"Auden, more lucidly than most, was able to identify and describe characteristics of the cultural malaise that continues to resonate 40 years after his death. Many aspects of modern life tend to alienate us from any communality, and shut us within our subjective selves. It becomes difficult to believe in the reality of other people. Fragmentation, a lack of encounters with the sacred, and a monotone impressionism characterize much of our artistic production. In verse of the last 60 years the result has been a hyper-subjectivity in its two polarized forms of hermeticism and confessionalism. In the face of such a situation, Auden argued, ‘Art can only have one subject – man as a conscious unique person’." Simon West • Sydney Review of Books

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