Issue 153

Book Review: Another Time

26th February 2007

Many non-literary fellows perhaps only really know Auden for the use of his poems in films, broadcasts and media productions, including his masterful and widely quoted poem Stop all the Clocks, featured in the 1994 film Four Weddings and a Funeral. That poem did much to increase Auden's popularity and is included in this collection. Another Time was the first volume of poetry that Auden published following his departure to America in 1939 and is dedicated to Chester Kallman, his Brooklyn lover and long-term companion.

Here, his focus is on people, places, and the intellectual climate of the times. He includes elegies on Yeats and Sigmund Freud, references to Edward Lear, A. E. Housman, and Herman Melville. He presents poems on places such as Oxford, Dover, Brussels, and the Gare du Midi.

It may be said that much of Auden's talent lies in retaining simplicity in language in order to conjure enormously powerful lines that punch you right in the heart - poems which linger in the mind making them readily available to be quoted. As Cyril Connolly noted; "Auden was for many of us the last poet we learnt by heart." From Funeral Blues; "For nothing now can ever come to any good." From September 1, 1939; "We must love one another or die."

Born in 1907, Auden devoted his career to endless experimentation and pushing his own boundaries of originality. He was a skilful, influential and undisputedly talented 20th Century poet. Divided into three seperate parts - People and Places, Lighter Poems, and Occassional Poems, Another Time offers a wider variety of tone, form and content than in previous books, demonstrating the breadth of Auden's skill.

Kate Fletcher