Quest for Spiritual Transformation in W. H. Auden's Poetry

Abstract

W. H. Auden's poems swing between the sense of decay brought about by modern civilization and a need of creating a spiritual and metaphysical base of humanity in modern era. Therefore, this present research aims at unearthing the idea that Auden in fact envisages the redemption of modern humanity saturated by malaise and maladies of modern civilization through spiritual orientation that in fact his own poetry moves so as to found the concept ofAgape--universal love and spirituality. In some of poems like "Musee Des Beaux Arts," "In September 1, 1939," "The Unknown Citizen," "The Plains," and "Canzone," he deals with the themes of callous indifference of human being, war and despotism, modern craze for statistics that put identity of man at stake, desolation and the evil rampant in the world. These themes are what can be defined as the malaise and maladies of modern civilization. In some poems like "Lullaby," "Diaspora," "Nones," and "Petition," the poet sees the redemption of whole humanity only through the creation of a new metaphysical basis or even it can be referred to as the recovery of the lost metaphysical foundation. Therefore,he sees that the redemption is possible only when the whole humanity orients toward the spirituality.