More Auden - and a sonnet by the Bard

Thanks, anonymous, for pointing out that

Actually, "the dyer's hand" is from Shakespeare's sonnet 111. Byron is
alluding to that, probably

in a comment on my Auden post. I do however maintain that Auden's primary reference is to Byron's interpretation or emendation of the metaphor as referring to the craft of poetry. Here is Sonnet 111:

O for my sake do you with Fortune chide,
The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds,
That did not better for my life provide
Than public means which public manners breeds.
Thence comes it that my name receives a brand,
And almost thence my nature is subdued
To what it works in, like the dyer's hand:
Pity me then, and wish I were renewed;
Whilst like a willing patient I will drink
Potions of eisel 'gainst my strong infection;
No bitterness that I will bitter think,
Nor double penance, to correct correction.
Pity me then, dear friend, and I assure ye,
Ev'n that your pity is enough to cure me.

The dyer's hand, subdued to what it works in, is thus stained or branded. Shamefully. This is apparently ususally interpreted as referring to Shakespeare's work in the theater, "public means" being interpreted as the lowly occupation of the actor, if you will. Of course it is not a huge leap to go from acting to writing poetry, philosophically (Aesthetically) generalizing to "the Artist" in general.

In the three chapters of "The Dyer's Hand" section of the book The Dyer's Hand, Auden discusses the nature of the poet's craft as well as its relation to the world both now (in the Modern Age) and historically - "Making, Knowing, Judging," "The Virgin and the Dynamo," and "The Poet and the City." Among many other things in these - manifestos? - he argues (in the latter) that the nature of Poetry in the Modern Age is very different than what it was in the past, and certainly in Shakespeare's time. The Modern twist given to the role of the Artist in Society by Byron's re-interpretation or echo of Shakespeare's metaphor of the dyer's hand (Poets "are such liars") to Shakespeare's shameful "brand" of the dyer's hand (the lowly tradesman) is evidence of Auden's claim in "Making, Knowing, Judging" that Great changes in artistic style always reflect some alteration in the frontier between the sacred and profane in the imagination of a society (p.59).

Really, I do appreciate the emendation, even if my response is tainted with the indignance of wounded pride...