Letters from Iceland
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Letters from Iceland is a travel book in prose and verse by W. H. Auden and Louis MacNeice, published in 1937. Auden revised his sections of the book for a new edition published in 1967.[1]
The book is made up of a series of letters and travel notes by Auden and MacNeice written during their trip to Iceland in 1936 compiling light-hearted private jokes and irreverent comments about their surrounding world.
Auden's contributions include the poem "Journey to Iceland"; a prose section "For Tourists"; a five-part verse "Letter to Lord Byron"; a selection of writings on Iceland by other authors, "Sheaves from Sagaland"; a prose letter to "E. M. Auden" (E. M. was Erika Mann), which included his poems "Detective Story" and "O who can ever praise enough"; a prose letter to Kristian Andreirsson, Esq.; a free-verse letter to William Coldstream, and, in collaboration with MacNeice, "W. H. Auden and Louis MacNeice: Their Last Will and Testament" (in verse).
MacNeice's contributions include a verse letter to Graham and Anne Shepard; the satiric prose "Hetty to Nancy" (unsigned); a verse Epilogue; and his work on "W. H. Auden and Louis MacNeice: Their Last Will and Testament".
Letters from Iceland is categorised under the "Inter-war pastorals" style of writing,[2] where poets are attached to an imaginary countryside from where they contemplate people, literature and politics.
Legacy
In 1994, poets Simon Armitage and Glyn Maxwell visited Iceland for a documentary for BBC Radio 3, Second Draft from Sagaland, and wrote a follow-up book to Auden and MacNeice's, entitled Moon Country: Further Reports from Iceland.[3]
The book is mentioned multiple times throughout the 2007 Oscar-nominated film, Away from Her, in which several passages are read aloud during the film.
References
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- W. H. Auden, Prose and Travel Books in Prose and Verse, 1927-1938, ed. Edward Mendelson (1997)
- John Fuller, W. H. Auden: A Commentary (1999).
- Edward Mendelson, Early Auden (1981).