The Sea and the Mirror

A Commentary on Shakespeare's The Tempest

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by W. H. Auden,

Edited by Arthur Kirsch

Princeton University Press

Due/Published May 2003, 148 pages, cloth

ISBN 0691113718

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." In this is first critical edition, 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.

"It is wonderful to have this new edition of The Sea and the Mirror , which I have always considered Auden's greatest work written in America and certainly one of the summits of his career. The long speech of Caliban, channeling Henry James, is in itself a marvelment."--John Ashbery

Review

In the 1940s, Auden immersed himself in Shakespeare. During the decade, he gave a series of famous lectures on Shakespeare at the New School of Social Research and wrote The Sea and the Mirror, a poetic commentary on The Tempest. Auden viewed The Tempest as a mythopoeic work, a genre that inspires “people to go on for themselves . . . to make up episodes that [the author], as it were, forgot to tell us.” This is exactly what Auden does in The Sea and the Mirror. Auden’s poem begins after Shakespeare’s play has ended as Prospero bids farewell to Ariel. Prospero’s speech is that of a man preparing himself for old age and “the time death pounces/His stumping question.” The second chapter includes speeches from Antonio, Miranda, and other secondary characters reflecting on their experiences on the island. In chapter III, Auden drops verse in favor of prose in a speech by Caliban to the audience. The uncivilized Caliban offers an eloquent, Jamesian speech on art. Much of The Sea and the Mirror, particularly the final chapter, reflects Auden’s attempt to define the nature and limitations of art. It is also his most profound exploration of the Christian aesthetic that underlies much of his poetic canon. Auden also offers a compelling commentary on The Tempest, offering insights into the characters, the opposition of Ariel and Caliban, and Shakespeare’s views on art. The Sea and the Mirror is not your run-of-the-mill work of Shakespearean criticism, and readers should be thankful of the fact. It is a wholly imaginative and inspired work in which one poet builds upon the work of another with marvelous results.

Also of interest: Lectures on Shakespeare by W. H. Auden.