History of English Literature

Note on Auden generation.

T. S. Eliot has dominated the English poetic scene till 1930; after that a new school of English poets have come to the forefront. These new English poets, popularly called the poets of the thirties, have a new poetic treat, with a new point of view for their readers. Inspired by Eliot and Hopkins, as admitted by their pioneers, the plane of the social reality of their poetry is altogether different. This new poetry is found concerned with an intense social consciousness and introduced a new political idealism, under the impact of the existing social and political environment of Europe.  Thus the new literary movement is headed by W.H. Auden, and the other leading poets of this group are Stephen Spender and Cecil Day Lewis and so on. 

W.H. Auden (1907-73)

The most original and the most poetically exciting among the modern poets is W. H. Auden who settled in America shortly before the Second World War. He belonged to a generation that lived in the years marked by powerful stout thinking and did not much focus on family life, a traditional theme of unhappy romantic love. He is greatly distressed by the upper and lower classes. It is the sense of imminent crisis which pervades his early poetry.

In his later poetry Auden has given up the psychological-economic diagnosis of the troubles of the times, and developed a more sober, contemplative and religious approach to life. But he is also capable of writing light verse full of puns and ironic overtone.  Some of his famous poetic works are ‘The Orator’, ‘Another Time’, ‘New Year Letter’, ‘For the Time Being’, ‘The Shield of Achilles’, ‘About the House’ and so on.

Stephen Spender (1909- 1995)

Stephen Spender who began writing under the influence of Auden composed lyrics in which he expressed sympathy for the working classes-

Oh young men, oh young comrades,
It is too late now to stay in those houses
Your fathers built where they built you to breed money on money.

But in his later poetry he has developed his own quiet, autobiographical style, which is unlike the style of any modern poet.

Cecil Day Lewis (1904-72)

Cecil Day Lewis also wrote his early poetry under the influence of Auden. But his later poetry has become more and more reflective and reminiscent. Moreover, he has adopted the Victorian diction. On account of his profound knowledge of technique he may be called the academic poet of the present age. In his poems the imagery is primarily rural and his tone is elegiac.

Other important English poets of the present age were Louis Mac Niece, Edith Sitwell, Robert Graves, George Barker, and Dylan Thomas. Though they do not form any definite group, yet there is a tendency among them to Romanticism in English poetry which had become metaphysical and classical under the influence of Hopkins, Ezra Pound, and T. S. Eliot.

It would be better to remind ourselves that in the thirties the older poets of the earlier era were also actively engaged in producing poetry. However, the characteristics poetry of the 30s came to be produced by the new generation of poets, the generation of Auden and his contemporaries.