Instructor: Dr. Robin Landrith

Description. In this four-week reading group, we will focus our attention on Auden’s seven-part poem Horae Canonicae. Auden appropriated a longstanding schedule of Christian daily prayer (the canonical hours, in English) for the structure and substance of this poem, and its complexity and depth in style and content introduce us to Auden’s characteristic way of dealing with religious, political, and psychological themes in his poetry. His meditations on individual life and the experience of time, individual life as political life, and the spiritual auras that encompass the uniqueness and repetitiveness of individual and political lives all appear in this poem. We will practice close reading strategies to help unlock this text together. The goal of the reading group is to learn to understand and appreciate Auden’s typically intricate, allusive, punning, and earnestly ironic style—and what it might mean artistically to represent human experiences in this way.

Text. Horae Canonicae first appeared together as a full sequence in Auden’s 1955 collection The Shield of Achilles, the title poem of which we will read in our first week as an introduction to Auden’s religious and political poetry. I recommend Alan Jacobs’s recently published critical edition of this collection for our reading group:

Auden, W. H. The Shield of Achilles. Edited by Alan Jacobs. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2024. You can purchase it from the publisher at this link.

Meeting Times: July 31-August 21; Wednesdays 10am-12pm ET

Week 1 (July 31): Introduction to Auden’s religious and political poetry

“The Shield of Achilles” & pdf “Reading,” essay from The Dyer’s Hand

Week 2 (August 7): Horae Canonicae

"Prime" & "Terce"

Week 3 (August 14): Horae Canonicae

"Sext" & "Nones"

Week 4 (August 21): Horae Canonicae

"Vespers," "Compline," & "Lauds”