Prospero’s Death: Modernism, Anti-humanism and Un re in ascolto1

Yet, at this very moment when we do at last see ourselves as we are, neither cosy nor playful, but swaying out on the ultimate wind-whipped cornice that overhangs the unabiding void – we have never stood anywhere else,– when our reasons are silenced by the heavy huge derision,–There is nothing to say. There never has been,–and our wills chuck in their hands–There is no way out. ‘Caliban to the Audience’, W. H. Auden, ‘The Sea and the Mirror’ (Auden 1991, p.444)