September 1, 1939: A Biography of a Poem by Ian Sansom
September 1, 1939: A Biography of a Poem by Ian Sansom
This is a book about how and why we respond to great art. It's a book about a poem -- one of the most famous poems ever written, a poem whose troubled history involves its own rewriting and reinvention, and to which readers have returned again and again in times of personal and national crisis. It's a book about how works of literature are produced, consumed, and incorporated into people's lives.
It's also a book about a poet, the darling of the British literary establishment, a wunderkind, the victim and beneficiary of a literary cult of personality. The poem is his most famous and celebrated work -- a poem he tried to suppress and disown, and that has been enjoyed and been condemned to a tragic and unexpected afterlife.
Finally, it's a book about a city, the defining city of the twentieth century. It's a book about a particular place and a particular time that remain our place and our time.
The poem is September 1, 1939. The poet is W.H. Auden. The city is New York. And the time is our own: the Age of Anxiety.
Harper, Hardcover, 1st Edition, 1st Printing, 2019
THIS IS A BRAND NEW BOOK. THERE IS A BLACK "CLOSEOUT/REMAINDER" MARK ON THE BOTTOM PAGE EDGES.