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Tag Archives: W.H. Auden
“Poetry in my opinion must be honest before anything else and I refuse to be ‘objective’ or clear-cut at the cost of honesty.” — Louis MacNeice
“Self-assertion more often than not is vulgar, but a live and vulgar dog who keeps on barking is better than a dead lion, however dignified.” — Louis MacNeice Born in Belfast on this day in 1907, Louis MacNeice went to … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged Belfast, Elizabeth Bishop, Hugh MacDiarmid, Ireland, Irish poetry, Louis MacNeice, Michael Schmidt, poetry, W.H. Auden
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“Tennyson’s rank is too well fixed and we love him too much.” — Oscar Wilde
He was not only a minor Virgil, he is also with Virgil as Dante saw him, a Virgil among the Shades, the saddest of all English poets. – T.S. Eliot It’s Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s birthday, born on August 6, 1809. … Continue reading
Posted in Books, James Joyce, On This Day, writers
Tagged A.S. Byatt, Camille Paglia, Dorothy Parker, Ellen Terry, England, Ezra Pound, George Orwell, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Harold Bloom, Ireland, Jeanette Winterson, L.M. Montgomery, Lord Tennyson, Matthew Arnold, Michael Schmidt, Oscar Wilde, Philip Larkin, poetry, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Ralph Waldo Emerson, T.S. Eliot, Thomas Hardy, W.H. Auden
11 Comments
“Poets, the best of them, are a very chameleonic race.” — Percy Bysshe Shelley
Drive my dead thoughts over the universe Like wither’d leaves to quicken a new birth! And, by the incantation of this verse, Scatter, as from an unextinguish’d hearth Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind! Be through my lips to … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged Camille Paglia, Dorothy Parker, England, Ernest Hemingway, Gerard Manley Hopkins, H.L. Mencken, Harold Bloom, John Keats, Lord Byron, Mary Shelley, Matthew Arnold, Michael Schmidt, Percy Bysshe Shelley, poetry, Robert Graves, T.S. Eliot, Tennessee Williams, W.B. Yeats, W.H. Auden, William Carlos Williams
14 Comments
“I do not write for the public.” — poet Gerard Manley Hopkins
“I shall shortly have some sonnets to send you, five or more. Four of these came like inspirations unbidden and against my will. And in the life I lead now, which is one of a continually jaded and harassed mind, … Continue reading
“All creative art must rise out of a specific soil and flicker with the spirit of place.” — D.H. Lawrence
“Whoever reads me will be in the thick of the scrimmage, and if he doesn’t like it – if he wants a safe seat in the audience – let him read somebody else.” — D.H. Lawrence, 1925 D.H. Lawrence was … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged Camille Paglia, D.H. Lawrence, England, H.D., Harold Bloom, Joan Didion, Michael Schmidt, poetry, Rebecca West, Robert Graves, Tennessee Williams, Thomas Hardy, W.H. Auden
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On This Day: September 1, 1939
From Newsweek: Scenes from the invasion of Poland From MSN: Friends, foes, mark WWII’s start in Poland Hitler’s speech on Sept. 1, 1939, from Berlin: To the defense forces: The Polish nation refused my efforts for a peaceful regulation of … Continue reading
Posted in On This Day
Tagged Germany, Hitler, Poland, Victor Klemperer, W.H. Auden, war, William Shirer, WWII
12 Comments
Bookshelf Tour #4
Poetry is important to me. My collection is small but each volume is loved, read, dipped into, used constantly as references. Six Centuries of Great Poetry: A Stunning Collection of Classic British Poems from Chaucer to Yeats, edited by Robert … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged bookshelves, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Ireland, Irish poetry, poetry, Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughes, W.H. Auden, William Blake
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2015 Books Read
Even I am impressed with how much I read this year. Along the course of the year, occasionally I’d think to myself, “Good job, Sheila, with your Self-Imposed Reading Plan!” I’ve read a lot of new novels (not really my … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged A.S. Byatt, Alexander Hamilton, Baseball A Literary Anthology, books read, Christopher Hitchens, Christopher Marlowe, Edvard Radzinsky, Elvis Presley, Fyodor Dostoevsky, George Eliot, Hannah Arendt, Hunter S. Thompson, Ireland, J.D. Salinger, Jeanette Winterson, Jincy Willett, Joan Didion, John Banville, John Wayne, Joshua Ferris, Lorrie Moore, Machiavelli, Margaret Atwood, Norman Rush, Patricia Highsmith, Paul Zindel, Rasputin, Rebecca West, Ron Chernow, Russia, science, Seamus Heaney, Vietnam, W.H. Auden, William Shakespeare, William Styron
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Today in history, February 21, 1907
W.H. Auden was born in York, England. Two pieces of advice for writers from Mr. Auden: To keep his errors down to a minimum, the internal Censor to whom a poet submits his work in progress should be a Censorate. … Continue reading
Posted in On This Day, writers
Tagged Christopher Hitchens, Dylan Thomas, George Orwell, Hamlet, Michael Schmidt, poetry, Seamus Heaney, Thomas Hardy, W.H. Auden, William Shakespeare
3 Comments
“Hamlet is a tragedy where there is a part left open”
Excerpt from W.H. Auden’s lecture on Hamlet, February 12, 1947, at the New School for Social Research in NYC: If a work is quite perfect, it arouses less controversy and there is less to say about it. Curiously, everyone tries … Continue reading