{"product_id":"for-the-time-being-a-christmas-oratorio-9780691158273","title":"For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe first critical edition of Auden's only explicitly religious long poem\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eFor the Time Being\u003c\/i\u003e is a pivotal book in the career of one of the greatest poets of the twentieth century. W. H. Auden had recently moved to America, fallen in love with a young man to whom he considered himself married, rethought his entire poetic and intellectual equipment, and reclaimed the Christian faith of his childhood. Then, in short order, his relationship fell apart and his mother, to whom he was very close, died. In the midst of this period of personal crisis and intellectual remaking, he decided to write a poem about Christmas and to have it set to music by his friend Benjamin Britten. Applying for a Guggenheim grant, Auden explained that he understood the difficulty of writing something vivid and distinctive about that most clich d of subjects, but welcomed the challenge. In the end, the poem proved too long and complex to be set by Britten, but in it we have a remarkably ambitious and poetically rich attempt to see Christmas in double focus: as a moment in the history of the Roman Empire and of Judaism, and as an ever-new and always contemporary event for the believer. \u003ci\u003eFor the Time Being\u003c\/i\u003e is Auden's only explicitly religious long poem, a technical tour de force, and a revelatory window into the poet's personal and intellectual development. This edition provides the most accurate text of the poem, a detailed introduction by Alan Jacobs that explains its themes and sets the poem in its proper contexts, and thorough annotations of its references and allusions.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAlan Jacobs\u003c\/b\u003e is the Clyde S. Kilby Professor of English at Wheaton College in Illinois. He previously edited Auden's \u003ci\u003eThe Age of Anxiety\u003c\/i\u003e for this series, and is the author of several books, including most recently \u003ci\u003eThe Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Princeton University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50649872236818,"sku":"9780691158273","price":24.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_659ceaf6-8d56-47ce-8531-173ac1e4e6b2.jpg?v=1733275411","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/for-the-time-being-a-christmas-oratorio-9780691158273","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}