657 Auden's England (with Nicholas Jenkins) | My Last Book with Gabriele Pedulla

The History of Literature

Jacke Wilson

History, Books, Arts

4.6 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 2 December 2024

⏱️ 65 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

From the beginning of his career as a poet, W.H. Auden wrestled with the meaning of Englishness. He came out with a collection of poems entitled On This Island, but what exactly was this island? A world in ruins? A beautiful (if morally compromised) haven? In this episode, Jacke talks to Nicholas Jenkins (The Island: War and Belonging in Auden's England) about Auden's relationship with the land of his birth, including his preoccupations with the vicissitudes of war, the trials of love, and the problems of identity. PLUS Italian scholar Gabriele Pedullà (On Niccolò Machiavelli: The Bonds of Politics) stops by to discuss his choice for the last book he will ever read. Additional listening: 595 Machiavelli (with Gabriele Pedulla) 479 Auden and the Muse of History (with Susannah Young-ah Gottlieb) 138 Why Poetry (with Matthew Zapruder) The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	The History of Literature Podcast is a member of the Podglomerate Network and Lit Hub Radio.
0:09.1	Hello, his life is one that can fool the gods of artificial intelligence.
0:14.4	Type Auden's England into Google, and the first search that comes up is the question,
0:19.3	when did Auden move to England?
0:22.2	A good question, except that he was, of course, born there.
0:27.4	Intensely British, intensely American, maybe the hyphen between British American is where
0:33.9	Auden truly resided. But when we talk about the poet and the poetry, what England
0:40.3	do we mean? A place where one is stifled, a place to resent, a place to flee from, or a land to
0:50.7	revere, to celebrate a home base.
0:55.5	What relationship did Auden have with this land of his birth?
1:00.3	The land of his language, the land of his early success, and the formation of his identity.
1:07.0	Nicholas Jenkins will tell us about Auden on his island.
1:11.2	Today, on the history of literature.
1:25.7	Okay, here we go. Let's get started. It is December. We know what that means. Roll it out, please, Gabriel.
2:06.6	Okay. That's right. That's the stuff. Holiday music played by wonderful performer, our friend Gabriel.
2:17.6	Don't you wish you could play piano like this? It would be my dream. Okay. We take things day by day here at the History of Literature Podcast, because what else can we do?
2:21.2	Days don't happen in multiplicity.
2:29.1	Simultaneously, they go one after the other in one direction only, and so we look forward to children opening their presence and families getting together, and maybe a little poetry under the tree this year.
2:36.2	I'm ordering up some Sylvia Plath.
2:38.9	That's on my wish list.
2:40.9	And the memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant, which is poetry of a different sort.
2:46.8	And Italy is never far away from my mind, which is why I want to tell you about,
	...

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