Review by Choice Review
In 1946-47, the 39-year-old Auden, already a major poet, gave a series of lectures on Shakespeare at New York's New School for Social Research, covering all but one (Titus Andronicus) of Shakespeare's plays. Some 50 years later, Kirsch (Univ. of Virginia), using the notes of Alan Ansen and three others who attended Auden's classes, has reconstructed those lectures along with notes from the discussion classes and the fall term final exam. Auden's quick and reflective mind is everywhere apparent in these essays, which speak knowledgeably and plainly about genre, structure, character, and verse. Auden finds parallels and comparisons in philosophy, mythology, psychology, and literature, admirably distilling and extending Shakespeare's own creative powers. Through his insightful, often arresting comments on love, friendship, forgiveness, transformation, villainy, justice, responsibility, authority, and other life-defining concepts, Auden generates a template that teaches as much about experience as it does about Shakespeare's plays. Reconstructing Auden's lectures was no easy task, yet Kirsch managed to turn what could have looked like a patchwork collaboration into an attractive record of Auden's authentic voice. Readers will be grateful for access to the wisdom of an especially astute poet who clearly knew Shakespeare. All collections. J. Schlueter Lafayette College
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Given in 1946 at Manhattan's New School for Social Research, Auden's casually erudite, somewhat idiosyncratic lectures on Shakespeare's plays and sonnets may have been lost in manuscript but were not lost on members of his audience, several of whom took detailed enough notes for U.Va. Shakespeare scholar Kirsch to reconstruct the talks. Having already taught Shakespeare at several other American colleges and universities, Auden treats the plays with considerable familiarity, cutting down their characters to human size, sometimes even gossiping about them. This approach works better with the comedies, histories and "problem plays" than with the tragedies, which Auden generally finds less satisfying. "It is embarrassing to talk for an hour or an hour and half about great masterpieces," he complains before his self-assured lecture on the dramatic difficulties of King LearÄa work he considers "perfectly easy to understand." In a sense, the detached formalist in Auden is most in tune with the late romances, since these have the most distilled characterizations, simplified plots and technical mastery of verse. Ultimately, when a poet of Auden's rank takes on a subject as lofty as Shakespeare, there are just as many revelations about the former's preoccupations as insights into the latter. Auden's references to T.S. Eliot, Kierkegaard and Mozart uncover more about his own interests in Christianity and opera than Shakespeare's themes and language. Such digressive allusions didn't reduce these accessible lectures' popularity in their time, nor will they now that Auden's survey of the Bard has been recovered and translated into book form. (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Lectures on Shakespeare delivered by British poet and critic Auden in 1946 at the New School for Social Research in New York, carefully reconstructed by Kirsch from students notes. While Auden provides a thorough scholarly interpretation of Shakespeares works in chronological order, he also takes every opportunity to discuss them in a much broader historical and cultural context. He shares his impressions of American society, draws parallels between Richard III and Hitler, and quotes profusely from a wide range of writers and philosophers (including Dante, Eliot, and Kierkegaard). The Merchant of Venice provokes his evaluation of Elizabethan anti-Semitism (which, according to Auden, was less racial than xenophobic). In connection with As You Like It, Auden speaks of pastoral conventions, drawing on Hesiod, Virgil, Rousseau, and contemporary literary theory. He does not hesitate to voice extremely critical opinions: He declares The Taming of the Shrew a complete failure, dismisses Twelfth Night as an unpleasant play, and declares The Merry Wives of Windsor to be dull (proposing that his students listen to Verdis Falstaff rather than read the play that inspired it). Auden also finds fault with Hamlet: He believes that Hamlets boredom compels him to act theatrically, and he suggests that the play was written out of spite against actors. However, as Auden repeatedly emphasizes, only minor poets are always technically perfect, because they always tread upon familiar ground. The true genius, who explores new forms of expression as a matter of course, inevitably risks failure. Shakespeare received his training with chronicle plays, and he drew important lessons from history concerning the interdependence of characters and situations. He withstood the test of artistic freedom, creating his plays against the ill-defined and amorphous conventions of Elizabethan drama. And, most important of all, his themes are so universal that his plays can appeal to general audiences even today. Overcoming the temptation to create his own Shakespeare, Auden penetrates to the very core of Shakespeares originality, expressing himself in crystalline analytical prose.
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