Carolina QuotesThere are some good things and some fantastic ones in Auden’s early attitude; if the reader calls it a muddle I shall acquiesce, with the remark that the later position might be considered a more rarefied muddle. But poets rather specialize in muddles — and I have no doubt which of the muddles was better for Auden’s poetry: one was fertile and usable, the other decidedly is not. Auden sometimes seems to be saying with Henry Clay, “I had rather be right than poetry”; but I am not sure, then, that he is either.
Randall Jarrell Carolinian
Source
“Changes of Attitude and Rhetoric in Auden’s Poetry”, p. 131
- work
- The Third Book of Criticism (1969)
- year
- 1969
- locator
- p. 131
Cite this record
“There are some good things and some fantastic ones in Auden’…” Randall Jarrell. Carolina Quotes, record CQ-39E662AE55. https://carolinaquotes.com/quote/39e662ae55
More from Randall Jarrell
One of our universities recently made a survey of the reading habits of the American public; it decided that forty-eight percent of all Americans read, during a year, no book at all. I picture to myself that reader — that non-reader, rather; one man out of every two — and I reflect, with shame: "Our poems are too hard for him." But so, too, are Treasure Island, Peter Rabbit, pornographic novels — any book whatsoever.
President Robbins was so well adjusted to his environment that sometimes you could not tell which was the environment and which was President Robbins.
Let’s say this together: “Great me no greats”, and leave this grading to posterity.