his place to take the questions. The first section is a meditation on the dramatic arts, in various personifications, the Muse for the dramatic arts, Caliban as the Real World, and Ariel as the Poetic world. The second section is an address to Shakespeare on behalf of his characters, reflecting on the "Journey of Life" – " the down-at-heels disillusioned figure" and the desire for either personal or artistic freedom, with the disastrous results if either is attained. The third section is a meditation on the paradox of life and art, with mutually exclusive goals, where the closer to Art you come, the farther from Life you go, and vice versa. Caliban says he "[feels] something of the serio-comic embarrassment of the dedicated dramatist, who, in representing to you your condition of estrangement from the truth, is doomed to fail the more he succeeds, for the more truthfully he paints the condition, the less clearly can he indicate the truth from which it is estranged." This owes much to Auden's reading in Christian (existentialist) philosophy at this time. The section ends with a coda of sorts, with the paradox is resolved through faith in "the Wholly Other Life". It was important that the style be as artificial as possible to suggest Caliban's unnaturalness, neither able to leave the island with the others, nor, because the curtain has fallen in this meta-theatrical medium, remain put. He occupies a limbo of sorts which Auden identified in letters as specifically sexual, having been conceived as 'the Prick'. References John Fuller, W. H. Auden: A Commentary (1999) Edward Mendelson, Later Auden (1999) W. H. Auden, The Collected Poetry of W. H. Auden (1945) W.H. Auden, The Sea and the Mirror (1944) W.H. Auden, Selected Poems (2009) External links The W. H. Auden Society 1944 poems Poetry by W. H. Auden Works based on The Tempest