Pater Familias

Theories, observations, and articles, by Philip Schaefer · All posts · Categories

WHEN AUDEN LET A PRINTER REVISE HIS POEM.

July 31, 2014 at 7:06 PM · Literature

WHEN AUDEN LET A PRINTER REVISE HIS POEM. Clive James (the author of “The Book Of My Enemy Has Been Remaindered”), writes here about the time that a printer mistakenly changed a word in one of Auden’s poems, and Auden let the mistake stand.

The lines from LETTERS FROM ICELAND read (as Auden wrote them):

“And the traveller hopes: ‘Let me be far from any
Physician’; And the poets have names for the sea;”

The printer changed the lines to read:

“And the traveller hopes: ‘Let me be far from any
Physician’; And the ports have names for the sea;”