Written in the midst of World War II after its author emigrated to
America, "The Sea and the Mirror" is not merely a great poem but ranks
as one of the most profound interpretations of Shakespeare's final play
in the twentieth century. As W. H. Auden told friends, it is "really
about the Christian conception of art" and it is "my Ars Poetica, in the
same way I believe The Tempest to be Shakespeare's." This is the first
critical edition. Arthur Kirsch's introduction and notes make the poem
newly accessible to readers of Auden, readers of Shakespeare, and all
those interested in the relation of life and literature--those two
classic themes alluded to in its title.
The poem begins in a theater after a performance of The Tempest has
ended. It includes a moving speech in verse by Prospero bidding farewell
to Ariel, a section in which the supporting characters speak in a
dazzling variety of verse forms about their experiences on the island,
and an extravagantly inventive section in prose that sees the
uncivilized Caliban address the audience on art--an unalloyed example of
what Auden's friend Oliver Sachs has called his "wild, extraordinary and
demonic imagination."
Besides annotating Auden's allusions and sources (in notes after the
text), Kirsch provides extensive quotations from his manuscript drafts,
permitting the reader to follow the poem's genesis in Auden's
imagination. This book, which incorporates for the first time previously
ignored corrections that Auden made on the galleys of the first edition,
also provides an unusual opportunity to see the effect of one literary
genius upon another.
