Three or four years after college, I realized a desire to live my life as if to create a work of art.  The lofty desire came partially from reading some of Auden’s early poetry.  I hadn’t read anything by him, except for “The Shield of Achilles” assigned by Rosamond Spring in a Great Books college class. Prompted by a scene in the movie “Four Weddings and a Funeral,” wherein a minor character reads out loud “Funeral Blues,” I sought out some of Auden’s voluminous poetry and prose.  I don’t think I understood half of it, but I was definitely taken by the impressive range of his mind and of course his poetic lyricism.

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