ABSTRACT
This chapter describes over to two of Benjamin Britten's, and Britain's, most important poets. Indeed one may say that Thomas Stearns Eliot and Wystan Hugh Auden were two of the greatest, if not the greatest, of all twentieth-century English poets. Auden was born English but, despite his middle-class background and public-school upbringing, became a naturalised American who thrived, for a time at least, in the louche bohemian atmosphere of New York. When Britten went to meet a 'schoolmaster' in Colwall (Herefordshire) on 5 July 1935 he encountered a man whose already legendary knowledge of literature was reinforced by sophisticated experience of the outside world. 'Nocturne' is an early example of Britten's interest in music of the night. 'St Narcissus' is surely Britten himself, catching a sight of himself in the mirror of death. In 1997 a solo version of 'Underneath the Abject Willow' was published, which had been previously unknown; this dates from 1941.
