One: The Border And The Group (August 1927-May 1933) I The Exiled Word 15 II The Watershed 36 III Family Ghosts 53 IV The Evolutionary Defile 69 V Trickster and Tribe 86 VI Private Places 115 VII Looking for Land 132 Part Two: The Two Worlds (June 1933-January 1939) VIII Lucky This Point 151 IX The Great Divide 167 X The Insufficient Touch 196 XI Their Indifferent Redeemer 220 XII Parables of Action: 1 236 XIII Parables of Action: 2 257 XIV History to the Defeated 277 XV From This Island 297 Epilogue 325 Later Auden Introduction to Later Auden 329 Part One: Vision And After (1939-1947) I Demon or Gift 339 II The Vision Enters 363 III Against the Devourer 389 IV Investigating the Crime 418 V It without Image 448 VI Imaginary Saints 471 VII The Absconded Vision 495 VIII The Murderous Birth 522 IX Asking for Neighborhood 557 Part Two: The Flesh We Are (1948-1957) X The Murmurs of the Body 589 XI Waiting for a City 615 XII The Great Quell 638 XIII Number or Face 664 XIV The Altering Storm 690 Part Three: Territorial (1958-1973) XV Poet of the Encirclement 715 XVI The Air Changes 735 XVII This Time Final 755 XVIII The Concluding Carnival 783 Postscript His Secret Life 809 Notes and Index Reference Notes 821 Index 877