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5.0 out of 5 stars
The Quintessential Collection, Nov 9 2003
For many of us,the poems that we read in childhood and adolescence are those that stick with us the most. When I was fifteen, I bought this volume and promptly fell in love with Auden's poetry. His work showed a restlessness with the social and political state of his world, and I found that I could connect with it both intellectually and emotionally. To this day, I can revisit this book's pages feeling like I am visiting a childhood friend. Auden expressed some feelings I shared with him, and I was moved by his ability to express them better than I ever could: with frankness, wit, and grace. A must for any literary enthusiast (or any curious fifteen-year-old, for that matter).
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5.0 out of 5 stars
A marvelous introduction, Aug 26 2003
I can do little more than echo the other reviewers here. This is all a 'selected poems' shoud be: introductory and selective. Yes, "Funeral Blues" is missing. But no one can complain about what is here, which includes "In Time of War", the great sonnet sequence; "The Quest", another long sequence; and the entirety of THE SEA AND THE MIRROR, which is based on Shakespeare's THE TEMPEST. If you are, however, only interested in his love poems, I'd have to steer you toward TELL ME THE TRUTH ABOUT LOVE, a nice little chapbook containing only those.My own personal experience with this book may be relevant. It has served to introduce me to one of the finest poets of the last century and sparked a desire to read THE COLLECTED POEMS, also edited by Mendelson, to see how Auden re-wrote thirty of the brilliant poems here included. I'm continuing on my voyage; hope you are starting on yours.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Worth singing about, Jul 30 2003
The poetry is splendid -- Auden is a brilliant, sensitive, musical and entertaining writer -- and the selection is fairly representative. Mendelson prefers Auden's later poems to his earlier ones, so the twee middle-aged sequences "Bucolics" and "Horae Canonicae" are included complete, while most of "Twelve Songs" (which has some terrific love poems like "Fish in the unruffled lakes", "Funeral Blues" and "Tell me the truth about love") is not. Still, there is enough in here, esp. in the first two-thirds of the book, to give you a fair enough taste of Auden's verse to entice you to buy his Collected Poems.(You'll still need the Selected; it has a couple of good poems that Auden decided not to republish, and superior versions of some early poems.)
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