Marxist Overtones in Auden’s Early Poetry of Thirties Dr Sujata Rana Professor (English) Department of Humanities D C R University of Sc. & Tech., Murthal (Sonepat) Mobile: 9416260036 The Decade of Thirties The period of 1930’s, opening with the Great Depression of 1929 and ending with the German invasion of Poland in 1939, which signalled the outbreak of World War II, was a highly disturbed one, especially in the European history. Witnessing hunger marches, mass rallies, world-wide unemployment, political manoeuvrings, dictatorial brutalities, ruthless oppressions, protests and wars the entire decade was really a period of uncertainty and distress for the common man as well as the men of letters. Mentioning some of the most important international …show more content…
Man is not only free to choose, he must choose if he has to rise above the level of human behaviour. The more wisely man chooses the more control he would gain over his environment. This paper intends to explore and analyse the influence of this Marxian freedom-necessity-choice concept of human existence on Auden which is evident in many poems of his early thirties volume called Look, Stranger. Marxist Colouring of Shorter Poems “A Communist to Others” starts with the line “Brothers , who when the siren roars “.The poem is in the form of a self conscious address by a liberal intellectual to the workers showing his sense of identity with them: We cannot put on airs with you The seas that hurt you hurt us too (EA …show more content…
The special temper of the poem is linked with a realization that a determined and collective bid to unite the two worlds is a compelling imperative which we shall ignore at our own peril. Another poem “A Summer Night” also attempts at combining the personal world of “Islands” and “gardens” and the political one of “violence”, “tyrannies of love” and “gathering multitude outside”. Although this problem of division between the internal and external worlds is the hallmark of the whole of Auden’s poetry, the poetry of the thirties particularly emphasizes the urgent need of uniting the two opposing worlds. And this can be done effectively when we learn to take sides, choose and act instead of remaining complacently lost in self-enclosed illusionary worlds. Auden had by then learnt to face reality with courage and make definite choices which reflected his partisanship or what can be better called a sense of responsibility towards those who are suffering and are being victimised. Another major shorter poem “The Chimneys are Smoking” is addressed not to the working class but to the lovers. They are urged to postpone their uncertain groping and “choose the crooked” route of attacking the conditions which enslave love to uncertainty and frustration. “Danse Macabre” (It’s a farewell to the drawing room’s mannerly cry”) also uses the dialectic of change in
In the poem, “For That He Looked Not upon Her,” the poet, George Gascoigne, communicates his fickle attitude towards his lover. With the use of standard Shakespearean sonnet form, exaggerated diction and vivid imagery he explains why the speaker is bound to avoid his ex-lovers eyes, since they can spell him to live a life with further deception and heartache. Gascoigne’s practice of sonnet form consists of the “ABAB” rhyme scheme, couplet, and four stanzas adding emphasis on the protagonists reluctance to see his lover’s face. As the poem progresses it becomes clear on why the speaker is warry. The poem includes paradoxing examples that elaborate his complex situation.
In a letter to his brother, the great painter, Vincent Van Gogh, once wrote,“Poetry surrounds us everywhere, but putting it on paper is, alas, not so easy as looking at it”. In this quote, Van Gogh summarizes a subject great writers like Ralph Waldo Emerson has devoted entire essays to defining and explaining, and that is the subject of poetry. As it can be seen, a poet undertakes that almost impossible job of transposing what he or she sees in Nature on to paper for others to read. Only a true poet can be successful in an attempt. It is not just Nature a poet tries to capture into words, but also social experiences and human truths.
Literature is where one could go to explore the highest and lowest points of human society, find the absolute truth, and support it using personal experiences and knowledge. Such is the case with writer Upton Sinclair, who grew up experiencing both sides of wealth and class divisions. By reflecting on his experiences with class division, Upton Sinclair’s exposé not only sheds light on the fight for workers rights but also incorporates a Socialist philosophy. Upton Sinclair was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on September 20, 1878. From birth Sinclair was exposed to dichotomies that would have an effect on his young mind and his thinking in later life (“Upton”).
As one single poem can intrigue the everyday college student, one can imagine the obsessive nature that one poem can have on the mind. The poem, circulating, round and round in the mind, leaving one to ponder the day away all because one poem, as one can be left questioning, such as in "Prayer" by Galway Kinnell. However, even if someone were to be obsessed with one poem, there are ones who are intrigued by not just one, but two, maybe dozens of poems, all by the same author that had them intrigued since the first poem looming in their head. Nevertheless, as one may ponder across an entire work of a single author, this pondering may lead to one who is passionate about the entire work of an author to publish articles about someone and their work respectively. In the article, "Galway Kinnell: Transfigured Dread," by Edward Hirsch, the pondering over the entire works of Galway Kinnel are discussed in great detail.
As a movement preoccupied with self-expression, the Romantics held an inherent fascination with individualism and the faculty of imagination, perceiving both to be of the utmost importance and as such desired it to be conveyed in their art and literature. Such innovative ideals was the product of exceptional changes in society, as oppressive institutions and practices were contested, and art became a product of an individual’s emotional state and their imaginative capability. George Byron’s poem “Prometheus”, conveys these aspects, through its elevation of ordinary people and in exemplifying the Romantic attitude that art should always originate from the imagination. Similarly, Edgar Allan Poe’s short story is fascinated with these concepts, though it showcases their darker depths, as it depicts the emotional extremities of an individual and the ability for the imagination to become consuming. Hence, Byron and Poe explores notions of the self and the imagination in their respective texts due to the Romantic fixation of each of these ideals.
The concept of the discouraging urban environment presented in the texts suggests that the functioning industrial world threatens all classes of society. This can be seen through images representative of the urban setting, the conception of crowds, and the individual’s longing for death. Therefore, the poems draw attention to the Canadian urban centre as a place of isolating corruption that be escaped only through death. And while these texts criticize the industrialized society of the 20th century, the mechanized city life is still prevalent in the experience of many urban populations of modern
Safe in this deliberate world, the two men standing there in the distance remain terribly masculine. In the foreground unified nature has come close to crossing the fence, close enough to distort the form and personality of the central character. But the fence still protects it from total absorption into subjective madness. Edward Munch is a very sophisticated kind of artist, he always depict an honest, even ugly, glance of his inner troubles and feelings of anxiety through what he called his “soul painting,” he puts more importance on personal meaning than on technical skill or “beauty,” which is a traditional goal of art. Munch’s personal experience and interpretation of “nature” was very different than one can imagine.
In “The Trouble with Poetry” the speaker touches on the same idea of how poetry is so forced, and how it has lost its meaning as an expression and has become more of an addiction among
This Elizabethan sonnet by George Gascoigne is a tortured self-confession of one “He” who “looked not upon her.” Gascoigne effectively illustrates the speaker’s paradoxical feelings for a woman through a series of literary devices such as extended metaphors, imagery, and alliteration, developing an easily identifiable conflict between the speaker’s desire for his lover and fear of being hurt again. The first stanza introduces us to the central paradox of the poem: why does the speaker “take no delight” in ranging his eyes “about the gleams” on his lover’s beautiful face? To answer this question, the speaker employs two extended metaphors that vividly illustrate this conundrum.
World War II (WWII) was the most expensive and deadliest war recorded in history. During WWII millions of people were killed, tortured and starved to death. There were bombings that killed entire towns of people, concentration camps where the concept was work or die and many more atrocities. The books Night by Elie Wiesel and The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, show different perspectives of the many tragedies and deaths during WWII.
This book provides an accurate analysis of the poetry by Robert Hayden showing the common base and originality strength from his virtues. Williams gives a critical analysis of the poetry by considering all the aspects of Hayden’s personal history. Williams writes of the accounts Hayden and the influence his history on the themes of his work in poetry. The book identifies elements that have been used by Hayden in his poetry and describes them while still trying to combine them into a magnificent whole. The themes depicted in the book are an expression of the commendable expertise of Williams in critical theory.
In the age of Romanticism, using nature to express ones feelings was one thing that poets loved to do. Focusing on the “London” by William Blake and “Mutability” by P.B. Shelley, one will see the comparison of how both authors used nature and emotion to depict the situations and experiences that they saw during this time. But meanwhile, the emotion and comparison to nature is not always positive, neither is it always negative and in these two poems one can see the differences. Romanticism was a period of time in the 18th century where literary movements was such an ideal trend in Europe. For the most part romanticism was about individualism and human emotions and not so much about power of the hierarchy over the population.
Besides the author and the reader, there is the ‘I’ of the lyrical hero or of the fictitious storyteller and the ‘you’ or ‘thou’ of the alleged addressee of dramatic monologues, supplications and epistles. Empson said that: „The machinations of ambiguity are among the very roots of poetry”(Surdulescu, Stefanescu, 30). The ambiguous intellectual attitude deconstructs both the heroic commitement to a cause in tragedy and the didactic confinement to a class in comedy; its unstable allegiance permits Keats’s exemplary poet (the „camelion poet”, more of an ideal projection than a description of Keats actual practice) to derive equal delight conceiving a lago or an Imogen. This perplexing situation is achieved through a histrionic strategy of „showing how”, rather than „telling about it” (Stefanescu, 173 ).
The poem 's content points not to just a single memory, but an entire sexual affair from the speaker’s youth—chronicling the erotic encounters that would eventually lead to his lover’s “footfall light” and both of them “silent as a stone”. Thus the memory is also clouded by the nature of erotic
Eliot uses tradition and personal innovation, combined with the revitalization of the twentieth-century British poetry, which leads to poems full of vitality. Based on the poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” this paper explores the poet 's exploration and innovation in the aspects of poetic skills and content. The early works of Eliot are in a low tone, and he often uses association, metaphor, and suggestion to express modern people 's depression. The famous poem “The love song of J. Alfred Prufrock" uses the inner monolog of the protagonist’s desire to love and fear of the contradictory attitude of love to illustrate modern emptiness and cowardice. From the content, the reader gradually learns the poem is about a middle-aged man.