The Age of Anxiety

Last updated

First edition (US)
(publ. Random House) AgeOfAnxiety.jpg
First edition (US)
(publ. Random House)

The Age of Anxiety: A Baroque Eclogue (1947; first UK edition, 1948) is a long poem in six parts by W. H. Auden, written mostly in a modern version of Anglo-Saxon alliterative verse.

Contents

The poem deals, in eclogue form, with man's quest to find substance and identity in a shifting and increasingly industrialized world. Set in a wartime bar in New York City, Auden uses four characters – Quant, Malin, Rosetta, and Emble – to explore and develop his themes.

The poem won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1948. [1]

A critical edition of the poem, edited by Alan Jacobs, was published by Princeton University Press in 2011.

Influence

The poem inspired Leonard Bernstein's 1949 Symphony No. 2, also known as The Age of Anxiety, which in turn was used for both a 1950 ballet by Jerome Robbins and a 2014 ballet by Liam Scarlett.

"The Age of Anxiety" is the title of the first chapter of The Wisdom of Insecurity by Alan Watts (1951).

The phrase Age of Anxiety was used as used by classicist E.R. Dodds as the title for his book "Pagan and Christian in an Age of Anxiety"

Musician Pete Townshend's first novel, published in 2019, is also titled The Age of Anxiety. [2]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">W. H. Auden</span> British-American poet (1907–1973)

Wystan Hugh Auden was a British-American poet. Auden's poetry is noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in tone, form, and content. Some of his best known poems are about love, such as "Funeral Blues"; on political and social themes, such as "September 1, 1939" and "The Shield of Achilles"; on cultural and psychological themes, such as The Age of Anxiety; and on religious themes, such as "For the Time Being" and "Horae Canonicae".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cecil Day-Lewis</span> Irish-born British poet (1904–1972)

Cecil Day-Lewis, often written as C. Day-Lewis, was an Anglo-Irish poet and Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom from 1968 until his death in 1972. He also wrote mystery stories under the pseudonym of Nicholas Blake, most of which feature the fictional detective Nigel Strangeways.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Ashbery</span> American poet

John Lawrence Ashbery was an American poet and art critic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Faber & Faber</span> British publishing house

Faber and Faber Limited, commonly known as Faber & Faber or simply Faber, is an independent publishing house in London. Published authors and poets include T. S. Eliot, W. H. Auden, Margaret Storey, William Golding, Samuel Beckett, Philip Larkin, Ted Hughes, Seamus Heaney, Paul Muldoon, Milan Kundera and Kazuo Ishiguro.

Chester Simon Kallman was an American poet, librettist, and translator, best known for collaborating with W. H. Auden on opera librettos for Igor Stravinsky and other composers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Lehmann</span> English publisher (1907–1987)

Rudolf John Frederick Lehmann was an English publisher, poet and man of letters. He founded the periodicals New Writing and The London Magazine, and the publishing house of John Lehmann Limited.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Louis MacNeice</span> Irish poet and playwright (1907–1963)

Frederick Louis MacNeice was an Irish poet, playwright and producer for the BBC. His poetry, which frequently explores themes of introspection, empiricism, and belonging, is considered to be among the greatest of twentieth century literature. Despite being renowned as a member of the Auden Group, he was also an independently successful poet with an influential body of work, which is replete with themes ranging from faith to mortality. His body of work was appreciated by the public during his lifetime, due in part to his relaxed but socially and emotionally aware style. Never as overtly or simplistically political as some of his contemporaries, he expressed a humane opposition to totalitarianism as well as an acute awareness of his roots.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anthony Hecht</span> American poet (1923–2004)

Anthony Evan Hecht was an American poet. His work combined a deep interest in form with a passionate desire to confront the horrors of 20th century history, with the Second World War, in which he fought, and the Holocaust being recurrent themes in his work.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Schuyler</span> American poet

James Marcus Schuyler was an American poet. His awards include the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his 1980 collection The Morning of the Poem. He was a central figure in the New York School and is often associated with fellow New York School poets John Ashbery, Frank O'Hara, Kenneth Koch, and Barbara Guest.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">H. L. Davis</span> American novelist

Harold Lenoir Davis, also known as H. L. Davis, was an American novelist and poet. A native of Oregon, he won the Pulitzer Prize for his novel Honey in the Horn, the only Pulitzer Prize for Literature given to a native Oregonian. Later living in California and Texas, he also wrote short stories for magazines such as The Saturday Evening Post.

Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1948 Pulitzer Prize</span>

The following are the Pulitzer Prizes for 1948.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Symphony No. 2 (Bernstein)</span> Piece by Leonard Bernstein

Leonard Bernstein's Symphony No. 2 The Age of Anxiety is a piece for orchestra and solo piano. The piece was composed from 1948 to 1949 in the United States and Israel, and was revised in 1965. It is titled after W. H. Auden's eponymous poem, and dedicated to Serge Koussevitzky.

Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.

— W. H. Auden, from "September 1, 1939"

<i>The Enchafèd Flood</i> 1950 collection of essays by W. H. Auden

The Enchafèd Flood: or, The Romantic Iconography of the Sea is a book of three lectures by W. H. Auden, first published in 1950.

John Fuller FRSL is an English poet and author, and Fellow Emeritus at Magdalen College, Oxford.

This is a bibliography of books, plays, films, and libretti written, edited, or translated by the Anglo-American poet W. H. Auden (1907–1973). See the main entry for a list of biographical and critical studies and external links. Dates are dates of publication of performance, not of composition.

"The Platonic Blow, by Miss Oral" is an erotic poem by W. H. Auden. Thought to have been written in 1948, the poem gleefully describes in graphic detail a homosexual encounter involving an act of fellatio.

Polly Clark is a Canadian-born British writer and poet. She is the author of Larchfield (2017), which fictionalised a youthful period in the life of poet W.H. Auden, and Tiger (2019) about a last dynasty of wild Siberian tigers. She has published four critically acclaimed volumes of poetry. She lives in Helensburgh, Scotland.

References

  1. "The Age of Anxiety, by W. H. Auden (Random)". The Pulitzer Prizes. Columbia University. Retrieved 28 May 2017.
  2. Lyttle, John (7 December 2019). "Townshend's debut novel draws plenty of parallels to guitarist's rock 'n' roll lifestyle". Winnipeg Free Press. Retrieved 16 December 2019.