Buy used: $44.95

FREE delivery Wednesday, April 3

Select delivery location

Used: Good | Details

Sold by oklabooks

Fulfilled by Amazon

Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items.

Image Unavailable

Image not available for
Color:

To view this video download Flash Player

Follow the author

W. H. Auden

Follow

A Certain World: A Commonplace Book Hardcover – June 26, 1970

by W. H. Auden (Author)

13

See all formats and editions

A Certain World

Print length

438 pages
Language

English
Publisher

The Viking Press
Publication date

June 26, 1970
ISBN-10

0670209945
ISBN-13

978-0670209941
See all details

Carlos Fuentes
Hardcover
2 offers from $10.00
DK
579
Hardcover
56 offers from $15.29

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ The Viking Press; First Edition (June 26, 1970)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 438 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0670209945
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0670209941
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 20 pounds

Best Sellers Rank: #1,290,862 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #18,769 in Poetry (Books)
- #56,344 in Literary Fiction (Books)

Customer Reviews:
13

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Videos

Help others learn more about this product by uploading a video!

Upload your video

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.

W. H. Auden

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more

Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5

13 global ratings

2 star

0%

1 star

0%

How customer reviews and ratings work

Sort reviews by

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

NRB

A book for nibbling

Reviewed in the United States on May 11, 2013

Verified Purchase

I am enjoying it. Auden gathered passages that appealed to him and arranged them "alphabetically by topic." It is fun.

3 people found this helpful

Helpful

Owl

A Splendid Writer, a Revealing & Eclectic Reader

Reviewed in the United States on July 13, 2013

"A Certain World: A Commonplace Book" shares the passages that appealed enough to Wystan Hugh Auden to note down, rather as did the 10th century Irish monk to whom we are indebted for "Pangur Ban." There are 173 sections in "A Certain World," arranged alphabetically. We today are much indebted to the Auden of 1969, when this book was published, for at least two reasons.

First, art probably is not compounded of biographical bits. Yet if there be truth in "Tell me what you eat and I'll tell who you are," then the more so in "Tell me what you read..." There's a fascination frantic in seeing of what our acquaintances' libraries consist (Kindle or no) and the books in the homes of, say, Elvis Presley, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Doris Duke. Auden was one of great poets of his time (1906 to 1970). Many of his poems such as "September 1, 1939" are canonical. Auden intended "A Certain Country" to be a self-portrait, not an auto-biography but as close as we may come to knowing what he was feeling & thinking & believed in the last few years of his life. Each section iis introduced by a brief essay or reflection of the topic.

What Auden read & thought worth copying down tended to be shadowed, to cross centuries from Horace to his present time, to vary in style, and to include both expected and the unexpected. He had, for example, a fondness for the history of British roads; mathematics, number theory, and arithmetic; writings showing the individuality of birds, cats, dogs, and horses; ethics and morality; and about the roots of human behavior.

There are also some fine flashes of humor in Auden's selections. For instance, "Book Reviews, Imaginary" has the fine frolicking reviews by J. R. Morton, including "No Second Churning, by Arthur Clawes. An almost unbearably vital study of a gas-inspector who puts gas-inspecting before love. Awarded the Prix De Seattle, this book should enhance the author's growing reputation as an interpreter of life's passionate bypaths." (p. 43).

A second reason for buying "A Certain World" is that for a low price, we get a bibliophile's pleasure. The book itself is sturdy, with an embellished red cloth cover, strongly bound, and on almost archival-heavy paper. The choices are in themselves generally not-often met, unusual & splendid, including some good translations from Horace, much Anglo-Saxon, Icelandic, and Irish poetry including the powerful Vision of the Sybil from "The Deluding of Gylfi," much from Simone Weil, Goethe & Bettleheim, from mathematicians and scientists such as Whitehead, and from political observers. Here and there, a selection may be more to Auden's liking than to the readers, but many give nourishment to mind & spirit.

The topics can be of interest in themselves to a reader of broad interest. As an example, the reader can find under the P's alone, the topics/headings of Paradise, the earthly; P*nis rivalry; Phrase Books, Foreign; Plants; Pleasure;Praise, epithets of; Prayer, Nature of; Prayers, petitionary; Prose annihilating; Prose, impressionistic; Prose, judges'; Prose,purple; Prose, woozy; Puns; and Puritanism.

The author index gives their dates and the pages on which each selected work is to be found. References are listed by publisher, not author nor title. There is nary a cross-reference, for instance, to help a reader who wants to find the source of the Tolkien quote in which Elrond says farewell to the Ring Bearer. Here and there, what seems a clunkier translation is given than one lovelier one available at the time (example, not using Robin Flower's luminous translation of Pangur Ban) and for readers in 2013, more better translations such as those of Odes & Epodes now can be found. However, Auden also has chosen some of the best of translators, such as Helen Waddell, for medieval Latin and he himself has been the translator for Icelandic, Latin,and German selections.

Five stars for Auden the writer, Auden the reader and "A Certain World."

21 people found this helpful

Helpful

gilescogo.com

Just about worth reading

Reviewed in the United States on April 25, 2016

Verified Purchase

In my experience any literary commentary/exploration by Auden is very worth reading (e.g. The Dyer's Hand). What one looks for in a Commonplace Book, particularly in one by one of the best English-language poets of the last century, is high quality items, not necessarily restricted to the specialization of the author of the Book, which he admires for various (often explained) reasons. The items should illuminate the mind of the Book's author, artistically and otherwise and ideally should be mostly unfamiliar. Auden's book does contain some good items but he merits being judged by the highest standards and the book is not as widely or deeply illuminating as I think it could have been.
The Rattle Trap, by Seamus Heaney, another outstanding poet, is an anthology rather than a Commonplace Book but, for me at least, is more interesting.

7 people found this helpful

Helpful

Andrew McC.

Audenites can do without

Reviewed in the United States on June 1, 2016

Verified Purchase

As a great admirer was disappointed that writings he had collected were...well, commonplace.

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

John F

Good.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 19, 2019

Verified Purchase

Prompt service. Pleased with book.

David Owen-Bell

Disappointed

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 1, 2013

Verified Purchase

The book remains one of the most exceptional commonplace books ever published. This paperback version although adverts tied as used was in such a fragile condition that most f the pages fell out as I read it. Not value for money.

One person found this helpful

See more reviews

Follow the author

A Certain World: A Commonplace Book Hardcover – June 26, 1970

Customers who viewed this item also viewed

Product details

Videos

About the author

W. H. Auden

Customer reviews

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Top reviews from other countries