Sense of Alienation in W.H Auden’s Poetry

Abstract

Auden is widely regarded as one of the greatest poets of the twentieth century. Though a decidedly modern poet in terms of his radical politics and bold experimentation with accepted literary forms, Auden's idiosyncratic virtuosity and protean ethical perspective distinguishes him from his contemporaries. His poems of the early phase reflect, if not on islands, at least on a landscape of alienation peopled by strangers. This alienation is derived from a Marxist perception of the decay of late capitalist society. All human relationships evoked in the poem are conditioned by the reiterated imagery of invasions, conquests, sentries, spies, and frontiers. He was considered as the hero of the left during the 30s. Continuing the analysis of the evils of the capitalist society, he also warned of the rise of totalitarianism His poems explore a variety of new and provocative ways of illustrating the futility of modern English middle class existence. As Auden's verse developed in the later 1930s, however, geography took on fresh significance. For his scenery of his early poems, he preferred the industrial midlands; particularly in districts where an industry is decaying. He loved industrial ruins, a disused factory or an abandoned mill, caves and mines where the working class people are forced to be cogs. As they are forced to be cogs they suffer from alienation and indifference.