• Journal of English Language & Literature
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• v.55 no.2
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• pp.315-335
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• 2009

Controversies over W. H. Auden's "political" poetry remind us of an old but perhaps never easily resolved problem about the relationship between poetry (literature) and politics. Auden has arguably been referred to as a "leftist" or "Marxist" because of his political viewpoint registered in "Spain" or "September 1, 1939," which embodies his contemporaries' loss and fear, brought by the socio-political turmoil, economic depression, and moral conflicts of the 1930s. Interestingly, however, Auden is known to have an ambivalent position toward the political reality. He once disavowed the above "political" poems as "dishonest" in the preface of the 1966 edition of Collected Poems and declared, "poetry makes nothing happen" in "In Memory of W. B. Yeats," which seemingly acknowledges the political incapacity of poetry. Auden's position and poetry should be understood as the result of complicated interactions between his perspectives on society, human beings, and poetics. Auden definitely believed in the role of poetry in such a politically demanding time, yet was not concerned with the anticipation of certain immediate changes effected by poetry in real situations. Instead, he sought the intellectual and moral effects that poetry could give his readers to help them survive the dismal circumstances of the 1930s. This is what distinguished Auden's poetry from political propaganda. In doing so, Auden's poetry captures the zeitgeist of his generation and has privileged him as the leading voice of his time, but it has also encouraged the following generations to confront different socio-political difficulties. This is something poetry can make happen politically, and the survival of Auden's "memorable speech" proves the legitimacy of his frequently misunderstood poetics.

• Journal of English Language & Literature
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• v.55 no.5
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• pp.843-863
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• 2009

This paper aims at tracing the appearance of Italy in W. H. Auden's poems. Auden summered on Ischia, an island in the Gulf of Naples, between 1948 and 1957. In the process of ten years of contact with Italy, Auden' poetry developed out of Italy, and contributed to the world's picture of Italy by English poets. In the early part of his stay, Auden was fascinated with Italy and found a source of vitality for composing his poems. But Auden's initial view of Italian culture evolved from extolling its virtues to a more critical one weighing its losses and benefits. The happiest mood is reflected in "In Praise of Limestone", in which the ground itself becomes a symbol of Eden. "Ischia" introduces the real landscape of the island. Auden partly admits the darkness of the island in the aspects of its past history and legends, but the poem is still mainly about praising the beauty of the island and the comfort that it gives to the poet. In "Goodbye to the Mezzogiorno" the negative side of the island's life comes to light. There was something in the setting, warm and beautiful as it was, that no longer suited Auden's temperament and Auden bids farewell to his Mediterranean period. His view of Italy is a restricted and detached one seen through the eyes of a successful Anglo-American poet. Auden's cosmopolitan character often is defined such terms as "the Wandering Jew," "alien" or "stateless Auden". But our reading of his poems dealing with Italy reveals his true characteristics which can not transcend his evolving views.

• Journal of English Language & Literature
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• v.64 no.2
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• pp.151-170
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• 2018

This paper examines the relationship and ideas of Hannah Arendt and Philip Roth including how they met, their correspondence and intellectual parallels, particularly in their shared criticism of Jewish ideals and culture in Europe and North America. It analyzes similarities in their careers and texts, especially between Eichmann in Jerusalem and Operation Shylock, as well as The Ghost Writer, while measuring their reception as social commentators and writers. Kafka was an important figure for both writers, Arendt's earliest writing engaged with the significance of Kafka in understanding and criticizing twentieth century political and cultural values in Europe. For Roth, Kafka offered a similar critique of moral principles he found corroded in North American Jewish life. Arendt connected with other writers, notably Isak Dinesen, W. H. Auden, Randall Jarrell and William Styron who further linked the two: he knew both Arendt and Roth and cited, incorrectly, a work by Arendt as the source for the key incident in his 1979 novel Sophie's Choice. He claimed it was Eichmann in Jerusalem; it was Arendt's The Origins of Totalitarianism. Arendt's reaction to Roth's fiction, however, remains a mystery: she died in 1975, before Roth began to seriously and consistently engage with Holocaust issues in works like The Ghost Writer (1979) and Operation Shylock (1993). Yet even in death they are joined. Their graves are only steps apart at the Bard College Cemetery in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York.