ABSTRACT
‘We do poetry a profound disservice if we confine it to the major experiences of life’ is a notion that might well have served as W.H. Auden’s epigraph to this new volume of verse; not only does he take his customary pains to avoid the dreaded sin of seeming ‘solemn’, he also in this book comes dangerously near to elevating a benign insignificance of subject and response into some kind of sine qua non for the really civilized poet. Being civilized is still for Mr. Auden a matter of fixing a reproving, saddened, faintly scoffing eye upon the apes, on history, on other peoples’ funny ways – and at this level his touch is as certain and surprising of old – but most of all it here requires civility; that is to say, Mr. Auden celebrates the dispassionate, hospitable virtues, keeps up discreet appearances, and aims above all to be thought not pushing, not too personal. The book’s rhetorical assumptions are those of the dinner table conversation, in mixed company (‘a foul mouth gets the cold shoulder’), and the skills it flourishes are anecdotal, learned, quaintly self-effacing.
