Edward Mendelson Livres

Between 1927 and his death in 1973, W. H. Auden endowed poetry in the English language with a new face. Or rather, with several faces, since his work ranged from the political to the religious, from the urbane to the pastoral, from the mandarin to the invigoratingly plain-spoken. This collection presents all the poems Auden wished to preserve, in the texts that received his final approval. It includes the full contents of his previous collected editions along with all the later volumes of his shorter poems. Together, these works display the astonishing range of Auden's voice and the breadth of his concerns, his deep knowledge of the traditions he inherited, and his ability to recast those traditions in modern times.

Fusing biography and literary criticism, this work presents in-depth portraits of eight influential American writers from the twentieth century, including Saul Bellow and Norman Mailer. Each figure is examined through their complex relationships with the concept of the good life, revealing how their personal experiences shaped their literary contributions. The book explores themes of ambition, identity, and the interplay of personal and artistic lives, offering fresh insights into the transformative impact these writers had on American literature and culture.

Focusing on seven classic English novels by women writers, this scholarly work examines how these authors depict significant life experiences and transitions. Analyzing titles such as Frankenstein, Wuthering Heights, and Middlemarch, the study reveals the depth of female perspectives in literature from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Through a close reading of these works, it highlights themes of identity, society, and the human condition, showcasing the enduring impact of these novels on literary discourse.

For many years there existed a general feeling that the selection made by Auden himself in 1968 was far from satisfactory. It was too short to provide a full introduction to such a large body of work; perhaps it was too weighted in favour of the later poetry; at the time it was made some famous poems, or portions of poems were still under an embargo imposed by Auden himself which remained in force until his death. This edition contains an introduction which is an examination of the nature of Auden's genius and of his position and stature in 20th-century literature.

All of Auden's books of poems from the 1930s, including previously unpublished poems, are augmented by selections from his essays, reviews, film scripts, and stage and radio plays of the same period

Its a wealth of intelligence, knowledge and insight that Mendelson. . . brings to this study . . . . With his array of interpretative tools, he solves for the first time the notorious obscurities of Audens earliest work.--Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, New York Times