the composition of a symphony based on The Age of Anxiety acquired an almost compulsive quality." Immediately after reading Auden's "fascinating and hair-raising" poem in the summer of 1947, he found ". "'Frock coated father framed on the wall', 'The world needs a wash and a week's rest.' It's marvelous." "When I first read the book I was breathless," Bernstein said. Bernstein regarded it as "one of the most shattering examples of pure virtuosity in the history of English poetry." Within two years, it had been reprinted four times and inspired a symphony by Leonard Bernstein and a ballet by Jerome Robbins. Eliot lauded it as Auden's "best work to date," and the poem won the Pulitzer Prize in 1948. The Times Literary Supplement declared it "his one dull book, his one failure." For many, though, The Age of Anxiety struck a powerful chord, giving name to the cultural condition of the mid-twentieth century and allegorizing the search for faith fomented by the Second World War. Auden's ambitious book-length poem The Age of Anxiety was first published in July 1947, it garnered him some of the worst reviews of his career.
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