“Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind,” the poet says. So it follows that a writer’s death diminishes me a bit more because I am involved in the futility of the faithful, the craft of writing.

And it follows one step further that a writer’s suicide is all the more anguishing -- J. Anthony Lukas hurt, so did Iris Chang – one of the reasons I did not major in English – this is true – is because of Virginia Woolf and Anne Sexton and Sylvia bloody Plath. I’m not here to condemn suicide, or to condone it; I’ve lived in my own dark places; still, I’m always astonished, although you think I would have toughened up by now, at how hard the unacquainted – in every sense of the word – are on depression. Last night I read forums on David Foster Wallace until I had to stop.

I needed something to read before I went to sleep.

In times like these, you need a really, really good writer, someone who will absorb you in the story the way you were spellbound as a child. Story, story, story and stay out of the way.

I settled on Auden’s Lectures on Shakespeare.

Just after World War II, W.H. Auden taught a Shakespeare course at the New School in New York City. Years later, someone thought to seek out the notes of his besotted students (since Auden kept no record!) and compile the lectures into a book, edited and with an introduction by Arthur Kirsch.

“Auden speaks of the mythic power of The Tempest in similar terms,” writes Kirsch, “and he says that The Tempest is Shakespeare’s farewell piece, whether he was conscious of it or not”:

Auden:

I don’t believe people die until they’ve done their work, and when they have, they die. There are surprisingly few incomplete works in art. People, as a rule, die when they wish to. It is not a shame that Mozart, Keats, Shelley died young: they’d finished their work.

“Following a suggestion of Aldous Huxley,” (this is Kirsch again), “he considers all of Shakespeare’s final plays as examples of the genre of the late works of major artists like Beethoven, Goya, and Ibsen, deliberately strange in their vision, unconcerned about the difficulties they may pose for an audience, and enormously interested”

Auden:

-- in particular kinds of artistic problems lovingly worked out for themselves, regardless of the interest of the whole work.

I find Shakespeare particularly appealing in his attitude towards his work. There’s something a little irritating in the determination of the very greatest artists, like Dante, Joyce, Milton, to create masterpieces and to think themselves important. To be able to devote one’s life to art without forgetting that art is frivolous is a tremendous achievement of personal character. Shakespeare never takes himself too seriously.

Particular kinds of artistic problems, lovingly worked out.

Lovely.

More on this, anon --

Labels: Auden, Shakespeare

posted by Elizabeth at 9:04 PM