"When I was a student, contemporary literature was something we looked at for ourselves and I think we were reasonably informed. We wouldn't have dreamt of going to a teacher and saying, 'We want to have a course.'" *
The reserved book lists Auden prepared for his courses show the texts that he used in his teaching and recommended for his students. These works were intended as supplementary materials - in his class on Shakespearean sonnets, for example, Auden encouraged familiarity with Chaucer and Plato, as well as Kierkegaard and C.S. Lewis, to illuminate the Bard's poetry.
