As I Walked Out One Evening

If we are to take Mendelson at his word in his preface to the controversial 1979 Selected Poems?he asserted that "the surest way to misunderstand Auden is to read him as the modernists' heir"?then the validity of "light" poetry as a category may notneed questioning. Auden himself, Mendelson reminds us, titled a section in Another Time (1940) "Lighter Poems." But Mendelson is hardly taking authorial intention into account. He is again using texts (invoking the "claims of history," as he did in 1979) that do not reflect Auden's later, "conservative" revisions. And, as in Selected Poems, we are not shown where the variants might occur. What we do have, we are told, are those "immediately accessible" works (precluding the indisputably "light"but homoerotic "Uncle Henry"). Even the cover is to feature a picture of the younger Auden looking properly dizzy. This much can be said for the book: it is an inexpensive alternative to the Complete Works, the only other place many of the libretti can be found. Recommended only for introductory collections.?Steven R. Ellis, Pennsylvania State Univ. Libs.