The Sea and the Mirror

by W.H. Auden, Arthur C. Kirsch (Editor)

Written in the midst of World War II after its author emigrated to America, "The Sea and the Mirror" is not merely a great poem but ranks as one of the most profound interpretations of Shakespeare's final play in the twentieth century. As W. H. Auden told friends, it is "really about the Christian conception of art" and it is "my Ars Poetica, in the same way I believe The Tempest to be Shakespeare's." This is the first critical edition. Arthur Kirsch's introduction and notes make the poem newly accessible to readers of Auden, readers of Shakespeare, and all those interested in the relation of life and literature--those two classic themes alluded to in its title.

The poem begins in a theater after a performance of The Tempest has ended. It includes a moving speech in verse by Prospero bidding farewell to Ariel, a section in which the supporting characters speak in a dazzling variety of verse forms about their experiences on the island, and an extravagantly inventive section in prose that sees the uncivilized Caliban address the audience on art--an unalloyed example of what Auden's friend Oliver Sachs has called his "wild, extraordinary and demonic imagination."

Besides annotating Auden's allusions and sources (in notes after the text), Kirsch provides extensive quotations from his manuscript drafts, permitting the reader to follow the poem's genesis in Auden's imagination. This book, which incorporates for the first time previously ignored corrections that Auden made on the galleys of the first edition, also provides an unusual opportunity to see the effect of one literary genius upon another.

Genres: Poetry, Shakespeare, Classics, Nonfiction, Literature, Literary Criticism

152 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1944

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

[Sacha Rosel · Rating 4 out of 5]

A rather peculiar commentary and tribute to Shakespeare's The Tempest. Despite the Christian message (something I'm not naturally inclined to be interested in while reading) permeating the poem, there are many poignant moments and revelations where Auden manages to shed a new light to Shakespeare's characters. Chapters I and II, revolving around Prospero talking to Ariel and around "the supporting cast" (everybody else except Caliban and Ariel) resonated the most in me. Antonio's sottovoce is simply stunning. Of course Chapter IV, with Ariel saying goodbye in a magical way, is also impressive, though a bit short, given the importance both Shakespeare and Auden give to this character. What I really found difficult to enjoy, which might come as a shock because it was the part Auden was the most proud of, was indeed the Henry James-inspired Chapter III, entirely devoted to Caliban. Personally, I found it a bit too heavy in comparison to the other parts of the poem. On the whole, The Sea and the Mirror testifies both to Auden's greatness as a poet and researcher and also to the enduring fascination over The Tempest among writers, poets and playwrights alike, its tale of ambiguous repentance, music and magic as merry and ever-changing as the sea, yet so firm and cold in its depiction of betrayal, oppression, revenge as a mirror.

[J L Kruse · Rating 5 out of 5]

I discovered "The Sea and the Mirror" in the basement of the Harvard Book Store, unassumingly placed in a bare bookcase among volumes of used poetry. I bought it, thumbed through it, read it and read it again. I find myself coming back to it because it speaks to duality: the flesh versus the mind, and the anemic existence of one when isolated from the other.

The poem takes place at the end of The Tempest. Ariel, a spirit, interacts with the characters from Shakespeare's play during the first two chapters, which are written in Auden's elegant, lyrical verse. The third chapter is prose reminiscent of the style of Henry James, and is an extended monologue delivered by Caliban, a slave, "to the Audience." Ariel symbolizes Spirit, the Mirror; Caliban is the flesh, Nature, the Sea. The juxtaposition of Ariel and Caliban is one of the most intriguing aspects of the poem, as Auden fashions them as separate entities whose coexistence is necessary for the creation of Art (it is interesting that Auden spoke of his former lover, Chester Kallman, in this context, telling Christopher Isherwood that: "It's OK to say that Ariel is Chester, but Chester is also Caliban, 'das lebendigste', ie Ariel is Caliban seen in the mirror").

Auden has called this work his "Ars Poetica," a "Christian conception of art." It is written with an intelligent sensuality that lives up to that title. I found it enlightening as a reader, instructive as a writer and vexing as someone still searching for inner truth. I would highly recommend it if, like me, you enjoy being simultaneously enlightened, challenged and entertained.

[Katherine Rose · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well, it was a cool idea, but since I don't like the Tempest, I suspected that I wouldn't like this either. He had some banger lines (that I don't really remember, so they weren't that banger), and it is better than the Tempest (possibly because it's shorter).

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

"My dear one is mine as mirrors are lonely." So goes Miranda's soliloquy, directed at the audience (explicitly, as this play is stylized as a self-conscious commentary on Shakespeare's play). The poetry is lovely, yet Auden continually reminds you that his play is metafiction, a cognitive echo of the original story's aesthetics. Nothing is straightfoward - neither beauty nor monstrosity - in this beautiful critical approach.

My favorite section by far is Caliban's monologue to the audience. Shakespeare's play arguably encourages the reader to interpret Caliban unequivocally, as an unambiguously monstrous personality embedded in an ambiguous, half-human form. Auden doesn't challenge that notion so much as he makes you, to a sometimes-uncomfortable extent, aware of it: why interpret Caliban as the monster if his are empirical desires, plans, and dreams? Are we nothing more than Doctor Frankensteins, twisting Caliban - being the objectified "other" of the play - to suit our needs, even as we fail to understand the mechanisms of our own twisting?

Auden encourages readers of Shakespeare's play to a state of higher literary self-awareness, even as he subverts that effort with the pointedly aesthetic (rather than objective) beauty of his own poetry. And oh, that poetry: each character's monologue is so dreamy, so intricate, and so evocative of imagination itself as to create its own universe.

A beautiful, transformative read for any Shakespeare fan.

[Alison · Rating 5 out of 5]

"learn from your dreams what you lack/
for as your fears are, so much you hope"

this poem blows my mind with all that it addresses: the legacy of the artist, art as a revolutionary tool, fear of (im)mortality and so on. the text is so dense and auden, as always, means more than one concrete thing. he challenges the established order of shakespeare's text with a new call for reform and action. i dream this poem.

[Blair · Rating 5 out of 5]

A work of absolute genius. A brilliant commentary on The Tempest and a brilliant work of art in its own right. This edition has an insightful, comprehensive introduction and an appendix that has excerpts from Auden's prose criticism of the play. Essential reading.

[Dean Allison · Rating 5 out of 5]

Do not deny yourself. Read poetry. Such as this book.

[Mary East · Rating 3 out of 5]

ok so that was too smart for me and idk if any of the paper i wrote on it on it was comprehensible !!

[Jeremy]

About Christianity and art. I bought a copy after reading Auden's For the Time Being.

[Preetam Chatterjee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Why is ‘The Tempest’, the last play of Shakespeare, considered to be his greatest? His most textbook? There are many reasons. For the lay reader it is the reason that it marks a deviation from his other plays. How? It is in this play that Shakespeare has observed, like Ben Jonson in his plays, the three unities of time, place and action. The adherence of these three unities is responsible for the finest well-knit plot structure. The great compactness of plot has been achieved by the observance of three unities. In observing the three unities - unity of action, unity of time and unity of place – the Master bard has achieved marvellous economy. The whole action of the play revolves around Prospero, the king of Milan, wronged by his treacherous and ambitious brother Antonio who hatches a plot against his brother Prospero. He joins hand with Alonso, the king of Naples, and expels Prospero from his dukedom and cast him adrift with his three-year old daughter, Miranda, in a rotten ship. ‘The Sea and the Mirror’, penned somewhere between 1942 and 1944, is a commentary on ‘The Tempest’. Barbara Everett says, and I quote: "It is a small masterpiece, one of the funniest, cleverest, and fundamentally, though paradoxically, serious things Auden has ever produced." Why is this tome so effing good? In the work, there is the implicit setting of a theatre, after a performance of ‘The Tempest’. The stage Manager addresses the Critics in the Preface, and the Prompter echoes the last speech. In the opening scene, Prospero, packing up to the Island, bids farewell. Ariel; in the second, with the rest of the cast, on a ship, taking them back to Italy from the Island, speak to one another and to the audience. They are all still in the world of the play, but at the same time are sufficiently detached from it to comment on its meaning and on their future lives. The last great character, Caliban, addresses the audience directly, and develops explicitly the speculations about the relation between ‘Art and Life’. Caliban, one of the finest creations of the Bard, is a simpleton – his simplicity is apparent when he is taken in by the bravado of Stephano. But when Stephano and Trinculo are attracted by mere trumpery and become unresponsive to the design of Prospero's murder, Caliban's approbation for Stephano changes into disdain. He realises his mistake in taking the' drunkard (Stephano) for a god and worshipping a dull fool'. He thinks that it is better to serve Prospero than to serve Stephano. And, the word 'Caliban' seems to be so arranged as to suggest the word 'cannibal', and it gives us the hint of an allegory. Some critics believe that Caliban characterizes the aboriginal and uncivilized tribes who were rabbed of their territories by the Elizabethan colonists, represented by Prospero. But this is an overstated belief. In Auden’s play, it is all done with mirrors; an exercise in misapprehension… Brilliant. Give this tome a try.

[Dominic H · Rating 4 out of 5]

I always feel that 'The Sea and the Mirror' gets sailed around (forgive the pun) in the voluminous old and new collected editions of Auden's poems and it's nice to be able to hold a slim, well produced volume and enjoy the luxury of focus and comfort that brings. That's enough for me without the extra advantages an edited 'Critical Edition' supposedly delivers. Just as well. Kirsch's Introduction here mostly misses the mark. Some digressive and tangental points about 'The Tempest' which suggests he is simply not on the right wavelength and then a peculiar ramble about the poem itself which reads as if he thinks he needs to 'explain' it. He doesn't and his Introduction is pretty vapid, uninspiring sub-academese. Skip it and go the poem itself. Enjoy Auden's profound lyrical gift at its peak, surprise yourself by discovering this is actually a form of narrative poem and marvel at the skill of Auden the writer of prose and pastiche. Chapter 3 of the poem is Caliban's brilliant speech to the audience where you discover the flowering of the late Henry James prose style occurred not in the late novels of the 1900s but in Swathmore, Pennsylvania in 1944.

[Squirrel]

Wow. Caliban certainly has a lot to say here, and I hope his voicebox survived such a long poem where he sorts out his philosophies about the purpose of art. That was certainly an intriguing debate between him and Ariel. It reminded me of the kind of debate you could have with yourself in the middle of the night. I was not expecting that plot twist about John 1:1 at the end. I hope Caliban got his philosophies sorted out after all that, and this was certainly an interesting poem to read. You could circle a few good quotes to think about for a while. I have many things to say about this when some essays come up.

[Ingrid · Rating 2 out of 5]

The first two chapters of this poem are masterful in terms of language and form, and add clever depth to Shakespeare’s “Tempest” in a way that anyone familiar with the play will be able to appreciate. The third chapter is nearly impenetrable— I found it helpful to go back and read both the introduction to the book and the end notes for the chapter before proceeding with it. In trying to say so much about art, this chapter gets in the way of the art the poem is striving to create.

[Bauer Westeren · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this right after finishing The Tempest, which certainly helped in appreciating what Auden was doing in his poem. As others have said, I enjoyed most of it, but feel like I need to revisit the 3rd section to get a grip on what Auden is saying there. Overall, it's an intriguing look into Shakespeare's play, and illuminates many of the themes therein. I recommend readers of The Tempest read The Sea and the Mirror directly after for more provoking of thought and ideas.

[V.]

I wasn't blown away by The Tempest the way I was by something like Hamlet, but if nothing else I'm glad it put me in a position to appreciate Auden's gorgeous (semi-)poetic epilogue. I'll probably have to reread this a few more times or consult a good critical source to really grok everything he's trying to say, but this is real quality literature.

[Patrick Stuart · Rating 2 out of 5]

Auden can write but by god he is a very tiresome man.

[Michael P. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't agree with Auden's commentary, but I do not believe that it is designed so that close readers of Shakespeare's play will. This is a very modern response to an old text, and fascinating for being exactly that.

[Lindsay · Rating 4 out of 5]

fascinating.

[Jenny]

Crazy, maddening, brilliant--as much a commentary on the relationship between art and life and the purpose of art as it is a commentary on The Tempest.

[Paola]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0d3u7Z...

[Wojciech · Rating 4 out of 5]

hieratic and sometimes (for me) foggy but abslolutelly impresive.

[Hao Guang Tse · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brilliant stuff. Beautiful to read where beauty is needed, painful where pain is (Caliban's section, I'm looking at you).

[Forester McClatchey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Compelling in its gnosticism. "Caliban to the Audience" is fire emoji.

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

And who's to say you can't take vengeance on the Romans for their grammar?