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

• Published in: E-rea
• Main Author: GREAVES, Sara R.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Laboratoire d’Études et de Recherche sur le Monde Anglophone 2015
• Subjects: littérature du voyage; burlesque; les années trente; angoisse existentielle; terza rima; Dante; exil; quête poétique; travel literature; the Thirties; existential Angst; exile; poetic quest; Rima; Iceland; Islande
• Online Access: http://erea.revues.org/4379

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...