Letters from Iceland
Letters from Iceland is a travel book in prose and verse by W. H. Auden and Louis MacNeice, published in 1937. Auden revised his sections of the book for a new edition published in 1967.[1]
The book is made up of a series of letters and travel notes by Auden and MacNeice written during their trip to Iceland in 1936 compiling light-hearted private jokes and irreverent comments about their surrounding world.
Auden's contributions include the poem "Journey to Iceland"; a prose section "For Tourists"; a five-part verse "Letter to Lord Byron"; a selection of writings on Iceland by other authors, "Sheaves from Sagaland"; a prose letter to "E. M. Auden" (E. M. was Erika Mann), which included his poems "Detective Story" and "O who can ever praise enough"; a prose letter to Kristian Andreirsson, Esq.; a free-verse letter to William Coldstream, and, in collaboration with MacNeice, "W. H. Auden and Louis MacNeice: Their Last Will and Testament" (in verse).
MacNeice's contributions include a verse letter to Graham and Anne Shepard; the satiric prose "Hetty to Nancy" (unsigned); a verse Epilogue; and his work on "W. H. Auden and Louis MacNeice: Their Last Will and Testament".
Letters from Iceland is categorised under the "Inter-war pastorals" style of writing,[2] where poets are attached to an imaginary countryside from where they contemplate people, literature and politics.
Legacy
In 1994, poets Simon Armitage and Glyn Maxwell visited Iceland for a documentary for BBC Radio 3, Second Draft from Sagaland, and wrote a follow-up book to Auden and MacNeice's, entitled Moon Country: Further Reports from Iceland.[3]
The book is mentioned multiple times throughout the 2007 Oscar-nominated film, Away from Her, in which several passages are read aloud during the film.
References
- ^ Yamada, Yoshinari S. (1976). "W. H. Auden's Revising Process (III)". Annual Report of the Faculty of Education, Iwate University. 36: 2.
- ^ Longley, Edna (22 February 2007). Kendall, Tim (ed.). The Oxford Handbook of British and Irish War Poetry. OUP Oxford. ISBN 978-0-19-928266-1.
- ^ Wagg, Michael (3 August 2015). "Moon Country by Simon Armitage and Glyn Maxwell". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 3 July 2024.
- W. H. Auden, Prose and Travel Books in Prose and Verse, 1927-1938, ed. Edward Mendelson (1997)
- John Fuller, W. H. Auden: A Commentary (1999).
- Edward Mendelson, Early Auden (1981).
External links
- The W. H. Auden Society
- v
- t
- e
- Poems (1930)
- The Orators (1932)
- On This Island (1936)
- Another Time (1940)
- The Double Man (1941)
- For the Time Being (1944)
- The Age of Anxiety (1947)
- Nones (1951)
- The Shield of Achilles (1955)
- Homage to Clio (1960)
- About the House (1966)
- City Without Walls (1969)
- Academic Graffiti (1971)
- Epistle to a Godson (1972)
- Thank You, Fog (1974)
prose and verse
- Letters from Iceland (1937, with Louis MacNeice)
- Journey to a War (1939, with Christopher Isherwood)
and other books
- The Enchafèd Flood (1950)
- The Dyer's Hand (1962)
- Secondary Worlds (1968)
- A Certain World (1970)
- Forewords and Afterwords (1973)
- "The Orators" (1932)
- "Funeral Blues" (1936)
- "Spain" (1937)
- "Musée des Beaux Arts" (1938)
- "Refugee Blues" (1939)
- "September 1, 1939" (1939)
- "The Unknown Citizen" (1939)
- "Hymn to St. Cecilia" (1940)
- "For the Time Being" (1944)
- "The Sea and the Mirror" (1944)
- "The Age of Anxiety" (1947)
- "In Praise of Limestone" (1948)
- "The Platonic Blow" (1948)
- "Horae Canonicae" (1949–55)
- "Bucolics" (1952–53)
- "The Shield of Achilles" (1955)
- Paid on Both Sides (1928)
- The Dance of Death (1933)
- The Dog Beneath the Skin (1935)
- The Ascent of F6 (1936)
- On the Frontier (1938)
- Play of Daniel (1958)
- Paul Bunyan (1941)
- The Rake's Progress (1951)
- Elegy for Young Lovers (1961)
- The Bassarids (1966)
- Love's Labour's Lost (1973)
- Night Mail (1936)
- George Augustus Auden (father)
- John Bicknell Auden (brother)
- John Auden (first cousin)
- Chester Kallman (companion)