Ages of Anxiety

Craig E. Stephensons Ages of Anxiety examines how W. H. Auden in his Pulitzer Prize winning poem, The Age of Anxiety, used C. G. Jungs psychological types to structure and explore his responses to war and the rise of fascism. This newly revised edition of Stephensons 2015 Zrich Lecture Series tracks Audens notion of the poets responsibilities and of the importance of the symbolic life in a time of conflict. The book tracks how Audens poem inspired Leonard Bernsteins second symphony and how three choreographers (Jerome Robbins, John Neumeier, Liam Scarlett) created dances set to this work, with Jungs psychology running through all these creative extrapolations like a common thread. In this expanded edition, Stephenson considers how the contemporary essayists Scott Stossel and Roberto Calasso employ Audens poem as touchstones for their own explorations of the meaning of anxiety in our time. Ages of Anxiety will be of interest to analytical psychologists, literary historians, performing arts historians, mental health practitioners, as well as the common reader.