Lectures on Shakespeare

by Auden, W. H.

• ISBN13: 9780691102825
• ISBN10: 0691102821
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-09-09
• Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr

Summary

"W. H. Auden, poet and critic, will conduct a course on Shakespeare at the New School for Social Research beginning Wednesday. Mr. Auden has announced that in his course . . . he proposes to read all Shakespeare's plays in chronological order."The New York Timesreported this item on September 27, 1946, giving notice of a rare opportunity to hear one of the century's great poets comment on one of the greatest poets of all time. Published here for the first time, these lectures now make Auden's thoughts on Shakespeare available widely.Painstakingly reconstructed by Arthur Kirsch from the notes of students who attended, primarily Alan Ansen, who became Auden's secretary and friend, the lectures afford remarkable insights into Shakespeare's plays as well as the sonnets.A remarkable lecturer, Auden could inspire his listeners to great feats of recall and dictation. Consequently, the poet's unique voice, often down to the precise details of his phrasing, speaks clearly and eloquently throughout this volume. In these lectures, we hear Auden alluding to authors from Homer, Dante, and St. Augustine to Kierkegaard, Ibsen, and T. S. Eliot, drawing upon the full range of European literature and opera, and referring to the day's newspapers and magazines, movies and cartoons. The result is an extended instance of the "live conversation" that Auden believed criticism to be. Notably a conversation between Auden's capacious thought and the work of Shakespeare, these lectures are also a prelude to many ideas developed in Auden's later prose--a prose in which, one critic has remarked, "all the artists of the past are alive and talking among themselves."Reflecting the twentieth-century poet's lifelong engagement with the crowning masterpieces of English literature, these lectures add immeasurably to both our understanding of Auden and our appreciation of Shakespeare.

Author Biography

Arthur Kirsch, Alice Griffin Professor of English Emeritus at the University of Virginia, is the author of many books

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	vii
Introduction	ix
LECTURES
Henry VI, Parts One, Two, and Three	3	(10)
Richard III	13	(10)
The Comedy of Errors and The Two Gentlemen of Verona	23	(10)
Love's Labour's Lost	33	(11)
Romeo and Juliet	44	(9)
A Midsummer Night's Dream	53	(10)
The Taming of the Shrew, King John, and Richard II	63	(12)
The Merchant of Venice	75	(11)
Sonnets	86	(15)
Henry IV, Parts One and Two, and Henry V	101	(12)
Much Ado About Nothing	113	(11)
The Merry Wives of Windsor	124	(1)
Julius Caesar	125	(13)
As You Like It	138	(14)
Twelfth Night	152	(7)
Hamlet	159	(7)
Troilus and Cressida	166	(15)
All's Well That Ends Well	181	(4)
Measure for Measure	185	(10)
Othello	195	(13)
Macbeth	208	(11)
King Lear	219	(12)
Antony and Cleopatra	231	(12)
Coriolanus	243	(12)
Timon of Athens	255	(15)
Pericles and Cymbeline	270	(14)
The Winter's Tale	284	(12)
The Tempest	296	(12)
Concluding Lecture	308	(13)
Appendix I Auden's Saturday Discussion Classes	321	(20)
Appendix II Fall Term Final Examination	341	(6)
Appendix III Auden's Markings in Kittredge	347	(16)
Textual Notes	363	(28)
Index	391