SOURCE: "Gothic North and the Mezzogiorno in Auden's 'In Praise of Limestone,'" in Renascence: Essays on Value in Literature, Vol. 42, No. 3, Spring, 1990, pp. 141-8.

In the following essay, France examines Auden's historical perspective and juxtaposition of Latin and Gothic Christianity in his "In Praise of Limestone."

Critics of W. H. Auden's "In Praise of Limestone" have often been lulled by the poem's casual voice into overlooking its seriousness. It has been said, for example, to betray a "frivolity [that] has modulated into a quixotic, religious playfulness" ([Richard] Johnson) or the "indulgent … humor" of a "family portrait of Mother Nature" ([Edward] Callan).

A good reading of "In Praise of Limestone," it seems to me, should account for the poem's centrality to the Auden corpus (it introduces, but one, both Nones and the concluding quarter of Collected Shorter Poems); such a reading should also incorporate our understanding of Auden's...