In this text - the result of a life-long critical and imaginative engagement with Auden's works - Anthony Hecht identifies and traces consistent habits of thought and belief within the poet's extensive and varied writings and through his celebrated conversions and repudiations. Anthony Hecht is the author of six volumes of poetry, for which he has received the Pulitzer Prize, the Bollingen Prize and the Prix de Rome, among other honours. He has served as Poetry Consultant to the Library of Congress.