Jump to ratings and reviews
Rate this book

Un poema no escrito:

Rate this book
«"Yo siempre te amaré", jura el poeta. Esto me parece fácil jurarlo yo también. "Te amaré a las 4.15 del martes próximo" ¿sigue siendo eso igual de fácil?» W H Auden Prólogo de Luis Antonio de Villena Nota previa y traducción de Javier Marías Al menos desde 1958, Auden visitaba con frecuencia Austria, en especial Kirchstetten, donde conoció, en una relación inicialmente mercenaria, a un joven llamado Hugerl. Se ha pensado que ese ocasional amante (aunque sin duda están o pueden estar también los anteriores) es el «tú» del poema no escrito al que Auden, deseando escribir un poema de amor #que no puede hacer# desea decir algo tan simple #y complejo, como muestra el texto# como «I love you» (Te quiero). En 1959, escribe en prosa los cincuenta fragmentos, pensamientos o disquisiciones que componen su «An Unwritten Poem» ( Un poema no escrito ) y el título del poema/no poema es el de la autobiografía de Goethe, Dichtung und Wahrheit , es decir, «Poesía y verdad», acaso suponiendo o preguntando si con una verdad tan simple #«Te quiero»# se puede escribir buena poesía de amor. Pero la singularidad de «Un poema no escrito» no viene de las razonadas y varias reflexiones que aclaran (o sugieren) que no es posible escribir un poema lírico, subjetivo, de amor. Si puede estar en un libro de poesía sin serlo del todo, es porque muestra las entretelas de lo poético, el cañamazo #lo de atrás# de eso que visto después llamaremos poema. W H Auden traza y enhebra y cruza todos los hilos y lanas del bordado, nos relata lo que el poema de amor sería y no puede ser: el poema sin poema. Observemos, con todo #a raíz del fragmento final#, que el poeta que no ha escrito el poema de amor sabe que al otro día recibirá al amado con «adoración en el ojo; en la lengua bromas y obscenidades». Del Prólogo de Luis Antonio de Villena

128 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1996

22 people want to read

About the author

W.H. Auden

620 books1,068 followers
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

Ratings & Reviews

What do you think?
Rate this book

Friends & Following

Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!

Community Reviews

5 stars
14 (50%)
4 stars
12 (42%)
3 stars
2 (7%)
2 stars
0 (0%)
1 star
0 (0%)
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
Profile Image for nizar.
65 reviews14 followers
May 4, 2024
I
Expecting your arrival tomorrow, I find myself thinking I love You: then comes the thought: I should like to write a poem which would express exactly what I mean when I think these words.

XLV
I should like to believe that it is some evidence of love when I can truthfully say: Desire, even in its wildest tantrums, can neither persuade me it is love nor stop me wishing it where.

XLVIII
«I will love You forever», swears the poet. I find this easy to swear too. I will love You at 4:15 p.m. next Tuesday: is that still as easy?

L
This poem I wished to write was to have expressed exactly what I mean when I think the words I love you, I cannot know exactly what I mean; it was to have been self-evidently true, but words cannot verify themselves. So this poem will remind unwritten. This doesn’t matter. Tomorrow You will be arriving; if I were writing a novel in which both of us were characters, I know exactly how I should greet You at the station: adoration in the eye; on the tongue banter and bawdry. But who knows exactly how I shall greet You? Dame Kind? Now, that’s an idea. Couldn’t one write a poem (slightly unpleasant, perhaps) about her?
Profile Image for Adrià Ibáñez Pelegrí.
147 reviews32 followers
Read
January 9, 2022
"«Yo siempre te amaré», jura el poeta. Esto me parece fácil jurarlo yo también. Yo te amaré a las 4,15 de la tarde del martes próximo: ¿sigue siendo eso igual de fácil?"

Acerca de lo inconcebible de pronunciar/escribir/afirmar Yo Te Amo y el absurdo de resistirse a pronunciar/escribir/afirmar Yo Te Amo.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews

Can't find what you're looking for?

Get help and learn more about the design.