What is the name of the series of poems written between 1949 and 1955 by an English-American poet best known for "Funeral Blues"?
W. H. Auden Wystan Hugh Auden ( ; 21 February 1907 – 29 September 1973) was an English-American poet. Auden's poetry was noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in tone, form and content. He is best known for love poems such as "Funeral Blues", poems on political and social themes such as "September 1, 1939" and "The Shield of Achilles", poems on cultural and psychological themes such as "The Age of Anxiety", and poems on religious themes such as "For the Time Being" and "Horae Canonicae."
Winter Words (song cycle) Winter Words, Op. 52, is a song cycle for tenor and piano by Benjamin Britten. Written in 1953, it sets eight poems by Thomas Hardy. "Winter Words" is one of Britten's few compositions from the period after the premiere of his opera "Gloriana"; its poems are from Hardy's last published collection, having the same title. The cycle was premiered at the Leeds Festival in October 1953, with Peter Pears singing and Britten at the piano. It was dedicated to John and Myfanwy Piper.