Final published version
Research output: Contribution in Book/Report/Proceedings - With ISBN/ISSN › Chapter
Research output: Contribution in Book/Report/Proceedings - With ISBN/ISSN › Chapter
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TY - CHAP
T1 - Auden’s prose
AU - Sharpe, Tony
PY - 2005/1/1
Y1 - 2005/1/1
N2 - A striking feature of Auden's prose is its accumulated quantity. Two volumes have appeared so far in Edward Mendelson's ongoing edition of the Complete Works, and his preface to the latest indicates that at least four will be needed to contain Auden's total output in the medium. This prediction seems amply justified. Prose vols. i and ii, at 836 and 556 pages respectively, have only reached 1948, and thus exclude much - though not all - of what was collected during Auden's lifetime in The Enchafèd Flood (1951), The Dyer's Hand (1963), Secondary Worlds (1968) and Forewords and Afterwords (1973). A Certain World (1970) must also come into the reckoning, that autobiography disguised as a commonplace book, in which Auden's own reflections intermingle with a preponderance of material drawn eclectically from other sources; and since the edition so far has included the work of his literary collaborators, the likelihood is that its subsequent volumes will contain this book, as well as the others listed above and all post-1948 prose previously uncollected. There is, then, a great deal of material: Auden's prose will constitute the largest generic component, when the edition of his Complete Works stands finally, and magnificently, completed.
AB - A striking feature of Auden's prose is its accumulated quantity. Two volumes have appeared so far in Edward Mendelson's ongoing edition of the Complete Works, and his preface to the latest indicates that at least four will be needed to contain Auden's total output in the medium. This prediction seems amply justified. Prose vols. i and ii, at 836 and 556 pages respectively, have only reached 1948, and thus exclude much - though not all - of what was collected during Auden's lifetime in The Enchafèd Flood (1951), The Dyer's Hand (1963), Secondary Worlds (1968) and Forewords and Afterwords (1973). A Certain World (1970) must also come into the reckoning, that autobiography disguised as a commonplace book, in which Auden's own reflections intermingle with a preponderance of material drawn eclectically from other sources; and since the edition so far has included the work of his literary collaborators, the likelihood is that its subsequent volumes will contain this book, as well as the others listed above and all post-1948 prose previously uncollected. There is, then, a great deal of material: Auden's prose will constitute the largest generic component, when the edition of his Complete Works stands finally, and magnificently, completed.
U2 - 10.1017/CCOL0521829623.009
DO - 10.1017/CCOL0521829623.009
M3 - Chapter
AN - SCOPUS:84928861228
SN - 9780521829625
SP - 110
EP - 122
BT - The Cambridge Companion to W. H. Auden
A2 - Smith, Stan
PB - Cambridge University Press
ER -