W. H. Auden in Context

Tony Sharpe is Senior Lecturer in English and Creative Writing at Lancaster University. He is the author of critically acclaimed books on W. H. Auden, T. S. Eliot, Vladimir Nabokov and Wallace Stevens. His essays on modernist writing and poetry have appeared in journals such as Critical Survey and Literature and Theology, as well as in various edited collections.

• Acknowledgements; List of contributors; A note on editions and abbreviations; Introduction Tony Sharpe; Part I. Contexts of Place: 1. Auden's northerliness Tony Sharpe; 2. Two cities: Berlin and New York Patrick Deer; 3. Ideas about England Stan Smith; 4. Ideas of America Aidan Wasley; 5. At home in Italy and Austria Justin Quinn; Part II. Social and Cultural Contexts: 6. Auden and the class system Adrian Caesar; 7. The Church of England: Auden's Anglicanism Tony Sharpe; 8. British homosexuality, 1920–39 Gregory Woods; 9. American homosexuality, 1939–72 Richard Bozorth; 10. Auden among women Janet Montefiore; 11. Auden and the American literary world Aidan Wasley; 12. Atlantic Auden Michael Wood; Part III. Political, Historical and Theoretical Contexts: 13. Communism and fascism in 1920s and 1930s Britain Matthew Worley; 14. Auden and wars Patrick Deer; 15. Auden and Freud: the psychoanalytic text John Boly; 16. Auden's theology Alan Jacobs; 17. In history Susannah Young-ah Gottlieb; Part IV. Creative Contexts (i): 18. The body Edward Mendelson; 19. The cinema Keith Williams; 20. 1930s British drama Steve Nicholson; 21. The documentary moment David Collard; 22. Travel writing Tim Youngs; 23. Auden and post-war opera Michael Symmons Roberts; (ii) Precursors and Contemporaries: 24. Earlier English influences Chris Jones; 25. Shakespeare Stephen Regan; 26. Yeats Michael O'Neill; 27. Eliot Hugh Haughton; 28. Some modernists in early Auden Gareth Reeves; 29. In German Rainer Emig; 30. Auden and Isherwood James J. Berg and Chris Freeman; Part V. The 'Most Professional' Poet: 31. Auden in prose Sean O'Brien; 32. Auden and little magazines Andrew Thacker; 33. Double take: Auden in collaboration Richard Badenhausen; 34. Auden and prosody Sean O'Brien; 35. Auden's forms Seamus Perry; Further reading; Index.

'A valuable addition to Auden studies, this book opens many windows to this quintessential 20th-century author … required reading for scholars and Auden aficionados. Highly recommended. All readers.' B. Wallenstein, Choice