The Dyer's Hand

by W.H. Auden

In the early 1950s Auden began planning a prose volume that would bring together some of his published essays, lectures, and reviews, together with newly-written notes and aphorisms. In 1956 he was elected Professor of Poetry at Oxford, and The Dyer's Hand appeared in 1962, combining earlier material with revised versions of many of his Oxford lectures: 'Making, Knowing and Judging,' 'The Prince's Dog,' 'Brothers & Others', 'The Joker in the Pack', 'D. H. Lawrence,' 'Marianne Moore,' 'Robert Frost,' 'Byron's Don Juan, 'Dingley Dell & The Fleet,' 'Genius & Apostle', 'Translating Opera Libretti', and 'Music in Shakespeare'. The result is one of Auden's most original works, his only book of prose devised as a single cohesive work about disparate subjects, and containing - as he remarked at the time - 'all the autobiography I am willing to make public'.

'Speaking for myself, the questions which interest me most when reading a poem are two. The first is technical: "Here is a verbal contraption. How does it work?" The second is, in the broadest sense, moral: "What kind of a guy inhabits this poem? What is his notion of the good life or the good place? His notion of the Evil One? What does he conceal from the reader? What does he conceal even from himself?" - W. H. Auden (inaugural lecture as Professor of Poetry at Oxford, June 1956)

'For something comparable to The Dyer's Hand in range and intensity of commitment, and for its inspired mingling of grandeur and informality, one would have to go back to Coleridge's Biographia Literaria.' Sunday Times

The present edition is based on the text in W. H. Auden, Prose, Volume IV, 1956-1962 (2010) edited by Edward Mendelson, which includes minor corrections that Auden made after The Dyer's Hand was first published.

Genres: Essays, Poetry, Nonfiction, Criticism, Literary Criticism, Classics, Art

384 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1962

About the author

Poems, published in such collections as Look, Stranger! (1936) and The Shield of Achilles (1955), established importance of British-American writer and critic Wystan Hugh Auden in 20th-century literature.

In and near Birmingham, he developed in a professional middle-class family. He attended English independent schools and studied at Christ church, Oxford. From 1927, Auden and Christopher Isherwood maintained a lasting but intermittent sexual friendship despite briefer but more intense relations with other men. Auden passed a few months in Berlin in 1928 and 1929.

He then spent five years from 1930 to 1935, teaching in English schools and then traveled to Iceland and China for books about his journeys. People noted stylistic and technical achievement, engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and variety in tone, form and content. He came to wide attention at the age of 23 years in 1930 with his first book, Poems ; The Orators followed in 1932.

Three plays in collaboration with Christopher Isherwood in 1935 to 1938 built his reputation in a left-wing politics.

People best know this Anglo for love such as "Funeral Blues," for political and social themes, such as "September 1, 1939," for culture and psychology, such as The Age of Anxiety , and for religion, such as For the Time Being and "Horae Canonicae." In 1939, partly to escape a liberal reputation, Auden moved to the United States. Auden and Christopher Isherwood maintained a lasting but intermittent sexual friendship to 1939. In 1939, Auden fell in lust with Chester Kallman and regarded their relation as a marriage.

From 1941, Auden taught in universities. This relationship ended in 1941, when Chester Kallman refused to accept the faithful relation that Auden demanded, but the two maintained their friendship.

Auden taught in universities through 1945. His work, including the long For the Time Being and The Sea and the Mirror , in the 1940s focused on religious themes. He attained citizenship in 1946.

The title of his long The Age of Anxiety , a popular phrase, described the modern era; it won him the Pulitzer Prize in 1947. From 1947, he wintered in New York and summered in Ischia. From 1947, Auden and Chester Kallman lived in the same house or apartment in a non-sexual relation and often collaborated on opera libretti, such as The Rake's Progress for music of Igor Stravinsky until death of Auden.

Occasional visiting professorships followed in the 1950s. From 1956, he served as professor at Oxford. He wintered in New York and summered in Ischia through 1957. From 1958, he wintered usually in New York and summered in Kirchstetten, Austria.

He served as professor at Oxford to 1961; his popular lectures with students and faculty served as the basis of his prose The Dyer's Hand in 1962.

Auden, a prolific prose essayist, reviewed political, psychological and religious subjects, and worked at various times on documentary films, plays, and other forms of performance. Throughout his controversial and influential career, views on his work ranged from sharply dismissive, treating him as a lesser follower of William Butler Yeats and T.S. Eliot, to strongly affirmative, as claim of Joseph Brodsky of his "greatest mind of the twentieth century."

He wintered in Oxford in 1972/1973 and summered in Kirchstetten, Austria, until the end of his life.

After his death, films, broadcasts, and popular media enabled people to know and ton note much more widely "Funeral Blues," "Musée des Beaux Arts," "Refugee Blues," "The Unknown Citizen," and "September 1, 1939," t

Reviews

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a completely strange & engrossing collection of essays. They are (so far) a little bit aphoristic and very certain of themselves, in which Auden stands on his soapbox and tells it as he sees it. Oddly enough, I find myself completely charmed by this mild ego-mania and actually agree with him most of the time. Some of his thoughts on the writer's life are pretty hilarious:

"But if a stranger in the train asks me my occupation, I never answer 'writer' for fear that he may go on to ask me what I write, and to answer 'poetry' would embarrass us both, for we both know that nobody can earn a living simply by writing poetry. (The most satisfactory answer I have discovered, satisfactory because it withers curiosity, is to say Medieval Historian.)

"In our age, if a young person is untalented, the odds are in favor of his imagining he wants to write."

And I love his proposed curriculum at the imaginary College of Bards, which includes the expected foreign language requirements, but also memorizing thousands of lines of poetry, writing parodies of poems instead of literary criticism, and a requirement to look after a pet and cultivate a garden!

He also has more serious & apt insights into poem-making:

"[The poet] will never be able to say: 'Tomorrow I will write a poem and, thanks to my training and experience, I already know I shall do a good job.' In the eyes of others a man is a poet if he has written one good poem. In his own he is only a poet at the moment when he is making his last revision to a new poem. The moment, before, he was still only a potential poet; the moment after, he is a man who has ceased to write poetry, perhaps forever."

[Harper Curtis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great. Great. Great.

At the end of his essay on Frost, Auden declares that of Hardy, Yeats and Frost (who all wrote epitaphs for themselves), Frost has the best. I have to agree Auden but who knew it was a contest?

Here are the epitaphs:

Hardy
I never cared for life, life cared for me.
And hence I owe it some fidelity...

Yeats
Cast a cold eye
On life and death.
Horseman, pass by.

Frost
I would have written of me on my stone
I had a lover's quarrel with the world.

[Jonfaith · Rating 4 out of 5]

When someone between twenty and forty says, apropos of a work of art, 'I know what I like,' he is really saying 'I have no taste of my own but accept the taste of my cultural milieu.

This is a challenging collection to rate, given both the scope and the intense personality which the poet places within his essays. There are certainly times when his reasoning and prose simply shimmers: see his pieces on Kafka, Nathanael West or D.H. Lawrence. Likewise he speaks with authority about the Bard but when asked about the dimensions of poetry itself Auden invites discord by speaking as the divine itself, one embroiled in the Edenic naming and issuing edicts for all to covet--and obey.

[Maurizio Manco · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Talvolta trovo un libro che mi sembra sia stato scritto per me e per me soltanto. Come un amante geloso, non voglio che nessun altro ne abbia notizia. Ebbene, avere un milione di lettori simili, ciascuno ignaro dell'esistenza degli altri, che ti leggano con passione e non ne parlino mai, è senza alcun dubbio il sogno ad occhi aperti di ogni scrittore." (p. 25)

"Il poeta è il padre del suo poema; madre ne è la lingua." (p. 36)

[Àlvar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ultimately compelling. Funny, beautifully written, diverse, sharp and to my joy so self-assured in tone they sometimes read as if containing the objective truth on all things social and literary.

I think the essence of this collection lies in its first two chapters, namely the Prologue and The Dyer's Hand as a great poet's thoughts on poetry itself and its instruction. The rest of them are near-philosophical and strongly-opinionated dabbles into specific aspects of art that, whereas equally pleasing and insightful are somewhat tied to a reader's interest in the subject at hand; chapters four and eight in particular require one to be at least partially keen on and knowledgeable about Shakespearean drama and opera to be enjoyed thoroughly.

Extremely glad to have this be my second pick of Auden's writings after finishing his F&F Collected Shorter Poems. These essays delve into the matured inner logic that brought his wits into tangible fruition and escort his lyrics beautifully; every second reader of poetry should find a valuable read in at least some of them.

[David Sogge · Rating 4 out of 5]

Auden’s erudition and strong opinions, in pithy prose, give these essays and lectures panache and energy. When reading his commentaries on Shakespeare, his analysis of detective novels, his piece on Cervantes or his comparisons of British and American poets, we know that we're being addressed by a virtuoso. His take on D.H. Lawrence, for example, brought out that writer’s many gifts, and cringeworthy inadequacies, with brilliance and brevity. However, when Auden departs his well-surveyed literary turf and strays into social psychology, making remarks like “The average American is a stoic, and… far more reticent than the average Englishman” then his authority evaporates. Still, the essays on drama, poetry and Italian opera (despite his condesension to Puccini as a “lesser figure”) leave me full of awe. Chances are I'll come for a second reading.

[michal k-c · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s so enjoyable to read and flows so nicely that it’s easy to miss that a lot of this is kind of English lit 101 level criticism. Some of it I just flat out disagreed with, and the burden of evidence for lit crit can be so wishy washy that I can’t necessarily say that Auden is wrong per se (except on the topic of soviets probably not understanding Dickens). But Auden is such a skilled interlocutor that basically anything he could’ve said would be entertaining. Great chapters on Nathaniel West and DH Lawrence, plenty of standard Shakespeare scholarship

[Οδυσσέας Μουζίλης · Rating 5 out of 5]

Φλουρί καραντινάτο :p

https://pepperlines.blogspot.com/2020...

[Boy Blue · Rating 4 out of 5]

June: Big Bopper #6 of 12

Auden talks from on high, like the poetic deity that he is. On matters of poetry there's few people I'd trust more but he also pontificates on matters across the arts and at times it can become dry and tasteless like a communion wafer. His prose oscillates between exceptionally broad generalisations to deeply researched factual comments. On poetry he has no equal.

"The Poet who writes free verse is like Robinson Crusoe on his desert island: he must do all his cooking, laundry and darning for himself. In a few exceptional cases, this manly independence produces something original and impressive, but more often the result is squalor - dirty sheets on the unmade bed and empty bottles on the unswept floor."

"In modern societies where language is continually being debased and reduced to nonspeech, the poet is in constant danger of having his ear corrupted, a danger to which the painter and the composer, whose media are their private property, are not exposed. On the other hand he is more protected than they from another modern peril, that of solipsist subjectivity; however esoteric a poem may be, the fact that all its words have meanings which can be looked up in a dictionary makes it testify to the existence of other people. Even the language of Finnegans Wake was not created by Joyce ex nihilo; a purely private verbal world is not possible."

The poet will never be able to say: “Tomorrow I will write a poem and, thanks to my training and experience, I already know I shall do a good job.” In the eyes of others a man is a poet if he has written one good poem. In his own he is only a poet at the moment when he is making his last revision to a new poem. The moment before, he was still only a potential poet: the moment after, he is a man who has ceased to write poetry, perhaps for ever.

A poem is a rite; hence its formal and ritualistic character. Its use of language is deliberately and ostentatiously different from talk. Even when it employs the diction and rhythms of conversation, it employs them as a deliberate informality, presupposing the norm with which they are intended to contrast.

The form of a rite must be beautiful, exhibiting, for example, balance, closure, and aptness to that which it is the form of. It is over this last quality of aptness that most of our aesthetic quarrels arise, and must arise, whenever our sacred and profane worlds differ.

The above quotes were taken from his inaugural acceptance speech when he was given the chair of poetry at Oxford University and from other previous lectures and musings.

All of Auden's critiques and observations are delivered with authority and very little room for debate. The essays are definitely best when dealing with the poetic form and if it's poetry you're here for just stick to the front of the book. In fact the book should absolutely not be read from front to back in sequential order. Really you should dip in when an essay is relevant to the other things you're doing. Insisting on finishing it all in order is much like insisting you finish a jar of pickled onions all in one go.

Auden does have a considerable sense of humour, the sort you'd expect from an Oxford don.

"But if a stranger in the train asks me my occupation, I never answer 'writer' for fear that he may go on to ask me what I write, and to answer 'poetry' would embarrass us both, for we both know that nobody can earn a living simply by writing poetry. (The most satisfactory answer I have discovered, satisfactory because it withers curiosity, is to say Medieval Historian.)

"In our age, if a young person is untalented, the odds are in favor of his imagining he wants to write."

I often come across observations from him on poetic form which are just so vivid and clear. Many of them are in this book but he's said so much that a lot didn't make it. Simple observations like the below show how much of a genius he was.

"For myself I find that Shakespeare’s greatest influence has been his use of a large vocabulary. One thing that makes English so marvelous for poetry is its great range and the fact that it is an uninflected language. One can turn verbs into nouns and vice versa, as Shakespeare did. One cannot do this with inflected languages such as German, French, Italian."

Or his simple observations of various Shakespearean characters:

In Falstaff's world, the only value standard is importance, that is to say, all he demands from others is attention, all he fears is being ignored. Whether others applaud or hiss does not matter; what matters is the volume of the hissing or the applause.

In consequence, Richard II is a weak ruler who cannot keep the great nobles in order or even command the loyalty of his soldiers, and weakness in a ruler is the worst defect of all. A cruel, even an unjust king, who is strong, is preferable to the most saintly weakling because most men will behave unjustly if they discover that they can with impunity; tyranny, the injustice of one, is less unjust than anarchy, the injustice of many.

The assumed knowledge of reading this collection is not just all of Shakespeare's work and much of English literature. But ideally you should have a decent command of French, German, a bit of Italian and of course Latin. There are plenty of passages which remain untranslated. In fact one wonders whether Auden expects his audience to be students of his proposed bard college for which he has written a curriculum

In my daydream College for Bards, the curriculum would be as follows:

1) In addition to English, at least one ancient language, probably Greek or Hebrew, and two modern languages would be required.

2) Thousands of lines of poetry in these languages would be learned by heart.

3) The library would contain no books of literary criticism, and the only critical exercise required of students would be the writing of parodies.

4) Courses in prosody, rhetoric and comparative philology would be required of all students, and every student would have to select three courses out of courses in mathematics, natural history, geology, meteorology, archaeology, mythology, liturgics, cooking.

5) Every student would be required to look after a domestic animal and cultivate a garden plot.

He writes wonderfully about D.H. Lawrence, enough to make you want to read his entire oeuvre. But the part from the Lawrence section that got the biggest laugh out of me was after 300 pages of poetical polemic we get this from Auden:

Very few statements which poets make about poetry, even when they appear to be quite lucid, are understandable except in their polemic context. To understand them we need to know what they are directed against, what the poet who made them considered the principal enemies of genuine poetry.

From my perspective I've just read 300 pages of Auden firing broadside after broadside with no real context. But I guess that's because this is a compilation of work drawn from quite a few decades.

I'd also be very interested to hear what Americans thought of his characterisations of them (he lived among them in later life), I think this is very, very apt for Australia.

Democracy is the best form of government, not because men will necessarily lead better or happier lives under it, but because it permits constant experiment; a given experiment may fail but the people have a right to make their own mistakes. America has always been a country of amateurs where the professional, that is to say, the man who claims authority as a member of an elite which knows the law in some field or other, is an object of distrust and resentment.

Auden is brilliant, of that there can be no doubt but there are times when this brilliance strays too far over the line of funny to just straight up arrogance. This is from an interview in the Paris Review, clearly Auden is tongue in cheek but there's also an element of daring the interviewer to challenge him.

AUDEN: What’s that again?

INTERVIEWER: I wondered which living writer you would say has served as the prime protector of the integrity of our English tongue . . . ?

AUDEN: Why, me, of course!

The Dyer's Hand has some of the best literary critique I've ever read but it also has some dreadfully dull and quite laboured sections. Pick and choose which essays you go with.

[Connie · Rating 5 out of 5]

"In literature, vulgarity is preferable to nullity, just as grocer’s port is preferable to distilled water.
Good taste is much more a matter of discrimination than of exclusion, and when good taste feels compelled to exclude, it is with regret, not with pleasure.
Pleasure is by no means an infallible critical guide, but it is the least fallible.
A child’s reading is guided by pleasure, but his pleasure is undifferentiated; he cannot distinguish, for example, between aesthetic pleasure and the pleasures of learning or daydreaming. In adolescence we realize that there are different kinds of pleasure, some of which cannot be enjoyed simultaneously, but we need help from others in defining them. Whether it be a matter of taste in food or taste in literature, the adolescent looks for a mentor in whose authority he can believe. He eats or reads what his mentor recommends and, inevitably, there are occasions when he has to deceive himself a little; he has to pretend that he enjoys olives or War and Peace a little more than he actually does. Between the ages of twenty and forty we are engaged in the process of discovering who we are, which involves learning the difference between accidental limitation which it is our duty to outgrow and the necessary limitations of our nature beyond which we cannot trespass with impunity. Few of us can learn this without making mistakes, without trying to become a little more of a universal man than we are permitted to be. It is during this period that a writer can most easily be led astray by another writer or by some ideology. When someone between twenty and forty says, apropos of a work of art, “I know what I like,” he is really saying “I have no taste of my own but accept the taste of my cultural milieu,” because, between twenty and forty, the surest sign that a man has a genuine taste of his own is that he is uncertain of it. After forty, if we have not lost our authentic selves altogether, pleasure can again become what it was when we were children, the proper guide to what we should read."

[Malini Sridharan · Rating 4 out of 5]

To use his own terms, Auden is often a bore but rarely boring. He is kind of priggish and the topics he discusses are pretty staid, but I liked most of what he had to say. Most sections are liberally seeded with bon mots, some broken down to a series of sometimes funny, sometimes insightful "notes" for an essay. I laughed quite a bit while reading, which I did not expect.

I should also say that this is almost EXACTLY what I thought Auden would sound like after reading Spender's World Within World.

[Sammy · Rating 5 out of 5]

It would seem churlish to give this 4 stars, even though the essays rather trail off toward the end. A masterpiece of thought from one of the century's greatest writers, but whose cultural context and intellect are slowly - I believe - damning him to that particular obscurity known as the literary giant: much applauded, little read. What will people know of Auden by the time I am an old man? I often wonder.

[Adelaide Mcginnity · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic collection of essays that demonstrate Auden's skill at writing the profound in a way that is easily accessible to the learned, but non-academic reader. Oh, if only modern literary criticism could have taken after Auden instead of Derrida!

[ZIXI KOU · Rating 5 out of 5]

很独出心裁的文论创作方式。奥登几乎不说教。只是以田园牧歌式的笔触将自己的观点无隔阂地传递给读者。读到这样的文集就像在跋涉山谷时遇到一根结实的绳子，能够庇护读者在文学路上继续行进

[Shuchi · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an eight-part book with a decent foreword that are all well-written in the sense that the language is accessible and interesting, so the differences come down to content and perspective. Some parts I liked, like the Well of Narcissus, Two Bestiaries, and the Prologue. Some parts I was mixed about like the Dyer's Hand, and Americana. Some parts I did not like, such as the Shakespearean City.

Largely, I found value in his statements about pure craft, about writers, readers, critics, translators, etc made more sense to me, including his takes about amateur poets in the Dyer's Hand essays although those need to be read carefully and contextualized otherwise they can seem off-putting. I did come away with a respect or notion that he can appreciate the surreal even while operating in the real, that he understands how power and politics work (reflected here with subtlety), and that he is invested in psychoanalysis which was evolving and increasingly part of the literary landscape when he was maturing (although I don't know enough about DHLawrence right now to know how I will feel about the psychoanalysis down the line).

Those strengths alone, and the way they manifest in the book, make me feel that if someone like him were born and operating in today's day and age, they would continue to be interesting. Auden was a great poet and he is a good essay-writer; the two crafts go hand in hand surprisingly often. There are some lovely lines in here, like:

A daydream is a meal at which images are eaten. Some of us are gourmets, some gourmands, and a good many take their images precooked out of a can and swallow them down whole, absent-mindedly, and with little relish.

Often what I didn't like were his characterizations, and sometimes his notes on craft also reflected a flat male-centric view and an emotionally restricted one -- his arguments about male characters too often felt emotionally false or shallow. I like that he says in his Prologue that the criticisms of a writer should always be taken with a grain of salt, like a conversation happening out loud with himself about his own creative projects, because I did not like/agree with his psychological and emotional takes at all. Judge for yourself from this fragment (from the Shield of Perseus segment), I suppose:

It is not too fanciful, I believe, to think of laboring as a neuter activity, doing as masculine, and making as feminine. All fabrication is an imitation of motherhood and, whenever we have information about the childhood of an artist, it reveals a closer bond with his mother than with his father... In their games together, it is the son who takes the initiative and the mother who seems the younger, adoring child.

[Garden Utensil]

read a chunk of the opening -- pleasant -- uplifting.
but overall the observations don't really stick, although often agreed with.
thinking about the writer as someone who accumulates knowledge/insight/wisdom over many years, some discussion of blank verse vs rhyme & claims that blank verse is deceptive and more difficult to do well. ultimately, all claims come from his own intuitive experience of writing, so either you agree or disagree.

[Daniel Klawitter · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Whatever its actual content and overt interest, every poem is rooted in imaginative awe. Poetry can do a hundred and one things, delight, sadden, disturb, amuse, instruct--it may express every possible shade of emotion, and describe every conceivable kind of event, but there is only one thing that all poetry must do; it must praise all it can for being and for happening."

[TheyreTakingTheHobbitsToIsengard · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a comprehensive and cogent collection of essays describing Auden’s writing and moral philosophies. Although his topics are as wide-ranging as his knowledge of literature, Audens finds common themes in all in an attempt to describe what makes both good literature and good human beings. He does so with both dead seriousness and humor. For example, Auden suggests that any formal writing program require students to not only keep a garden but a pet to keep them “grounded.” Likewise, as a practicing Catholic who was both open about his religion but not a proselytizing sledge hammer, he makes a strong case that a religious framework is critical for both good literature and a good life. Literature and human beings that refuse to honestly address the Big Questions are merely beating around the bush.

There are few writers with such a broad breadth and depth of knowledge as Auden. Auden brings to bear his deep knowledge of literature to write a sweeping critique of human culture, psychology, politics, and prose. His intimate knowledge of Shakespeare and other literary and mythological characters helps him find common psychological and religious themes across centuries, including the literature current in his time, the early to mid 20th century. He shares personal anecdotes including his preference for formal verse, feeling that free verse is “too difficult” for him. A reading of Beowulf from none other than J.R.R. Tolkein himself left Auden spellbound and realizing “This poetry was going to be my dish.”

Although printed in 1962, his observations still ring true today. Online social media, for example, is not a real community because people participating in it do not have a real idea of themselves; they create a fantastic identity and live in that fantasy while online. Auden made a shocking comparison with Iago from Othello as a “practical joker,” and his description of him as a “nullility,” who has “no real desire of his own” who manipulates others’ weaknesses. Auden’s detailed description of the “Joker in the Pack” makes you wonder if the creators of the Batman comic strip based the “Joker” character one this. Director Christopher Nolan’s Joker is an example of this manipulative nihilism. In the chapter “West’s Disease” he takes up contemporary writer Nathanael West (who, incidentally, created the first Homer Simpson) and makes a compelling case distinguishing wishes from desires. West has “a disease of consciousness which renders it incapable of converting wishes into desires.” Everyone makes wishes, but it’s the job of the consciousness to convert it into a desire on which one can act. For West’s characters, the infamous Homer Simpson being one of them (who is absolutely nothing like the cartoon, by the way) the root of this problem is a refusal to be who they are. Living this way dooms a human to a “peculiar and horrid fate” because they cannot, in fact, desire or believe anything. Auden takes up examples of characters who only live on wishes; Faust, for example, “only wishes to be someone else,” with Mephisto the “manifestation of possibility without actuality.” He finds parallels with Tristan and Isolde, an ancient story that’s commonly misunderstood. This is a couple who are merely “in love with love” and not with the actual other person. Idolatry is when we give something else power over us so that it will be responsible for us and not ourselves. Is that, in fact, what folks have done with money and possessions in our post-capitalist society?

There are many great quotes as well: “People write not to cheat death but to be resurrected.” “A sacred being cannot be anticipated, it must be encountered.” “Without art we could have no notion of the sacred, without science we should always worship false gods.” “Idols are that which we make responsible for our existence so we don’t have responsibility for ourselves.” “The psychological condition of being ‘in love’ is incompatible with a sustained historical relationship like marriage.” All others, writers like himself included, are gratuitous. In regard to musicals, “singing may be out of place but not out of character.” He makes some wry observations about cannibalism among shipwrecked sailors in Don Juan; if they’d only grown up in the habit of only eating vegetables, they would never have considered “washing Pedrillo down with salt water.” In some passages it’s hard to distinguish if he’s being cheeky or serious; in his opinion the only 2 essential workers in society are the priest and the laborer. If a good life requires meaning and good food to eat, he has a point.

Auden performs psychoanalysis on Shakespearean, mythological, and Biblical characters, relating them to aspects of our own personalities and life choices. “We were all Fallstaffs” and of the Troll King’s offer to Peer Grynt, to “surrender his humanity so that he can no longer lie, because he cannot distinguish between fact or fiction, that he will never do.” He even discusses how animals cannot be tempted because they “can’t imagine things other than what they are,” whereas humans can. The mythical Don Juan is a “defiant atheist” because he must absolutely renounce love, whereas Byron’s Don Juan is anything but. I could go on. The genius of this book is that it would fit well in both a graduate level course in both English and psychology.

[Lika_k · Rating 5 out of 5]

Auden is not only one of the greatest poets of the twentieth century, but also one of the greatest minds. His vision of poetry, culture, music, literature and literary criticism, social studies and anything else is always fascinating. He makes you look on everything from some unexpected angle.

[Simran Sherya · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is pensive, crafty and skilful! You cannot skip it and you will have to read it completely to understand the philosophy of the poet.

[Sydney · Rating 4 out of 5]

forever, and unapologetically, an Auden fangirl

[Ciahnan Darrell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quick, varied, by turns illuminating and entertaining.

[HD]

His tone and personality are so unmatched in the essay form...Like this is my best friend...

[dee · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was another difficult and boring read for me... and another for university. Auden's 'The Dyer's Hand' consists of multiple essays that practically expose his alter-egos and present his mental debates onto paper. In addition to that, the poet often writes as if all the late lyricists and poets will awaken from the dead and read his work, as if they understand - which they most likely will.

I enjoyed the subtle jokes and humorous statements included in the essays, they made the reading process a lot easier for me, and made it easier for me to understand and agree with Auden. Usually, when reading essays about writing and egos, I often get bored as the writer simply writes in a formal manner that mimics university lectures. It was refreshing to engage with a text that knew how to entertain and inform its readers.

Regardless, it was still an informative piece as it provided me with multiple reasons to indulge and pursue creative writing and all the opportunities that come with such a skill. I learned from Auden all the different ways to present a compelling argument, without boring an audience to death.

[Bethany · Rating 5 out of 5]

Auden's collection of essays displays a keen insight into literature garnished by wit and creative interpretation. I particularly enjoyed his essay on Shakespeare's "Henry IV," "The Prince's Dog" which discussed at length the character of Falstaff, examining why he is an audience favorite and why his absence becomes necessary in Henry V. Also noteworthy was his essay on the character of Iago, "The Joker in the Pack," which discussed the parallels between Shakespearean villainy and the practical joker: the desire to create havoc with no motivation.

[Anthony · Rating 3 out of 5]

collected essays of auden; some inspired, some not so much. in the first essay, auden teaches you how to read, presumably so that you can read the rest of his essays properly, because "as readers, most of us, to some degree, are like those urchins who pencil mustaches on the faces of girls in advertisements." well, auden, i tried to read your book on my best behavior but i confess i doodled lips kissing a butt all over your essay on robert frost.

[Charlie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found myself transcribing long passages of Auden into my journal. His method of cutting through the noise of culture should be illuminating for any thinker or writer. For example: “What the mass media offers is not popular art, but entertainment which is intended to be consumed like food, forgotten, and replaced by a new dish.” He can fill any poet with a volatile combination of doubt and purpose.

[Paola]

parte prima: prologo
- leggere
- scrivere

parte seconda: la mano del tintore:
- fare, conoscere, giudicare
- la vergine e la dinamo
- il poeta e la "polis"

parte terza: la fonte di narciso
- "hic et ille"
- balaam e la sua asina
- il presbiterio colpevole
- l'io senza se stesso

[Peter Crofts · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been reading this, and rereading parts, off and on for years. It will amuse you, infuriate you and eat up much time as you figure out where you stand in relation to some of his opinions. Certainly one of the more engrossing set of essays I've come across.

[Dmitry · Rating 5 out of 5]

A delicious collection of witty, erudite and companionable essays, this book's true topic is its author. There is no better recommendation.