[New-Poetry] Remembering Auden

[jforjames at aol.com]

http://www.christianitytoday.com/books/features/rumorsofglory/070604.html
Books & Culture, May/June 2007

RUMORS OF GLORY
Remembering Auden
And learning how to make sense of his renunciations.
By Alan Jacobs | posted 06/04/07


In 2006, as lovers of poetry became aware that the 100th anniversary of W. H. Auden's birth was coming up, some of them began to fret that the event wouldn't receive the attention it deserved. No major celebrations seemed to be forthcoming, in pronounced contrast to the festivals for John Betjeman's centenary that were going on throughout England in the second half of 2006. The BBC gave Betjeman a whole month of festivities, and wasn't Auden a much greater poet, worthy of far more honor?


Yes, but … Betjeman was an enormously popular and beloved poet in England. (Almost the only person who didn't love him was his tutor at Oxford, a young don named C. S. Lewis—not yet a Christian, by the way—who told his diary "I wish I could get rid of the idle prig," and later wrote his pupil a letter which began


________________________________________________________________________
AOL now offers free email to everyone.  Find out more about what's free from AOL at AOL.com.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/pipermail/new-poetry/attachments/20070606/85d60d97/attachment.html