W. H. Auden, Fish in the unruffled lakes

Chris Baldick (Goldsmiths College, University of London)

Ed. by Chris Baldick, Goldsmiths College, University of London
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.08: English Writing and Culture of the early Twentieth Century , 1900-1945.
Vol. editors: Chris Baldick (Goldsmiths College, University of London), Peter Childs (Newman University), Louise McDonald (Newman University)

Dates

First circulation or publication Apr 1936

Places

England (Country of Origin; Publication/ performance)

Genres and Modes

Poem

Resources

“Fish in the unruffled lakes” (1936) is a short love-poem by W. H. Auden classified by him as a “song”. Auden never gave this poem a title, so it is known by its first line or, under the arrangement of his lyrics in Collected Shorter Poems 1927-1957 (1966), as the fifth in the sequence headed “Twelve Songs”. In its three rhyming stanzas, the speaker at first offers melancholy reflection upon the apparent gulf between opposed realms of animal grace and of human self-awareness, before suddenly adopting the voice of a lover giving thanks that his beloved has united those realms on the previous night in “voluntary love”. As a love-poem, its oddity is that it is cast as a philosophical …

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2088 words

Citation: Baldick, Chris. "Fish in the unruffled lakes". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 15 December 2016 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=35847, accessed 19 April 2024.]

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