SOURCE: Auden, W. H. “Music in Shakespeare.” In The Dyer's Hand and Other Essays, pp. 500-27. New York: Random House, 1962.

In the following essay, Auden surveys the dramatic relevance of vocal and instrumental music in Shakespeare's plays.

Musick to heare, why hear'st thou musick sadly, Sweets with sweets warre not, joy delights in joy: Why lov'st thou that which thou receav'st not gladly, Or else receav'st with pleasure thine annoy? 

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Professor Wilson Knight and others have pointed out the important part played in Shakespeare's poetry by images related to music, showing, for instance, how music occupies the place in the cluster of good symbols which is held in the bad cluster by the symbol of the Storm.

His fondness for musical images does not, of course, necessarily indicate that Shakespeare himself was musical—some very good poets have been musically tone deaf. Any poet of the period...