Thank you, Roger. Interesting to read a much more
plausible account than mine, though these anecdotes
are not necessarily mutually exclusive. What a
desparate man Auden seems to have been!
Candice
He's not the kind of wheel
You fall asleep at
(Tom Waits)
--- Roger Day <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> According to the wiki:
>
> "It has been suggested that W.H. Auden's poorly
> received (yet
> bestselling) translation to 1961 Peace Prize winner
> Dag Hammarskjöld's
> Vägmärken ("Markings"), coupled with statements made
> by Auden during a
> Scandinavian lecture tour suggesting that
> Hammarskjöld was homosexual
> (as was Auden), put paid to Auden's chances of
> receiving the prize."
>
> On 2/9/07, MC Ward <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> > I heard--many years ago, and probably
> apocryphal--that
> > Auden left the States and returned to England
> because
> > he became convinced that he'd never win the Nobel
> > Prize as long as he lived in America (poor sod).
> >
> >
> >
> > --- Roger Day <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> >
> > > I dimly recall Mendelson saying that Auden *did
> > > repudiate his younger
> > > self, reverting to toryism and christianity. I
> think
> > > the dildo in
> > > question vanished out of prudishness. Defrocked
> > > vicar he was
> > > apparently.
> > >
> > > I still like 1st September 1939: I wonder, did
> he
> > > write anything as
> > > good after? I wonder if that first verse is the
> > > beginning of his
> > > repudiation?
> > >
> > > Roger
> > >
> > > On 1/24/07, Robin Hamilton
> > > <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> > > > >I just knew you wouldn't be able to resist
> > > mentioning the Amazing Vanishing
> > > > >Dildo.
> > > >
> > > > Well, natch!
> > > >
> > > > > But seriously, why did Auden cut his earlier
> > > poems like that, to what is
> > > > > very often their detriment? Can he really
> have
> > > felt so insecure?
> > > > >
> > > > > joanna
> > > >
> > > > The reasons he gives (I couch it in those
> words)
> > > were that he had become
> > > > unhappy with the moral implications of some of
> the
> > > statements in "Spain" and
> > > > "September 1939" -- the "necessary murder",
> for
> > > instance. But the result is
> > > > to abolish the problems that the poems
> > > uncomfortably raise -- as with the
> > > > excision of the Kipling/Claudel lines in the
> Yeats
> > > Elegy.
> > > >
> > > > I don't think it's *directly political, except
> > > perhaps with regard to
> > > > "Spain", though it's certainly bound up with
> his
> > > shift of attitude in this
> > > > area that Roger pointed to in an earlier post.
> > > Maybe it was just that he
> > > > became increasingly gaga the longer he was in
> > > America, mushing his brain
> > > > with uppers and downers, or through the
> > > involvement with Chester Kalmann.
> > > >
> > > > Auden repudiating his younger self?
> > > >
> > > > I couldn't work out just when the Claudel bit
> was
> > > cut, whether before or
> > > > after the first book publication in 1940.
> It'll
> > > be in Mendelsohn's
> > > > biography or notes somewhere, no doubt, but he
> > > tends to scatter information
> > > > across at least three books, in order to make
> > > people or libraries have to
> > > > buy them all.
> > > >
> > > > The Dildo is a different issue, linking to the
> > > (re)titling of "Easily, my
> > > > dear, easily you move your head". The
> "Platonic
> > > Blow" still doesn't appear
> > > > in any of the various official volumes, though
> I
> > > think Mendelson does
> > > > gingerly mention it in the biography. Be
> > > interesting to see if it's allowed
> > > > into the on-going Complete Works. If they
> ever
> > > reach the poems.
> > > >
> > > > Robin
> > > >
> > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > http://www.badstep.net/
> > > "Patriotism is a virtue of the vicious."
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
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> >
>
>
> --
> http://www.badstep.net/
> "Patriotism is a virtue of the vicious."
>
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