Auden and MacNeice: Their Last Will and Testament – Thirties Classic or Existential Pause?

• Published in: E-rea
• Main Author: Sara R. GREAVES
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English; French
• Published: Laboratoire d’Etudes et de Recherches sur le Monde Anglophone (LERMA) 2015
• Subjects: travel literature; burlesque; the Thirties; existential Angst; Terza rima; Dante; English language; PE1-3729; Social sciences (General); H1-99; Rima; Iceland
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.4000/erea.4379; https://doaj.org/article/55bb8953981e44ddbce9fbb3df5d8e1f

This article focuses on the last chapter of W.H. Auden and Louis MacNeice’s 1937 travel narrative: Letters from Iceland, written entirely in terza rima and entitled “Their Last Will and Testament”. A humorous parody of a legal document, the 23-page-long poem consists of an inventory of miscellaneous...