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lTHE PEOPLE'S
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Indira Gandhi National British Literature: Early Twentieth Century

Open University BEGC-112
School of Humanities

Block

4
Poetry
BLOCK INTRODUCTION 02

UNIT 13
W.B. Yeats: “The Second Coming” 03

UNIT 14
T.S. Eliot: “Journey of the Magi” 12

UNIT 15
W. H. Auden: “The Unknown Citizen” 20

UNIT 16
Stephen Spender: “I think continually of those who were truly
great.” 28

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BLOCK INTRODUCTION
Block 4 “Poetry” is devoted to a discussion of the work of some of the most significant poetic
voices of early twentieth century Britain. These poets adopted a new poetic language and style
to express their responses to the general sense of rootlessness and monotony that seemed to
afflict modern existence.

Unit 13: W.B. Yeats, “The Second Coming”: introduces the poetic world of W. B. Yeats,
focusing on the poem “The Second Coming.” The symbolism of the poem and its Biblical and
historical contexts are explained in detail.

Unit 14: T.S. Eliot: “The Journey of the Magi”: briefly discusses the key role played by T. S.
Eliot in creating a new sensibility in British poetry, and critically analyses the poem “The
Journey of the Magi”.

Unit 15: W. H. Auden: “The Unknown Citizen” introduces Auden as a major War Poet of
the early twentieth century, and offers a critical reading of his poem “The Unknown Citizen”.

Unit 16: Stephen Spender: “I think continually of those who were truly great”, focuses on
the poetry of Stephen Spender and critically interprets the poem “I think continually of those
who were truly great”.

Acknowledgement

The material and images we have used is purely for educational purposes. Every effort has been
made to trace the copyright holders of material used in this book. Should any infringement have
occurred, the publishers and editors apologise, and will be pleased to make the necessary
corrections in future editions of this book.

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UNIT 13 W. B. YEATS: “THE SECOND COMING”

Structure

13.0 Aims and Objectives

13.1 Introduction to W. B. Yeats
13.2 Famous lines from Yeats
13.3 The poem The Second Coming
13.4 Critical summary of the poem
13.5 The Historical and the Biblical context
13.6 Analysis of the poem
13.7 Symbolism in the poem
13.8 Summing up
13.9 Unit end questions
13.10 Glossary
13.11 References
13.12 Further Reading

13.0 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

After studying this unit devoted to Yeats’s poem “The Second Coming” you would have learnt
about:

• The life and writings of William Butler Yeats, one of the most prominent poets of the 20th
century
• His works and contribution to Modernism
• His poem, The Second Coming
• Analysis of the poem
• Its historical and Biblical references
• Yeats’s use of symbols in this poem and their significance.

13.1 INTRODUCTION TO W. B. YEATS

Source: www. Wikipedia.com

Born in 1865 in Ireland, William Butler Yeats was one of the greatest English language poets, a
towering figure in 20th century English Literature. Like T. S. Eliot, he was also a dramatist and a

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writer of prose. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1923 “for his always inspired
poetry, which in a highly artistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation."1

Born in 1865, he began writing at the early age of seventeen, and his first published poem The Isle
of Statutes revealed the influences of Shelley and Spenser on him. The poets who influenced Yeats
were diverse and include the English Romantic poets - Wordsworth, Blake, and Keats, and the
French Symbolists, such as Stephen Mallarme and Arthur Rimbaud. He was also influenced by
Irish mythology and folklore as is seen in his formative work, The Wanderings of Oisin and Other
poems, published in 1869. Yeats was an Irish patriot who desired Ireland's political independence
from England and many of his works are in praise of Irish culture and heritage.

In 1889, he met the Irish nationalist, Maud Gonne who was the great love of his life. It was mainly
her influence that made him get involved in Irish politics and propelled him to join the Irish
Republican Brotherhood. Though Maud Gonne never consented to marry him, she was the Muse
who inspired him to write many poems and plays for her. He was passionate about Irish cultural
identity and Irish heritage which was in line with Maud Gonne’s fervent struggle for political
independence for her nation. Among the most famous poems of Yeats are The Stolen Child, The
Second Coming, The Lake Isle of Innisfree, Sailing to Byzantium and Among School Children
alongside his powerful poems that document political unrest such as September1913 and Easter
1916.

Activity: Read some of the poems he wrote in the 1890s and identify the works that reflect Yeats’
love for Ireland and its cultural heritage.

Yeats with his friend and patron, Lady Gregory founded the Irish Literary Theatre to revive Celtic
dramatic literature. He was a cultural revolutionary and wrote 26 plays. Yeats joined hands with
another outstanding Irish playwright John Middleton Synge and established the famous Abbey
Theatre, one of the leading cultural institutions of Ireland. The motto of the Abbey theatre was to
‘bring upon stage the deeper emotions of Ireland’. In his manifesto to the Abbey Theatre group,
Yeats declared, "We hope to find in Ireland an uncorrupted & imaginative audience trained to
listen by its passion for oratory ... & that freedom to experiment which is not found in the theatres
of England, & without which no new movement in art or literature can succeed." 2. Yeats was thus
a pillar of the Irish literary establishment. The Abbey theatre he founded continues to play a vital
role in launching new, young Irish writers and playwrights

Source: www.flicker.com

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13.2 FAMOUS LINES OF W.B.YEATS
Yeats truly celebrated status can be best seen in some of the famous lines he wrote:

“Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.”

“There are no strangers here; only friends you haven’t met.”

“Happiness is neither virtue nor pleasure, neither this thing nor that but simply growth. We are
happy when we are growing.”

“People who lean on logic and philosophy and rational exposition end by starving the best part of
the mind.”

Such lines stand testimony to the romantic and humane aspects of Yeats’s mind.

Activity: Read other poems by Yeats, and identify some of his most memorable lines. Yeats is
remarkable for writing on multifarious subjects that include nationalism, mythology, culture,
heritage, romantic love of life and beauty, Christianity etc.

Check your progress 1:

Write a note on Yeats’s involvement in the Irish literary movement of the early twentieth century.

13.3 THE POEM: THE SECOND COMING

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

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Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

13.4 CRITICAL SUMMARY OF THE POEM

The above poem was written in 1919 and published in both The Nation and The Dial in November
1920 and later in Yeats's collection Michael Robartes and the Dancer (1921).Yeats wrote the
poem to coincide with the end of World War I (1914-18) that had caused suffering and death,
torture, hunger and disillusionment to millions of people. The First World War had let loose
anarchy in the world. During the War, bombs were dropped, and many thousands of innocent
people were killed which made people think that the time had come for the end of the world. The
War proved catastrophic, almost signalling the end of the world and people began to wait for relief
from the cruel happenings. This parallels the waiting of those who had earlier, witnessed the
crucifixion of Jesus and had waited for his promised second coming, that is, the second coming of
Jesus to earth, as revealed in the Book of Revelation (the last Book of the New Testament). In the
New Testament, it is stated that the second coming would happen at the end of a catastrophic war
and that the Saviour would arrive and take all devout people to a joyous life in heaven. The
apocalyptic prediction of the collapse of civilization as revealed in the Book of Revelation seemed
truly prophetic in the context of the deadly world War

The New Testament made many Christians long for Jesus’s return to the world a second time as
their Saviour. The concept of time span is revealed by the title with the three words, ‘The Second
Coming’. Just as Christ’s earlier arrival in the world was for saving men and women from their
sins and punishments, in the same way the poet feels the second coming of Jesus will be to save
mankind from total annihilation as evidenced in the First World War.

The poem is difficult to understand with its shocking imagery and obscurity. Once the images are
well explained, it is easy to apprehend the theme of the poem. Simply stated it is a lament for the
death of the old world and an expression of hope and expectation of a possible rebirth of a new
one. The poem draws upon the Biblical symbolism of the apocalypse and the second coming of
Christ to make the point. The poem is deeply pessimistic for the "Second Coming," since it is only
an event that people desire; where people think there will be light, given the reality of the
catastrophic war, only darkness remains.

“Yeats believed that history is cyclical, and his poem ‘The Second Coming’— a two-stanza poem
in blank verse—with its imagery of swirling chaos and terror, prophesies the cataclysmic end of
an era. Critics associated the poem with various contemporary calamities, such as the Easter rising
of 1916, the Russian Revolution of 1917, the rise of fascism, and the political decay of eastern
Europe.”3

13.5 THE HISTORICAL AND THE BIBLICAL CONTEXTS

This is an elaboration of the previous section (13.3) that provided you with a brief summary of the
poem. Yeats’ genius is seen in his fusion of the historical and the Biblical contexts in the poem.

1. This poem is based on The Book of Revelation. The title of the poem, The Second Coming
is a phrase out of the Book of Revelation. The Book of Revelation – also variedly called
the Apocalypse of John, Revelation to John or Revelation from Jesus Christ is the final
book of the New Testament, and consequently is also the final book of the Christian Bible.

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 The Bible is of two parts- the Old Testament and the New Testament. The Book of
Revelation, the final book of the New Testament is the only apocalyptic book in the New
Testament canon. The word Apocalypse means ‘unveiling’ or ‘revelation’. Thus, it
occupies a central place in Christian eschatology . We have evidence of the second coming
of Jesus in the Gospels (Matthew 24–25; Mark 13; Luke 21:5–26; John 14:25–29), in
the Book of Revelation, and in other biblical and traditional sources.

“Second Coming, also called Second Advent or Parousia, in Christianity, is the future return
of Christ in glory, when it is understood that he will set up his kingdom, judge his enemies, and
reward the faithful, living and dead.”4 John in his Gospel says that he received new revelation
concerning the return of the Lord Jesus Christ. In Revelation 1:18, the figure whom John sees,
identifies himself as ‘the First and the Last,’ who ‘was dead, and behold I am alive forever and
ever’, a reference to the Resurrection of Jesus. In the first ten verses the emphasis is on what he
heard in special announcements in preparation for the return of Christ. In verses 11-21, however,
the stress falls on what John sees concerning the actual return of the Lord. The return of the Lord
brings to a close the Tribulation and the wrath of God.

The key literary influence running through this poem from start to finish is the biblical Book of
Revelation (and the Bible more generally). In the Book of Revelation, Jesus is predicted to return
to the Earth (in what's called "The Second Coming") and usher in a new era of peace, joy, and
union with God. This poem is a kind of subversion of that story, seeing a bizarre beast in place of
the expected saviour.

Historical Context

Since the date of composition of Yeats’ poem is 1919, i.e., a year after the end of World War I,
the historical period is clear and significant even though Yeats does not make any explicit reference
to it. The fallout of the war was the death of nearly 20 million people while another 20 million
were wounded..

The first few lines of the poem (starting from the 3rd line) sum up the disjointed time after the war.

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

These lines detail the devastation caused by the War and the last two lines in particular is almost
a foretelling of the second World War, almost prophesying the coming of “the worst” like Adolf
Hitler , ‘full of passionate intensity’. Though Yeats is no prophet or foreseer, his words anticipate
the deadly fascist violence that Hitler unleashed two decades later leading to World War II (1939-
45). Yeats juxtaposes the historical context of the First World War that he is presently concerned
with with an end-of-the-world scenario, which transforms the work partly to a work of
eschatology—that is, writing about the apocalypse. The Biblical revelation had foretold the
futuristic happening of a degenerate world, speedily coming to an end. Thus the poem has both a
historical context woven around the Biblical narrative of the birth and crucifixion of Jesus and his
resurrection that holds the promise of his possible second coming to save mankind.

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Check your progress 2:

Explain the biblical and historical contexts of this poem.

13.6 ANALYSIS OF THE POEM

While the first stanza describes the catastrophic state of the people, the second stanza is explicit
about the Biblical reference:

Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming!

But the main idea in "The Second Coming" can be elusive, especially because the poem ends
with a complicated question that takes up the last five lines of the poem.

The darkness drops again; but now I know

That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Before we take up the analysis of these last five lines, it is pertinent to focus on Yeats’s use of the
word ‘gyre’ which appears in the opening line: ‘Turning and turning in the widening gyre’. The
word ‘gyre’ is used in oceanography and climatology. It means a vast circular system made up
of ocean currents that spirals about a central point. The world gyre simply means spiral that widens
on going up or down. Here the falcon (refer to the next line) is seen spinning round and round. As
the falcon gyrates, it cannot hear the falconer. The ‘Falcon’ symbolizes the hawk which is the
symbol of logic. Thus the falcon represents man’s intellect while the falconer stands for his strong
feelings about the way the world has turned anarchic (with no controlling rules or principles to
give order). The image of Falcon and Falconer continues throughout the poem. Here in the poem
it can also stand for the interacting and conflicting eras. According to the poet “things fall apart
and the centre cannot hold”, where the centre refers to the falconer and the things refer to
the Falcon.

The word ‘gyre’ is also significant in its reference to the cyclical nature of history. Yeats
believed in the theory that history consists of cycles that lasts two thousand years and then
repeats itself. Yeats suggests that at the end of the 20th century the current cycle will end and the
next one will be ushered in. The current cycle of 2000 years thus includes 1919 when the poem
was written. This cycle had begun long time back when Jesus was born. You must remember that
a new era started with the birth of Christ. Yeats says that he and his generation are living in a
chaotic time. The world had gone through a terrible War, which was widespread throughout
Europe and had caused the death of millions of innocent people.

Yeats, looking back on the present times as characterised by chaos, feels that the world has
regressed to the point where "the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate
intensity." Anarchy and confusion are prevailing all over the world post- War, which had
degenerated into a bloodbath of innocent killings. The virtue-rewards and the sin-punishment

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syndrome had taken a reverse turn whereby good people do not get justice while those full of
passionate intensity enjoy the best of times. The first stanza presents a world devastated by war,
inhumanity and violence and sets the tone for the second and concluding stanza that presages a
new era with the second coming of Jesus. These conditions have been prophesied in the Bible
and the poet prepares us for the next stage which according to him is not a sanguine expectation;
he is sceptical about it providing relief and ushering in a new era of peace and harmony.

The poet starts the second stanza with a reference to the Book of Revelation and repeats the idea
of second coming in the next two lines. Soon the poet sees a big image of Spiritus Mundi.
This phrase means the spirit or the outlook or the social and cultural values characteristic of an
era of human history. Though it was supposed to provide relief, the poet is troubled by
visualizing it. Why?

This is because Yeats pictures the spirit to be like a beast, a man-lion where the head of a man is
conjoined to the body of a lion. In this avatar, it shows itself to be without compassion or
empathy for humans. The brutality of war had dried human feelings to such an extent that human
beings are no longer capable of reacting to the sorrow and misery of fellow beings all round.
Yeats’s lines remind one of the twin poems The Lamb and the Tiger where the poet contrasts
God’s creation of a fearsome tiger with that of a gentle lamb. The speaker is in awe of the
fearsome qualities of the tiger, and rhetorically wonders whether the same creator could have
also made the lamb earlier. Jesus in his first descent into the world was like a gentle lamb. But
the second coming may be like that of a tiger. This is how Yeats describes the coming of an
apocalypse to ravage the world, no longer like a gentle lamb, but as a ferocious tiger.

“The twenty centuries of stony sleep” relates to the barbaric age prior to the advent of
Christianity. But after the arrival of Jesus, the earlier 2000 years of barbarism had ended. As the
world was moving towards the end of the 20th century once again barbarism had erupted. Now as
the Christian Era is about to end, it is moving “towards Bethlehem to be born”. Bethlehem is
the city of Jesus’ birth. The beast is slouching towards Bethlehem. Slouching means to trudge;
or, to move lazily. It is not a gentle Jesus, but a malevolent beast from the spirit world – Spiritus
Mundi – that will now take birth at Bethlehem.

The sight of Spiritus Mundi vanishes and “the darkness drops again”. The ending of the poem
suggests the wait for the promised relief that Christ will be born when the world goes through
such a cataclysmic upheaval. But this time, Yeats fears it is not going to be the gentle, kind,
peace loving Jesus to save mankind who will be born, but a rough beast to punish the sinners and
the wicked. It sems as though Yeats fears punishment and not pardon at the end of the 2000 year
cycle. “Thinking of the next 2000-year cycle, which he calls "the Second Coming," Yeats is
filled with pessimism and dread. He imagines a "rough beast" rising from the sands in the desert
and wonders what it is, but from the description and the questions, it is clear that he anticipates
that nothing good can come in the next cycle. If the current cycle, as bad as it is, was kicked off
by "a rocking cradle," a harmless event, then how much worse will be the next cycle, which is
being heralded by this ominous beast? The main idea, then, seems to be pessimism about the
current age and even more pessimism about the future”5.

13.7 SYMBOLISM IN THE POEM

From a detailed analysis given above, it is easy to identify the symbols used by Yeats in the poem.
It begins with the title “The Second Coming”, a phrase from the Book of Revelation to signify the
coming of Jesus a second time. Yeats use of the ‘gyre’ is related to his belief in the 2000 year cycle

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the world goes through. The world in 1919, the year of the poem’s creation, is slowly moving
towards 2000, symbolic of the end of 2000 years after the death of Jesus. Christian values taught
by Jesus of love and peace, service, thankfulness. compassion, forgiveness, and empathy have all
been forgotten as evidenced in the just concluded World War. Yeats anticipates a new cycle to
begin. But he does not hold any hope of God sending his Son, but more likely a man-lion to destroy
wickedness. “A page of history is about to flip; one epoch is about to give birth to another”6.

13.8 LET US SUM UP

In this Unit, we discussed the poetry of W. B. Yeats, an outstanding Modernist poet of the early
twentieth century. We also read his poem “The Second Coming”, and discussed the historical and
biblical contexts of the poem. The symbolism of the poem was also discussed against the
background of Yeats’s concept of cyclical history.

13.9 Unit end questions

(1) How does the title relate to the poem?

(2) Discuss the symbolism in this poem with reference to Yeats’s cyclical theory of history.
(3) Explain the pessimistic overtone of the poem
(4) Is the poem relevant to our times? Explain.

13.10 GLOSSARY
Celtic: today, the term generally refers to the languages and respective cultures of Ireland,
Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, the Isle of Man, and Brittany, also known as the Celtic nations
Saviour: ((in Christianity) God or Jesus Christ as the redeemer of sin and saver of souls.
Annihilation: extinction, destruction
Obscurity: a thing that is unclear or difficult to understand
Apprehend: Understand, perceive
Apocalypse: the complete final destruction of the world, as described in the biblical book of
Revelation
cataclysmic: causing sudden and violent upheaval
Easter rising of 1916:: The Rising was launched by Irish republicans against British rule in Ireland
with the aim of establishing an independent Irish Republic while the United Kingdom was fighting
the First World War.
Russian Revolution of 1917: Russian Revolution took place in 1917 when the peasants and
working class people of Russia revolted against the government of Tsar Nicholas II. The new
communist government created the country, the Soviet Union.
fascism: a form of far-right, authoritarian ultra-nationalism characterized by dictatorial power,
forcible suppression of opposition, and strong regimentation of society and of the economy, which
came to prominence in early 20th-century Europe.
The Old Testament: the first part of the Christian Bible, comprising thirty-nine books and
corresponding approximately to the Hebrew Bible. Most of these books were written in Hebrew,
some in Aramaic, between about 1200 and 100 BC. They comprise the chief texts of the law,
history, prophecy, and wisdom literature of the ancient people of Israel.
The New Testament: the second part of the Christian Bible, written originally in Greek and
recording the life and teachings of Christ and his earliest followers. It includes the four Gospels -

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of Matthew, John, Mark and Luke, the Acts of the Apostles, twenty-one Epistles by St Paul and
others, and the book of Revelation.
canon: the list of works considered to be permanently established as being of the highest quality.
Eschatology: in the history of religion, the term eschatology refers to conceptions of the last things:
immortality of the soul, rebirth, resurrection, migration of the soul, and the end of time. This
concept also has secular parallels as for example, in the turning points in one's life and in one's
understanding of death.
Second Advent: the prophesied return of Christ to earth at the Last Judgment. The Last Judgement
is the day when God judges everyone and decides whether they will go to Heaven or Hell.
Parousia: another term for the ‘Second Coming’.
Resurrection: in Christian belief the rising of Christ again to life from the dead
Tribulation: grievous trouble; severe trial or suffering
bizarre: very strange or unusual
oceanography: the branch of science that deals with the physical and biological properties and
phenomena of the sea.
climatology: the scientific study of climate
Gyrate: cause to move or whirl rapidly in a circle or a spiral
Anarchic: with no controlling rules or principles to give order
Presage: be a sign or warning of (an imminent event, typically an unwelcome one
Sanguine: optimistic , positive, hopeful
Sceptical: not easily convinced; having doubts or reservations

13.11 REFERENCES
1. "Nobel Prize in Literature 1923", NobelPrize.org.
2. Foster, R. F. (1997). W. B. Yeats: A Life. Vol. I: The Apprentice Mage. Oxford University
Press.
3. Encyclopaedia Britannica
4. ibid
5. www.enotes.com
6. Scott Simon, ‘Reading Wiliam Butler Yeats 10 years later’ NPR,www.ctpublic.org/2020-
11-28

13.12 FURTHER READING

‘Occultism in Yeats's "The Second Coming": A Critical Interpretation’, researchgate.com
C. S. Lewis. (1960). The World's Last Night and Other Essays. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
James Stuart Russell. The Parousia, A Careful Look at the New Testament Doctrine of the Lord's
Second Coming, London 1887.

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UNIT 14 “JOURNEY OF THE MAGI” BY T. S. ELIOT
Structure

14.0 Aims and Objectives

14.1 Introduction
14.2 A Brief analysis of Eliot’s works
14.3 The poem: “Journey of the Magi”
14.4 Biblical background of the poem
14.5 Interpretation
14.6 Symbolism in the poem
14.7 Summing Up
14.8 Unit end questions and answers
14.9 Glossary
14.10 References:
14.11 Further Reading

14.0 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

This Unit introduces you to T. S. Eliot, leader of the Modernist movement in poetry in England. After a
study of this unit which includes the prescribed poem, Journey of the Magi, you will get to know
*the biblical account of the birth of Jesus
* the journey of the Magi to Bethlehem to witness the birth of Jesus
* the metaphorical meaning of the journey which is essentially a spiritual journey
*the significance of Jesus’ birth and death and
*the spiritual transformation that comes with the understanding that life is a journey that all humans have
to go through.

14.1 INTRODUCTION
In Unit 2 of the earlier Block, you have read about modern poetry, where we mentioned some of the
leading English poets of the first three decades of the 20th century. Thomas Stearns Eliot who was one of
them, was born in September 1888 in the USA and settled later in England where he died in 1965. His
writings can be distinctly divided into two phases - the early phase that reflects an undercurrent of
despair, disenchantment and disillusionment with the period after World War I (1914-18) and the later
phase when he wrote poems after his conversion to Anglo-Catholicism. that had a pronounced
theological bent. The year he wrote this poem Journey of the Magi was 1927 which was an important year
for Eliot. It was in 1927 that Eliot got his British citizenship and converted to Anglo-Catholicism, to
which he was committed for life. Worshipping in church became a crucial part of his routine and this
directly influenced the composition of the poem Journey of the Magi.

14.2 A brief analysis of the writings of T. S. Eliot

Eliot was a versatile writer. His oeuvre spanned all literary genres. He was a poet, playwright, essayist
and literary critic. He was a leader of the Modernist movement, as is notably reflected in his early poems
like The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, The Waste Land and the later poem The Four Quartets
which led to his recognition as the greatest living English poet and man of letters. He was awarded both
the Order of Merit and the Nobel Prize for literature. Both through his poetry and critical essays, he
broke new ground in versification, diction and style. There was an undercurrent of hope in his early
poems despite the despair and disillusionment of the War years as he referred to the ancient philosophical
and religious texts that included the Hindu texts like the Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads along with

12
the writings of ancient Greek philosophers like Heraclitus and Socrates, Parmenides and Pythagoras, not
to leave out the English philosopher, F. R. Bradley. He wrote: ‘these fragments I have shored against my
ruins’.1 His early reading of 17th century English writers like John Donne and John Webster and the 19th
century French Symbolist LaForgue helped him to find his own style. Eliot said: “LaForgue was the first
to teach me how to speak, to teach me the poetic possibilities of my own idiom of speech.”.2 The Love
Song of J. Alfred Prufrock was the first poem that introduced a new poetic diction in English poetry. Just
as Wordsworth and Coleridge brought to poetry the language of ordinary men, Eliot and his contemporary
Ezra Pound created new diction using the contemporary speech that was ‘neither pedantic nor vulgar’.

His early poems marked a new turn in the history of English poetry. In them, Eliot articulated distinctly
modern themes using contemporary diction that were a marked departure from those of 19th century
poetry. The most influential poems of Eliot during this period were The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,
Gerontion and The Waste Land (1922). While the origins of The Waste Land are in part personal, the
voices projected are universal. In The Waste Land he diagnosed the malaise discomfort, illness, or of his
generation and indeed of Western civilization in the 20th century.

Let us have a brief summing up of these three influential poems to illustrate Eliot’s themes. Love Song of
J. Alfred Prufrock is a poem written in 1910 and published in 1915. It is considered to be a typical
representative poem of modernism and contributed to the literary movement of the early 20th century by
focusing on themes of “alienation, isolation, and the diminishing power of the traditional sources of
authority.”3

Gerontion by T. S. Eliot is a poem about an old man reflecting on his youthful years and the world that
was undergoing rapid changes. “Written in 1920, it shows a view of the nineteenth century and World
War I as man experienced them, and it is sombre in his yearning for the kind of deeper meaning that
others found during that time”4 The main themes of The Waste Land are: “Eliot's portrait of women, or the
female characters as presented in the poem and the metaphor of the title and the emptiness and sterility of
the modern world”5

After his conversion to Anglo-Catholicism, from 1930 onwards the second phase of his writing begins. In
1930 he published his next major poem, Ash-Wednesday. This was followed by his masterly poem
The Four Quartets consisting of. Burnt Norton (1941), East Coker (1940), The Dry
Salvages (1941), and Little Gidding (1942). The Four Quartets is one of the greatest and mature poetic
achievements of Eliot and read alongside his early poems like The Wasteland and The Hollow Men, we
recognize the change and progression in Eliot’s state of mind - from despair to a fleeting glimmer of
wishful hope in the early poems to an affirmation of redemption through God’s grace.

Eliot was almost as renowned a literary critic as he was a poet. From 1916 through 1921 he contributed
approximately one hundred reviews and articles to various periodicals. Eliot contributed significantly to
the emergence of New Criticism, one of the most influential schools of literary study in the 20th century.
Eliot’s literary criticism was followed by his religious and social criticism. In The Idea of a
Christian Society (1939), he writes as a Christian poet trying to make sense of the world between the
two World Wars. These writings reflect his misgivings about Western culture prevailing in the 1930s and
they complement his poetry, plays, and literary journalism. Eliot is also an important figure in 20th
century drama. He was inclined from the first toward the theatre - his early poems are essentially
dramatic, and many of his early essays and reviews are on drama or dramatists.

Eliot’s first play , Sweeney Agonistes was published in 1932 and performed in 1933. In the 1930s he
wrote an ecclesiastical pageant, The Rock (performed and published in 1934), and two full-blown
plays, Murder in the Cathedral (performed and published in 1935) and The Family
Reunion (performed and published in 1939); and in the late 1940s and the 1950s he devoted himself
almost exclusively to plays, of which The Cocktail Party (performed in 1949, published in 1950) has
been the most popular. His most significant contribution to English theatre was the revitalization of poetic
drama in terms that would be consistent with the modern age. He experimented with language which was

13
close to contemporary speech, but also essentially poetic and thus capable of expressing spiritual,
emotional, and intellectual experiences.

14.3 JOURNEY OF THE MAGI

A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.” 5
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet. 10
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices: 15
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly. 20
Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow. 25
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon 30
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.
All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for 35
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms, 40
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death. 43

14.4 BIBLICAL BACKGROUND TO THE POEM

The stories about the early life of Jesus Christ by different writers are found in four books called the
Gospels, a term which means good news. They are the Gospels of Matthew, of John, of Mark and of
Luke. Together they form the New Testament which tells us though not in great detail, about his birth but

14
mostly about his later life that comprises his teachings, the miracles he performed, his death by
crucifixion and his Resurrection (rising from death).

This poem, Journey of the Magi, is based on the Gospel of St. Matthew. Jesus was born in Bethlehem
and the poem describes the journey undertaken by three wise men who travel to witness the birth
of Jesus Christ. The word Magi is a plural form of Magus representing the three wise kings of
the eastern world. The three Magi travelled to Bethlehem so as to witness the birth of Jesus
Christ. The journey is arduous as it takes place in the cold wintry month of December. Jesus’
birth heralds the dawn of a new world. Jesus dies on the Cross and his disciples founded the new
religion Christianity based on the teachings of Jesus.

His birth and death constitute a paradox as his birth marks the death of the earlier pagan world
order and his death marks the birth of a new era , the Christian era. Thus death refers to both the
death of Christ and the death of the old religious order, including the magical power of the Magi and birth
refers to the birth of Jesus and the birth of Christianity. The Magi visiting Bethlehem to witness the birth
of Jesus end the poem with an anticipation of Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection, signalling a new
Christian era. The journey of the Magi thus becomes a renewal of hope after despair, where birth and
death alternate. In spiritual terms the birth of a child is seen as the Birth of Jesus and his death signals the
birth of a new world order. The journey thus represents a spiritual journey that witnesses a drastic change
in the world: the death of the old pagan order and the beginning of a new world order of Christianity.

The poem focuses on the epiphany of Matthew. The name ‘Epiphany’ comes from the Greek
‘epiphaneia’, meaning “appearance” or “manifestation,” and refers to the manifestation of Jesus
Christ to the world. The theme of the poem is the effect of spiritual/ cultural events on individual
identity and society; it deals with birth, death and regeneration or renewal. Eliot echoes the views
of Shelley who wrote “When Winter comes, can Spring be far behind”? The binary happenings
on earth are seen in the alternation of winter and spring, scorching summer and freezing winter
not to leave out day and night, morning and evening, full moon and new moon, light and
darkness, sunrise and sunset. Birth and death are of the same binary quality. The physical
journey of the Magi gets transformed into his spiritual journey when he gets a deeper
understanding of life as a binary alternation between birth and death, exemplified by Jesus’s
birth and death and the dawn of Christianity.

14.5 INTERPRETATION
The opening lines with a graphic description of the harsh wintry weather are taken by Eliot from a sermon
given by the Anglican Bishop Lancelot Andrewes in 1622.The Bishop’s sermon was as given under:
“A cold coming they had of it at this time of the year, just the worst time of the year to take a journey, and
specially a long journey. The ways deep, the weather sharp, the days short, the sun farthest off, in solstitio
brumali, ‘the very dead of winter’”.

The poem is a dramatic monologue, a poem written in the form of a speech by an individual character.
This means there is no dialogue coming from another speaker. It captures in a single scene the essence of
what the speaker wants to express and the speech also provides a psychological insight into the character
of the speaker. The poem is addressed to a silent listener. There are three specific characteristics of the
Dramatic Monologue:

• A character speaks in an uninterrupted flow

• The audience may be either present or absent
• The speaker reveals something about his or her character or situation through the monologue

15
Activity: Read the poetry of Robert Browning who wrote some of the notable dramatic monologues in
English Literature. Identify in his My Last Duchess the characteristics of a dramatic monologue.
Read Tennyson’s Ulysses and try to see how Ulysses reveals his character that has an affinity with
Victorian conflict between art for art’s sake and art for the reformation of mankind.

In the Journey of the Magi, the speaker is one of the Magi. The singular form of Magi is Magus. Who are
the Magi? In the Bible, the Magi represent three men who were called three Kings or three wise men.
They followed a star to witness the great event of Jesus’s birth. and give baby Jesus presents. What were
the gifts they had taken? Gold, a symbol of earthly kingship, frankincense, a symbol of godliness; and
myrrh, a symbol of death. Thus the gifts were given in recognition of Jesus's importance within the
Christian story. Jesus was known as the King of the Jews or the Judaeans (hence gold is offered); he was
also the Son of God (hence frankincense as a symbol of godliness is offered) and Jesus was crucified by a
fanatic mob who refused to acknowledge him as the Son of God (hence, myrrh,as the symbol of death is
one of the gifts brought by the Magi). According to the Bible, crucifixion is important for Christians who
believe that God sacrificed Jesus, his only Son, to atone for the sins of humanity.

The Poem is in three stanzas:

• the journey to the birthplace and the doubt.
• the arrival, the prefiguring and satisfaction.
• the reflection and acknowledgement of a new faith.

Stanza 1

Lines 1-5: It is the month of December, a time of freezing cold. It was hardly a time for travel.
Lines 6-7: Even the camels that carried them were in pain and refused to move and lay down in the
melting snow.
Lines 8- 12: The three Magi longed for the days in their luxurious palaces. The camel drivers also ran
away wanting various comforts.
Lines 13-20: Added to the inclement and the frosty weather, there were no places of shelter to take
temporary refuge from rain and storm. Cities were hostile and the villages they came across were filthy.
It was a difficult journey. They thought it better to travel through night, sleeping when they could, than go
and stay in lodgings which were expensive. They heard voices telling them to stop being foolish and turn
back.
Stanza 2
Lines 21-31: Then one morning after the arduous journey, the Magi arrived at a pleasant valley full of
vegetation. There was a stream and a water mill, and three trees on the horizon and a white horse in a
nearby meadow. As they stopped at a tavern with vines above the door, they met people fully drunk and
asking for money. No one gave them any useful information, so they continued along their way. That
evening, they finally got to Bethlehem.
Lines 32-43: All that had been narrated had happened long time back - a clear reference to the pre-
Christian days , to the days written about in the Old Testament that included the birth of Jesus.
The Christian Bible has two sections, the Old Testament and the New Testament. The Old Testament is
the original Hebrew Bible, the sacred scriptures of the Jewish faith, written at different times between
about 1200 and 165 BC. The New Testament books were written by Christians in the first century AD.
Jesus who was hailed as the son of God was put on the cross and crucified by the Jews. Christianity,
founded on the teachings of Jesus was the new religion marking the Christian era.

The Magus, the speaker asserts that if they had to undertake such a journey again, they would do it again
as their visit to Bethlehem to witness a glorious event was more than satisfactory. But the visit provokes a
question - did they undertake the journey for birth or death? They witnessed the birth of Jesus. But Jesus’
birth, his death and the birth of Christianity are far beyond our inane and puerile notions of birth and
death. Jesus’s whose birth marked the birth of the Son of God, and the death of their pagan religion.
When they returned to their kingdoms, they felt their old pagan world was alien to them and all their idols
were false. Jesus’ death begins yet another birth – the birth of a new dawn, a new religion. The speaker

16
concludes that he would be happy to encounter another death by undertaking another journey to witness
such a glorious birth.

Check your progress 1

1. Why does Eliot use capital B for Birth and capital D for Death in lines 36 and 39 respectively?

2. Why does the speaker say “I shall be glad of another death”?

14.6 SYMBOLISM IN THE POEM

What is symbolism? Symbols are used as literary devices to represent ideas or qualities. It is an artistic
and poetic movement or style using symbolic images and indirect suggestion to express mystical ideas,
emotions, and states of mind. It originated in late 19th-century France and Belgium. In the 20th century, it
was used by English and American writers as a literary device that used symbols, be they words,
people, marks, locations, or abstract ideas to represent something beyond the literal meaning.

Let us start from the first word,” journey”. The Journey of the Magi to Bethlehem is undertaken, to
witness a glorious event. It turns out to be a spiritual journey.The Journey through the harsh wintry
weather is difficult and creates doubt as to the worth and wisdom of undertaking such a journey. The
months were the dreadful months of winter. If you know the life history of Jesus, you will discover that
he was born in the last week of December (25th) and he was crucified in April, the spring season. Eliot
had written in another poem “April is the cruellest month”. The symbolic shift from birth to death is seen
in the shift from winter to spring.

‘Sherbet’ (a sweet drink) is a symbol for sensuous pleasure, and by extension ‘Pagan’ pleasure which is
hedonism or motivated by desire for sensual pleasures. Coming to the symbol of the River, we should
note that water is a symbol of Jesus. In the Gospel of John, Jesus calls himself ‘the Living Water’. Here it
is symbolic of the Grace offered by Jesus. With Water as the symbol, the references are to the running
stream, vegetation and water mill - suggestive of fertility, birth and light.. The stream powers a water mill
“beating the darkness”. In a watermill, the energy to spin the rotor is supplied by moving water, and it
can generate energy to power lights. The allusion is to Jesus’s claim in the Gospel of John to be the
Light of the World.

The symbol of the “three trees low on the sky” has been interpreted variously by scholars to symbolize
the crucifixion of Christ with the two thieves on the other two crosses to either side of him. It can also
represent the Trinity –God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. According to the Gospel of Luke,
Jesus was crucified with two thieves in an attempt to degrade him as a thief and a rebel. One of the two
thieves was called the Penitent Thief, also known as the Good Thief, Wise Thief, Grateful Thief or
the Thief on the Cross. He requests Jesus to "remember him" when Jesus arrives at his kingdom. The
other, known as the impenitent thief, challenges Jesus to save himself and save both of them by asking
Jesus to prove that he is the Son of God.

The symbol of the ‘White Horse’ refers to someone who announces the coming of Jesus.
Vine leaves are symbolic of Christ as the “True Vine”. The True Vine is a parable given by Jesus himself
where he describes his disciples as branches of himself, who is the "true vine". As Jesus spoke of Himself
by saying, "I am the true vine," he was trying to make people understand the value of being connected to
Him by faith. A deep and growing relationship with Him will result in peace in all circumstances, hope in
trials, strength in adversity, and joy.

The lintel represents the threshold of conversion. ‘Dicing’ is another symbol in the poem. The men
gambling is a reference to Judas’s betrayal of Jesus for 30 pieces of silver (Matthew 26:14-16) and to the
dicing of Roman soldiers for Christ's clothing after he was killed. The reference to the ‘Wine-skins’ is an

17
allusion to Jesus’s parable of the “new wine” (Matthew 9:17). Christianity will be the new religion to fill
new wine-skins. The kicking of the empty old wine-skins represents the change of the old dispensation to
the new.

Check your progress 2

How does Eliot use symbols in this poem? Explain their significance.

14.7 SUMMING UP
This is a poem with a Christian theme with several references to the Old and the New Testaments. After
a study of this Unit you would have learnt that the journey in the poem, is a spiritual journey that speaks
of Jesus’s Birth and Death. “Death’ refers to Jesus’s sacrifice for the sins of the people, the death of the
Pagan order and the birth of a new religion, Christianity. Jesus’s Birth and Death are seen not as negative
aspects of the narrative, but as positive signs of a renewal of a new order- an affirmation of the reality of
existence where birth and death alternate. The theme of the poem is thus the process of renewal, that helps
in the journey of the human spirit through history.

Journey of the Magi specifically focuses on the Epiphany (Matthew 2. 1-12), despite the lack of named
references to this event. The speaker is deeply affected by the Birth and Death of Jesus, that changed their
lives forever.

14.8 UNIT END QUESTIONS

1. What is the central theme of the Poem Journey of the Magi?
2. The poem, Journey of the Magi is a Christian poem. Discuss.
3. Write a note on Eliot’s contribution to Modernism.

14.9 GLOSSARY
Anglo-Catholicism: movement that emphasizes the Catholic rather than the Protestant heritage of
the Anglican Communion. It sought to renew Catholic thought and practice in the Church of England
Pronounced: noticeable, distinct
Theological: study of the nature of God and theological belief
Versatile: able to adapt or be adapted to many different functions or activities.
Oeuvre: body of work
Pedantic: excessively concerned with minor details or rules
Malaise: a general feeling of discomfort, illness, or unease
Revitalization: reactivation, renewal, giving new life and vitality
Paradox: a person or thing that combines contradictory features or qualities.
Paganism: a term first used in the fourth century by early Christians for people in the Roman Empire who
practised polytheism or ethnic religions other than Judaism
Frankincense: a fragrant gum resin from trees of a genus found in Somalia and southern coastal Arabia
that is an important incense resin which was used in religious rites, perfumery, and embalming
Myrrh: an embalming oil
Inane: lacking sense or meaning; silly.
Puerile: childishly silly, immature

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14.10 REFERENCES
1.The Wasteland, Book V
2. American Literature Vol. 55, No. 2, May, 1983 Published by: Duke University Press

https://www.jstor.org/stable/i347215
3. https://www.poetryfoundation.org ›
4. ibid
5.ibid

14.11 FURTHER READING

1 Kirk, Russell. Eliot and His Age: T. S. Eliot's Moral Imagination in the Twentieth
Century. (Wilmington: Isi Books, 2008),
2. Eliot, T(homas). S(tearns). "Journey of the Magi" (London: Faber & Faber, 1963)
3. Murphy, Russell Elliott. Critical Companion to T. S. Eliot: A Literary Reference to His Life and
Work. (New York: Facts on File/InfoBase Publishing,2007
4. Stead, Christian. The New Poetic: Yeats to Eliot. Harmondsworth: Pelican Books, 1969.
5. Smith, Grover . T.S. Eliot’s Poetry and Plays: A Study in Sources and Meaning. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1956.

19
UNIT 15 W. H. AUDEN: THE UNKNOWN CITIZEN
Structure

15.0 Aims and Objectives

15.1 Introduction to British War Poetry of the 20th century
15.2 Auden: his life and works
15.3 The Poem: The Unknown Citizen
15.4 Analysis
15.5 Auden, the modernist poet
15.6 Summing up
15.7 Unit end questions
15.8 Glossary
15.9 References
15.10 Further Reading

15.0 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

This Unit aims at giving you an understanding of:
• War poetry in 20th century English literature
• Themes and analysis of the poem The Unknown Citizen and
• Auden’s place in Modern poetry

15.1 Introduction to War Poetry in English Literature of the 20th

Century
Auden wrote poetry during the War years and is regarded as one of the outstanding War poets of
his time. In Block 1, Unit 3, on Modern Poetry, we had referred to War Poetry.
“We have War poets belonging to the First World War period whose central theme was ‘anti-
War’. War poetry captures themes that carry across generations. It also seeks to create new
language, which later generations use as a framework for understanding war history. Notable
among them were W. H. Auden, Wilfred Owen, Isaac Rosenberg, Siegfried Sassoon, Herbert
Read, Robert Graves to name a few.”1
What is war poetry? It is a literary genre which originated during the First World War, when
hundreds of both soldiers and civilians who had experienced the brutality and vengeful fury of
the War started to write poetry to express their emotions - tragic, bitter and at times ironic on the
basis of their real experience.
War poetry is not just a World War phenomenon of the 20th century. It had been written from the
very early times of the Greeks but what is new is the establishment of War poetry as a literary
genre. The 20th century witnessed many wars - the Spanish Civil war (1936-39), the First World
War and the Second World War(1914-18 and 1939-45), the Cambodian War (1968-75) besides
the intermittent wars in Eastern Europe. Soldiers and civilians with their respective experiences
of active and distant involvement in the war and belonging to different nationalities contributed
to War poetry which became some of the defining texts of twentieth century Europe.
We describe World War II as a Global War as many countries were involved in it. World War II
took place between 1939 and 1945. It was between Germany, Italy and Japan (known as the Axis
Powers) on one hand and the Allies comprising the U.S., France, Britain and the U.S.S.R, on the
other side. As mentioned above, this period also witnessed the Spanish war and other Eastern

20
European wars. So almost every poet who wrote on this theme, expressed his own experience of
War.
War poetry should not be misread as ‘anti-war’ alone. It is “about the very large questions of life:
identity, innocence, guilt, loyalty, courage, compassion, humanity, duty, desire, death. Its
response to these questions, and its relation of immediate personal experience to moments of
national and international crisis, give war poetry an extra-literary importance.”2 The significance
of war poetry lies in its ability to rouse both historical consciousness and political consciousness
as it speaks for the individual and for the nation.

Check your progress 1

1. What is War poetry? What were the causes that contributed to the rise of the genre?

Source: www.grograph.org.uk

15.2 AUDEN: HIS LIFE AND WORKS

Auden was born in England in 1907 and later migrated to the United States in 1939. Hence it is
best to describe him as an Anglo-American poet. He came from an educated professional family,
with his father being a medical officer and his mother a nurse. The family was devoutly Anglo-
Catholic.
In the pantheon of great poets of the 20th century, Auden cannot be compared with T. S. Eliot or
W.B. Yeats who wrote masterpieces such as The Wasteland, The Love Song of J. Alfred
Prufrock, Sailing to Byzantium or The Second Coming . But Auden enjoys the status of a
modernist poet along with “ Stephen Spender, Cecil Lewis and others — a generation of English
poets from the 1930s, who found themselves engulfed in the soaring menace of Second World
War (WWII), the rise of fascism and economic crisis in the West”.3 Auden and his Oxford
contemporary poet Stephen Spender introduced new themes that have become a part of
Modernist poetry of the 20th century. The next Unit in this block will be on Stephen Spender.
One of the best introductions to Auden’s poetry is from his own short poem, Epitaph on a
Tyrant:
Perfection, of a kind, was what he was after,
And the poetry he invented was easy to understand;
He knew human folly like the back of his hand,
And was greatly interested in armies and fleets;

21
When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter,
And when he cried the little children died in the streets.
These lines highlight his invention of new themes, his insistence on perfection, his simple and
elegant style, shorn of pedantry and numerous classical and biblical references that we associate
with the poems of Eliot and Yeats. W.H. Auden was a poet of general ideas, which were mostly
political in nature. He was interested in matters concerning war and had empathy for the
suffering of ordinary masses. This could be because of his interest in Karl Marx and Sigmund
Freud.

Activity: Identify the words and the lines from the above poem that fits with the salient features
of Auden’s poetry.

15.3 THE POEM: THE UNKNOWN CITIZEN

To JS/07 M 378
This Marble Monument
Is Erected by the State)
He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be
One against whom there was no official complaint,
And all the reports on his conduct agree
That, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned word, he was a saint,
For in everything he did he served the Greater Community.
Except for the War till the day he retired
He worked in a factory and never got fired,
But satisfied his employers, Fudge Motors Inc.
Yet he wasn't a scab or odd in his views,
For his Union reports that he paid his dues,
(Our report on his Union shows it was sound)
And our Social Psychology workers found
That he was popular with his mates and liked a drink.
The Press are convinced that he bought a paper every day
And that his reactions to advertisements were normal in every way.
Policies taken out in his name prove that he was fully insured,
And his Health-card shows he was once in hospital but left it cured.
Both Producers Research and High-Grade Living declare
He was fully sensible to the advantages of the Instalment Plan
And had everything necessary to the Modern Man,
A phonograph, a radio, a car and a frigidaire.
Our researchers into Public Opinion are content
That he held the proper opinions for the time of year;
When there was peace, he was for peace: when there was war, he went.
He was married and added five children to the population,
Which our Eugenist says was the right number for a parent of his generation.
And our teachers report that he never interfered with their education.
Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd:
Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard.

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15.4 ANALYSIS
The poem in 32 lines is simple, direct and uncomplicated. It is easily comprehensible as the
theme relates to our times where the discordance between the State and the people is a quotidian
experience. The poem is in the form of a satirical elegy, where two literary genres - ‘elegy’ and
‘satire’ are fused. What is an elegy and what is a satire?
An elegy is a song or poem expressing sorrow or lamentation especially for one who is dead. A
satire is a literary form in which human or individual vices, follies and shortcomings are
criticized by means of ridicule, derision, burlesque, irony, parody, caricature, or other methods,
though at times with an intent not so much to mock but to inspire social reform. In a satirical
elegy, the elegy is used to make it perform a task directly opposed to its intended purpose.
In The Unknown Citizen, W.H. Auden, laments the loss of man’s individuality by making him
conform to the rules laid down by the government/society to ensure its smooth running. The
Unknown Citizen never deviates from those norms and therefore Government has no complaints
to make against him - holding him as a model of disciplined citizen, but in reality, a man's life is
so much more than mere compliance to set rules. Such life negates all exercise of human powers,
emotions, desires and wants.
Who is the speaker? From the language and content of the poem it is possible to surmise the
speaker to be a spokesman of the government, a bureaucrat who addresses the elegy to an
individual referring to him not by his name but by alphabets and numbers - JS/07 M378. This
form of address by the heard but unseen voice of the speaker sets the tone of the poem. It is
impersonal, officious, lacking in sensitivity and empathy. The speaker represents the faceless,
indifferent and ruthless bureaucrat of the State or the Government who exerts his authority on the
nameless citizens masquerading as a concerned, caring, and benevolent power. The individual
(JS/07M378) is denuded of his individuality in such a way that he can only be recognized by the
various government agencies that keep track of his life to make sure that he is a pliant and
willing subject, totally subservient and obedient to the powers above him.

The nameless and faceless individual is shown as a model citizen who is willing to abnegate his
individuality to conform to the ideals set out by the State /government to hold on to its
authoritarian power. This, in essence is the everlasting conflict between the people and the
Government. When the latter establishes a totalitarian regime, the gap between the masses and
the Superpower structures widens. Influenced by Marxian ideology, Auden in his works
highlights contemporary issues overlaid by totalitarian governments. He looks at the voiceless
and faceless citizen as a cog in the wheel of the State machinery who does everything that is
expected of any obedient citizen and therefore is rightly addressed as the Unknown Citizen.

Except for the War till the day he retired

He worked in a factory and never got fired,
But satisfied his employers, Fudge Motors Inc.
Yet he wasn’t a scab or odd in his views,
For his Union reports that he paid his dues

How does the speaker describe him?

One against whom there was no official complaint,
And all the reports on his conduct agree
That, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned word, he was a saint.
The faceless citizen does not suffer from any social tension and psychological abnormality. He
follows all the norms that the society has laid down - is friendly, enjoys a drink in company, is a
regular reader of a newspaper which invariably reflects the State’s views and accepting it

23
without critical questioning, pays his insurance policies and follows investment plans and
follows whatever the State decides, in times of Peace and War. He is one among the multitudes
of people to live a fault-less life as the State desires.
But the two end lines reveal the mechanical, dour, stagnant life where he remains emotionally
sterilized and paralyzed, transposed almost into a robot.
Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd:
Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard.
The Unknown Citizen has submerged his thinking mind and feeling heart to the norms that
society and the state have decreed as those of an ideal citizen. His intellect and his emotions
have been dwarfed by the macro-power of the State. The poem ends on the cryptic note that had
he been unhappy, had he rebelled against his slavery to the State, we would have heard a
different story far from the elegy spoken in praise of the unknown citizen for not leading an
‘exemplary’ life as the State had deemed.
The Unknown Citizen describes the average citizen (the aam admi) –the common man who leads
a life deemed utopian by the State and which, in reality is a dystopian life as he abdicates his
thinking and feeling faculties to remain impassive and phlegmatic as required by the State. The
standadarization prescribed by the state saps human desire for freedom to think, feel, express, act
and live without ticking the right boxes . That is why Auden reasons that for the modern man
living in the war-torn 20th century, freedom and happiness are absurdities. All that matters is to
be a conformist and remain a conformist. The State will erect a monument to one who did the
right things as desired by the State. This monument is at the beginning of the poem dedicated to
an unknown citizen, a faceless, emotionless, mindless man.

Check your progress 2

1. What is a Satire and what is an Elegy?

2. Why does Auden fuse the two to write a satirical elegy?
3. Analyse the last two lines of the poem:
Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd:
Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard.

15.5 AUDEN THE MODERNIST POET

Form and content in Auden’s poetry reveal the qualities of Modernism. It is not that all aspects of
Modernism are present in his poems. But some of the salient characteristics can be seen in his
poems that give him the status of a Modernist poet. Auden’s poetry has the following themes:

1. The idea that Love is fleeting

2. Theme of horror in modern life
3. Theme of death
4. Theme of bureaucracy and totalitarianism; - the last three (2-4) can be subsumed under a
single theme – the theme of suffering.

While Auden’s poems deal with death and totalitarianism, , he is also known for his love poems.
For discussion let us look at one poem, though to appreciate Auden’s poetry and his contribution
to modern poetry, it is advisable to read a few more of his love poems, such as “As I Walked Out
One Evening and “O Tell Me the Truth About Love,” that show how love is beautiful and
inspiring and how it is equally ephemeral like life itself as both are affected by the vicissitudes of
time. In many of his love poems we find an undercurrent of sorrow. Love is sweet, but it exists

24
alongside suffering and death that reveal an irrefutable finality when life ceases to exist. In
Funeral Blues, he writes:

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,

Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

The poem is in four stanzas and each one of them present a study in grief. The poem resonates
with the readers as it speaks about the cruel finality of death, though it does not stop the world
from moving on. If a most loved person ceases to exist, all the shared experiences with him/her
also come to an end. But Auden is disturbed to see how one has to endure a tragic crisis in the
midst of others who go about their mundane routines.

But when a celebrated person like Yeats died in 1939, the year that saw the beginning of World
War II, the whole world seemed to be consonant with the sad event and mourned his death. Yeats
even after his death continues to live through his poems. Yeats is almost like an avant-garde poet
who could foresee the horrors of war and which came true during the Second World War. In the
elegy for Yeats, he asserts his belief that poetry can still lift the human spirit and “persuade us to
rejoice” and “teach the free man how to praise.” Auden affirms the power of art and culture to
transcend death. The enduring quality of art is in contrast to the transitoriness or the impermanence
of life. A poet like Yeats never dies as he continues to be alive in his poems that affirm the basic
dignity of the individual soul:

With the farming of a verse

Make a vineyard of the curse,
Sing of human unsuccess
In a rapture of distress;
In the deserts of the heart
Let the healing fountain start,
In the prison of his days
Teach the free man how to praise.

While love and life do not enjoy permanence and life’s beautiful moments are temporary and
fleeting, the poignant loss experienced in Funeral Blues underscoring humanity’s most cynical
impulses is in a paradoxical way countered by the sustainable quality of Poetry. Auden’s poetry
is meaningful and relevant not only during the period he wrote, but to all times. Life is
temporary; art is eternal.

All other themes listed above are seen in Auden’s poetry expressing the horrors and fears of living
in the 20th century, during and after the two World Wars. The World Wars were the result of the
rise of totalitarianism and fascism in Europe when dictators in Europe suppressed their people’s
freedoms, led their countries into war, and resorted to barbaric acts of mass slaughter. Auden’s
poems mirror the horrors of life in a world where humanity was dead. In a few of his poems he
wonders what the role of poetry can be in the face of such nightmares, and why he should honour
the death of one man when so many were being killed on the battlefield, on the streets, and in gas
chambers. Writing about Freud, he asks, “of whom shall we speak” when “there are so many we
shall have to mourn.”

25
Auden’s poetry is about the horrors of the modern world and that itself vouches for his Modernism.
He speaks of authoritarians and their mad quest for domination not only in their nations, but all
over the world. Hitler’s madness and cruelty witnessed in his acts of genocide, his manipulation
of the masses on the pretext of racial superiority, his ruthless dominance over the bureaucracy to
do his bidding, General Franco’s brutality in Spain to put down the left leaning Popular Front
government of the Second Spanish Republic and the resulting mental, physical, psychological and
spiritual scars of the heinous wars that bludgeon the human spirit, form the background to Auden’s
poetry. Through all this, one can discern Auden’s optimism that such an expose’ may free the
human spirit from the shackles of dictators and authoritarians. Auden does not shy away from the
theme of death. The State and its bureaucracy can do everything to destroy the human spirit, but
Auden’s belief in the value of poetry as well as in the enduring human spirit rejuvenates the eternal
optimism dormant in the human heart.
What are some of the characteristics of modern poetry we see in Auden’s poem?
1. Modern poetry is written in simple language, the language of every day speech
2. Modern poetry is highly intellectual; it is written from the mind of the poet and it addresses
the mind of the reader, like the poems of T. S. Eliot.
3. Modern poetry is pessimistic as a result of the miserable condition of people in many parts of
the world, but there is always an infusion of hope at the end.
4. Modern poetry is suggestive; the poem may suggest different meanings to different readers.
5. Modern poetry is cosmopolitan. It appeals to readers everywhere and at every time because it
deals with the problems of humanity.
6. Interest in politics and the political problems of the age and the problems of the average man
and the lower classes.
7. Experimentation is one of the important characteristic features of modern poetry. Poets try to
break new grounds, i. e. to find new forms, new language and new methods of expression.
8. Irregularity of form. Modern poetry is mostly written in written without metre and rhyme scheme,
in free verse and prose (the prose poem). The most peculiar quality of the modern poetry is the
poet’s tendency to experiment with different kinds of metre and versification. Auden is modern in
this respect also. He has experimented with free verse, blank verse, the ballad metre etc.
10. Modern poetry addresses the modern man of sensibility who lives a state of spiritual and
intellectual scepticism. Individualism is a key element in Modernist literature where the individual
is given more focus than society. Auden, like Eliot before him is a sensitive poet who writes of the
world in which he lives, and reflects many of the characteristics of that world. Auden has come to
be one of the most outstanding poets of our time.In conclusion, we find Auden concerned with
war, its cruelty and the aftermath of wars that result in social, political and economic upheavals.
He argues that most of the ills of the contemporary society are a consequence of the inhumanity
embedded in Wars. Modern age is marked by violence and war. That had always been from the
very early times to modern ages. Auden is a social poet, a war poet and a Modern poet.

“In a nutshell, 'The Unknown Citizen' fits easily into the trends of modern literature and highlights
the problems that people face. The citizen remains unknown even though he serves the community
because we are not shown who he really is as an individual which elucidates that individuality is
reduced and diminished for the sake of worldly business. The poet says that statistics cannot sum
up an individual and physical facts are inadequate to evaluate human happiness. Therefore, the
poem reflects Auden’s insight of the concept of control versus freedom which brings to light the
dangers of losing the sense of individuality.4

15.6 SUMMING UP
A study of this Unit would help you in understanding

26
*War poetry written in the 20th century by English poets
* Auden’s satirical elegy The Unknown Citizen
* An analysis that highlights the blending of the two genres – satire and elegy
* The themes in Auden’s poetry
*Auden as a Modernist poet.

15.7 UNIT END QUESTIONS

1. Discuss the relevance of Auden’s poetry to our times
2. What is the significance of the title The Unknown Citizen?
3. Write a note on Auden as a Modernist poet.

15. 8 GLOSSARY
Intermittent: Occurring at irregular intervals
Anglo-Catholic: Anglo-Catholicism, movement that emphasizes the Catholic rather than the
Protestant, which sought to renew Catholic thought and practice in the Church of England
Shorn of: removed from
Pedantry: Excessive concern with minor or trivial details
Discordance: Lack of agreement or consistency
Quotidian: occurring daily
Derision: contemptuous ridicule or mockery
Burlesque: an absurd or comically exaggerated imitation of something
Irony: the expression of one's meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite
Parody: a humorously exaggerated imitation of a style or a writer
Caricature: exaggeration by means of often ludicrous distortion of parts or characteristics of a
person
Officious: assertive of authority in a domineering and intrusive way
Masquerading: pretending
Denuded: stripped off
Abnegate: renounce or reject
Macro-power: Great or excessive power
Cryptic: having or seeming to have a hidden or ambiguous meaning
Utopian: modelled on or aiming for a state in which everything is perfect; idealistic
Dystopian: modelled on or aiming for a state in which there is great suffering or injustice
Impassive: not feeling or showing emotion
Phlegmatic: having an unemotional and stolidly calm disposition
Absurdities: the quality or state of being ridiculous or wildly unreasonable.
Vicissitudes: a change of circumstances or fortune, typically one that is unwelcome or
unpleasant.
Avant-garde: new and experimental ideas and methods in art, music and literature

15.9 REFERENCES
1. Modern Poetry, Block I Unit 3
2. Paul O’Prey. What is War Poetry? An Introduction.
3. Encyclopedia Britannica.com
4.The Unknown Citizen by W H Auden, www.gdctangmarg.com

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15.10 FURTHER READING
1. Smith, Stan, ed. (2004). The Cambridge Companion to W. H. Auden.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
2. Davenport-Hines, Richard (1995). Auden. London: Heinemann.
3. Auden, W. H. (1934). Greene, Graham (ed.). The Old School: Essays by Divers Hands.
London: Jonathan Cape.
4. ."Poems. Auden's first published collection of poems, published by Stephen
Spender". The British Library. 2021.
5. Hoggart, Richard (1951). Auden: An Introductory Essay. London: Chatto & Windus.
6. Beach, Joseph Warren (1957). The Making of the Auden Canon. Minneapolis: University
of Minnesota Press.

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UNIT 16 STEPHEN SPENDER: “I THINK
CONTINUALLY OF THOSE WHO WERE TRULY
GREAT”
Structure

16.0 Aims and Objectives

16.1 Introduction to Stephen Spender
16.2 The works of Stephen Spender
16.3 The Poem The Truly Great
16.4 Analysis of the poem
16.5 Spender, An Assessment
16.6 Summing Up
16.7 Glossary
16.8 Questions and Answers
16.9 References
16.10 Further Reading

16.0 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

This Unit is the last unit in this Block that deals with four of the major English poets of the 20th
century. At the end of the study of this Unit, you will come to know about

* Stephen Spender, who is regarded as one of the Oxford Poets

* His works that reflect the history of that period
* The major influences on Stephen Spender’s works
* An analysis of the poem The Truly Great
* Stephen Spender, an assesment

16.1 INTRODUCTION TO STEPHEN SPENDER (1909-1995)

Stephen Spender was born in 1909 and came into prominence as an outstanding poet of his
times. He was one of the celebrated poets of the group called Oxford Poets in the 1930s. W.H.
Auden, Stephen Spender, Cecil Day Lewis and Louis MacNeice are known as the Oxford poets.
These poets are called “the four Musketeers of the Oxford Movement”. These poets
were Oxford graduates. They were given the nickname “MacSpaunday" , that was made up of
the four poets: Louis MacNeice ("Mac") Stephen Spender ("Sp") W. H. Auden ("au-n") Cecil
Day-Lewis ("day"). Auden was the leader of this group. This group was also called the Auden
Group or the Thirties Poets, representing a new, more experimental literary style. This group was
concerned with tumultuous issues of the day both political and social such as the Great
Depression, the Spanish Civil War, the rise of Fascism, and World War II. The Auden group
existed for nearly ten years from 1930–1939, comprising writers, musicians, and painters who
were members belonging to what T. S. Eliot described as a 'definitely post-war generation'.
They shared a left-of-centre political ideology. After the World War ended, Spender focused on
prose writing that included literary criticism and autobiographical writing and fiction.

29
Stephen Spender had the good fortune to inherit the artistic and educated lineage of his parents,
with his father being a political journalist and his mother, a poet and a painter. Hence his interest
in art and literature helped him in his critical and original work.

Activity: Read some of the poems of the Auden group or Oxford poets and state their social
themes.

16.2 THE WORKS OF STEPHEN SPENDER

Stephen Spender brought out his first volume of poetry, Nine Experiments: Being Poems Written
at the Age of Eighteen in 1928. His second volume Poems was published in 1933 which included
several of the poems he wrote between 1928 and 1930.

The 1930s marked a period between the two deadly World Wars. The first World War was
between 1914 and 1918, the second between 1939 and 1945. The two Wars devastated Europe
and brought about a change in people’s perspective on the meaning of life, their faith in God
almost bordering on atheism and nihilism, the collapse of all values that had hitherto been
regarded as hallowed and inviolable. The established world order had crumbled and idealists like
Spender turned to Communism as an alternative to Fascism. Europe was reorganized, and a new
world was born. The European nations that had fought in the Great War emerged economically
and socially crippled. Economic depression prevailed in Europe for much of the inter-war period.
“The political atmosphere of the inter-war years was sharply divided between those who thought
the extreme left could solve Europe's problems, and those who desired leadership from the
extreme right. This situation kept the governments of Britain, France, and Eastern Europe in
constant turmoil, swinging wildly between one extreme and the next. Extreme viewpoints won
in the form of totalitarian states in Europe during the inter-war years, and communism took hold
in the Soviet Union, while fascism controlled Germany, Italy and Spain”1.

Spender went to Spain during the Spanish civil war to fight the Fascist forces under General
Franco, though he personally did not participate in the fighting. Instead he wielded his pen to
write Poems for Spain. From his early days Spender was concerned with social and political
issues and gained celebrity status as a poet. His poem Vienna of 1934 details Fascist suppression
of the Socialists’ revolt in Austria. Poems in The Still Centre are about his experience in Spain
and hints at his growing disenchantment with communism. These poems also reveal his rejection
of the heroic idea of war. Those of you who have read Arms and the Man by Bernard Shaw,
which premiered in 1894 can understand how writers and thinkers of the 20th century were
concerned with the futility of wars and criticized romantic ideals of heroism and sentimental
love. Spender’s later publication of essays under the title The God that Failed further reflects his
disillusionment with leading Communist intellectuals like Arthur Koestler, Andre Gide and
Richard Wright. But during this period- i.e., during the Second World War, besides editing an
anti communist periodical Encounter, he turned to poetry writing and published two volumes of
poems.

Activity: Read Bernard Shaw’s play Arms and the Man along with Auden’s poem The Unknown
Citizen and Spender’s The Truly Great.

But in his post -war life, his focus was more on prose that included literary criticism and fiction
and also drama. His literary criticism in his first prose work was on authors like Henry James,
W. B. Yeats, T. S. Eliot, James Joyce, and D. H. Lawrence. His prose fiction includes a book of
short stories, The Burning Cactus (1936), almost Lawrentian in tone in expressing suppressed

30
emotion, and a full-length novel, The Backward Son (1940), an autobiographical account of
English boarding school life, which he disliked. He also wrote a five-act, verse drama, Trial of a
Judge against Fascism.

Spender’s critical output comprises The Destructive Element and its sequel, The Creative
Element. The Destructive Element is a study of modern writers aimed to “alert one that human
nature and values are precarious, not immutable, and that the forces of destruction facing them
are enormous”. 2

Activity: If you want to know more about Modern writers, read Spender’s two volumes - The
Destructive Element and The Creative Element.

The Creative Element is about the vision, despair and orthodoxy among some modern writers.
In The Struggle of the Modern Spender defines literary modernism as an endeavor to reconcile
the past and the present, and heal the divide between art and life. “He also produced several
volumes of autobiography, journals, and collected letters, most notably the 1951 memoir World
within World, a valuable document of literary and cultural history that re-creates the social and
political atmosphere of the 1930s. This book exemplifies the commitment to honesty and candor
of an author who claimed that all of his art is essentially autobiographical.”3

Check your progress 1

Who were the major influences on Spender’s poetry?

16.3 THE POEM, THE TRULY GREAT

BY STEPHEN SPENDER
I think continually of those who were truly great.
Who, from the womb, remembered the soul’s history
Through corridors of light, where the hours are suns,
Endless and singing. Whose lovely ambition
Was that their lips, still touched with fire,
Should tell of the Spirit, clothed from head to foot in song.
And who hoarded from the Spring branches
The desires falling across their bodies like blossoms.

What is precious, is never to forget

The essential delight of the blood drawn from ageless springs
Breaking through rocks in worlds before our earth.
Never to deny its pleasure in the morning simple light
Nor its grave evening demand for love.
Never to allow gradually the traffic to smother
With noise and fog, the flowering of the spirit.

Near the snow, near the sun, in the highest fields,

See how these names are fêted by the waving grass
And by the streamers of white cloud
And whispers of wind in the listening sky.
The names of those who in their lives fought for life,
Who wore at their hearts the fire’s centre.

31
Born of the sun, they travelled a short while toward the sun
And left the vivid air signed with their honour.

16.4 ANALYSIS OF THE POEM

The first line of the poem, “I think continually of those who were Truly Great”, gives us the clue
that the poet is talking about the truly great personalities from the past and how continually
thinking about them suggests that the past is always connected to the present and therefore all
those truly great individuals are connected to us across time. As the poem progresses, we realize
how they have close correspondence with perennial Nature which, in turn, confers eternity on
them. Time cannot erase their memory. Like Nature that is eternally present in sunshine, spring
blossoms, snowy mountains and lush green meadows, these truly great heroes are omnipresent
and make us identify the connection between Nature and grandeur of Man and their perennity.

By stressing on the word ‘continually’, the poet says Nature is always present and so are the
stellar individuals who are ever present at all times and in all places. In Hindi, we have a term
Rinanubandhan (ऋणानुबन्धन) which means an invisible chord that ties you together to your past
life. Without going into the religious and astrological dimensions, it can be said of Spender’s
poem that it is about human bonding with the past through historical, ecological, and spiritual
connections.

Spender does not name or identify the truly greats of the past. Simply they are heroes, nameless
and faceless and they are recalled in the present on account of their heroic deeds that have left
lasting footprints on the sands of time and place all over the world. Some critics point out the
absence of any heroic action of the present. But Spender pays his tributes solely for the past
heroes who had contributed to and shaped the world that we live in today. He is not interested in
criticizing the present for lack of heroism. The poem is one of grateful acknowledgement of their
grand contributions that have made a difference to the world, making our heritage better than
what they had inherited.

“This poem, broadly, is an attempt to describe what makes a person "truly" great. The poem was
written in the 1930's during wartime, this no doubt influenced the poet. However, soldiers are not
the only people he is referring to. He is essentially referring to anyone who selflessly fights for
what they believe in.4/ The “Truly Great” can be poets, soldiers, selfless and passionate artists.
What defines them is their actions, deeds, words, artistic and aesthetic creations that inspire
generations that come after them. They have made a difference to the world and hence our
thoughts in grateful acknowledgement of what they have bequeathed to the present generation.

The “truly great” are remembered for their ceaseless toil from the womb to the tomb - from birth
to death. Like the sun that shines all through day and night, as it orbits from East to West, and
back from West to East, these great celebrity heroes shone all through their living hours. Spender
equates hours with suns, as all their hours are resplendent like the shining sun and like the sun,
these great personalities also lived active hours. The poet says to the reader that these truly great
people dwelt in a constant light where the hours are likened to the suns. “The sun is the main
source of energy on earth. It is brilliant and a source of great inspiration, therefore Spender could

32
be saying that their every hour was a source of great inspiration and full of achievement. Spender
goes on to state that these great people had their aspirations, and their aspirations could be seen
by the words that they spoke to the people”.5 Their visionary ideas to transform the world are
compared to blooming blossoms that lend colour and beauty to Nature. Sun, light, fire and
blossoms are loaded with symbolism and they relate to eternity and energy, inspiration and
achievement.

The poem is replete with symbols as we move into the second stanza. But the symbols cannot be
treated as having one-to one correspondence that is easy of comprehension. At times, one
wonders if Spender’s long-drawn similies are a trifle laboured and stretched! What is to be
noted is they once again reflect the connection between the work of Nature and the work done by
the truly great heroes of the past. The idea is to show that however hard the task is, there is
always an essential happiness in doing hard work and achieving the fruits of one’s toil. Just as
there is satisfaction and joy in drawing the blood from springs, these individuals conducted all
their great acts and hard work with true happiness.

Madeline Wells explains: “Here, the "blood" of the "truly great" is of divine origin. It is "drawn
from ageless springs," meaning God himself has infused his divine essence into the bloodstreams
of the "truly great." So, "ageless springs" are a metaphor describing God or Providence, whose
power is ageless and eternal. This "ageless spring" is formidable enough to break through "rocks
in worlds before our earth." Essentially, the narrator may be intimating that the "truly great" have
charted new territory in areas beyond the average citizen's comprehension. Because of this, we
should remember them with deep gratitude and strive to emulate their wisdom and nobility of
spirit.”5

The exaggerated symbol of breaking through the rocks is an index of the timelessness of their
hard work. They were not distracted by words of discouragement from reaching for their goals
and ambitions. Spender attributes their single minded pursuit of realizing their passion to
transform the world to the vision and will they possessed what he terms as ‘the Spirit’.
He continues the thread from the second stanza that these heroic works will never be forgotten,
‘what is precious is never to forget’, and this justifies why he thinks continually of them. The
snow of the mountaintops, the waving grass-filled meadows, the clouds, and the winds all
whisper the names of these great people. In this stanza, Spender reveals that these heroes may
not be poets but rather war heroes who lost their lives fighting for their country - ‘fought for
life’.

Spender describes these truly great people as those ‘who remembered the soul’s history from the
womb’. ‘Soul’s history’ implies history of humankind from the beginning of time By forever
remembering what humankind had gone through from the beginning of time, it allowed these
individuals to be passionate about making a change and therefore they become so great.

Stephen Spender was always in contact with artists, litterateurs and cultural aesthetes and he
shared with them their taste and sensitivity for art and aesthetics. He was concerned with art
beyond borders, collaboration between artists and writers; solidarity against their censorship; and
the moral responsibility of the creative individual in times of social crisis. This poem is very
likely a summation of Spender’s love for art, his deep engagement with social issues and his
belief in the responsibility of artists to play a significant role in shaping society and the world.

Check your progress 2

33
(1) Explain the title of the poem I think continually of those who are truly great.

(2) What is the theme of the poem? How does Spender integrate the past and the present?
(3) Explain the symbolism in this poem.
(4) List the images in the poem and discus how it sums up Spender’s love for art, his deep
engagement with social issues and his belief in the responsibility of artists to play a significant
role in shaping society and the world

16.5 STEPHEN SPENDER, AN ASSESSMENT

Stephen Spender may be assessed as follows:

* A writer of social protest

* Celebrated for his literary and critical writings as a poet, novelist, literary critic and prose
writer.
*Was deeply concerned with economic and political fall- out as a result of the First World War
such as labour unrest, unemployment, the rise of Fascist-Nazi totalitarianism.
* His sympathy for the sufferings of common people made him write in a direct, simple style that
made his poetic communication easy to follow.
* His ideal was democratic socialism, “No man shall hunger: Man shall spend equally (from
‘Not Palaces, An Era's Crown’).
*In his poems, he used modern imagery from industry and warfare.
*He was honest and open-minded in his writings. To begin with he was drawn towards
Communism as a counter to Fascist dictatorship of Hitler and Franco and this was reflected in all
his works. Later when he became disillusioned with leftist ideology under the totalitarian regime
of Soviet Russia, his writings became critical of the celebrated Communist ideologues like
Koestler and Gide. His poems stand testimony to his self-critical and honest personality.

* He was a humanist and compassionate to the core, as reflected in—Ruins and

Visions (1942), Poems of Dedication (1947), The Edge of Being (1949), Collected
Poems (1955), Selected Poems (1965), The Generous Days (1971), and Dolphins (1994)

* This tribute by Gerald Nicosia sums up the high standard of craftsmanship, that Spender and
the Oxford poets had achieved. “ [these poets] turned away from the esotericism of T.S. Eliot,
insisting that the writer stay in touch with the urgent political issues of the day and that he speak
in a voice whose clarity can be understood by all.”6

* Spender’s poetry reveals three major influences that make him both a modernist and Romantic
poet. His idealism, his use of powerful imagery and graceful ability to express his emotions
remind us of the Romantic poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley. He is like Rainer Maria Rilke, a
modernist poet, who tried to express his traumatic experience of war horrors and despite the
disillusionment with war and its inhumanity, his poems affirmed life. Similarly, D.H. Lawrence
had a strong influence on him as his poems give expression to suppressed emotions. The third
and the most powerful influence was that of his fellow Oxford poets. In particular mention has to
be made of Auden and Christopher Isherwood who shaped his views on the poet’s role in
commenting on society.

* All the modern poets of the Oxford Group were engaged with the issues of the day. And they
tried to reconcile the artistic muse and the urge to confront fascism. ‘The struggle to connect
outer and inner reality is, in fact, Spender's overarching theme.’7

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* The two poets Auden and Spender present the seamy side of urban-industrial landscape and
reflect both the social and political concerns of their times.

*Spender breaks free of formal poetic conventions and wrote free verse. “The sound of his
poems is distinctive, although he uses few seductive aural techniques, such as alliteration,
assonance, full or near rhyme, or regular rhythms. The imagery, though painterly, often lacks
concreteness. One weakness of his poetry is a tendency toward rhetorical abstraction.”8

*A lot of autobiographical elements are included in Spender's poetry. “Its obsessive theme is an
introspective search for a valid, sustaining faith, a coherent approach to uniting the self with the
world, the personal with the political.”

Honours came to him in recognition of his literary achievements and humane personality. Sir
Stephen Harold Spender was honoured as an English poet, novelist and essayist who
concentrated on themes of social injustice and class struggles in his work. He was appointed the
seventeenth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the United States Library of Congress in 1965.
Spender was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) at the 1962 Queen's
Birthday Honours, and knighted in the 1983 Queen's Birthday Honours.

16.6 SUMMING UP

At the end of your study of this unit you would have learnt about
* The Oxford Poets
* Stephen Spender and his works
* The major influences on his poetry
* An assessment of his works
* The poem “I think continually of those who were Truly Great”
* A critical analysis of the poem and
* Significance of the symbols used by the poet

16.7 GLOSSARY
Great Depression: worldwide economic downturn that began in 1929 and lasted until about 1939.
Although it originated in the United States, the Great Depression caused drastic declines in
output, severe unemployment, and acute deflation in almost every country of the world.

Spanish Civil War: War between the leftists, known as the Republicans (formed by the Spanish
government together with unions, communists, anarchists, workers, and peasants) and the
Nationalists - the rebel part of the army, the bourgeoisie, the landlords, and, generally, the upper
classes.

Fascism: a form of far-right, authoritarian ultranationalism characterized by dictatorial power,

forcible suppression of opposition, and strong regimentation of society and of the economy,
which came to prominence in early 20th century Europe.

Atheism: The literal definition of “atheist” is “a person who does not believe in the existence of
a God or any gods.

35
Nihilism: the rejection of all religious and moral principles, in the belief that life is meaningless.

Totalitarian: relates to a system of government that is centralized and dictatorial and requires
complete subservience to the State.
Perennial: lasting or existing for a long or apparently infinite time
Perennity: the state or quality of being perennial
Omnipresent: present everywhere at all times
Ecological: of or relating to the science of ecology or the patterns of relationships between
living things and their environment
Orbit: An orbit is a regular, repeating path that an object in space takes around another one
Seamy: Sordid and disreputable
Seductive: tempting and attractive; enticing
Aural: relative to the ear, sense of hearing
Alliteration: the occurrence of the same letter or sound at the beginning of adjacent or closely
connected words.
Assonance: resemblance of sound in words or syllables.
Painterly: artistic, appropriate to a painter
Rhetorical abstraction: refers to language that describes concepts rather than concrete images
(ideas and qualities rather than observable or specific things, people, or places)

16.8 UNIT END QUESTIONS

(1) Write a critical analysis of the poem The Truly Great.
(2) Critically assess Spender’s literary output.
(3) Explain from your reading of the poem The Truly Great, Spender’s tendency towards
rhetorical abstraction. Give examples from the poem.

16.9 REFERENCES
1.Stephen Harold Spender. Encyclopedia.com
2. https://ir.nbu.ac.in › bitstream .
3. Madeline Wells,e.notes.com
4. https://www.cram.com/essay/Truly-Great-Poem-Analysis
5. https://www.cram.com/essay/Truly-Great-Poem-Analysis
6. Gerald Nicosia, Stephen Spender: a life Fulfilled through Poetry. www. chicagotribune.com
7. op. cit, Encyclopaedia.com

16.10 FURTHER READING

Books
Connors, J. J. Poets and Politics: A Study of the Careers of C. Day Lewis, Stephen Spender and
W. H. Auden in the 1930s. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1967.
Fraser, George S. Vision and Rhetoric. London: Faber &Faber, 1959.
Hoskins, Katharine B. Today the Struggle: Literature and Politics in England during the Spanish
Civil War. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1969.
Hynes, Samuel. The Auden Generation: Literature and Politics in England in the 1930s.
London: Bodley Head, 1976.

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Kulkarni, H. B. Stephen Spender: Poet in Crisis. Glasgow, Scotland: Blackie, 1970.
Maxwell, D. E. S. Poets of the Thirties. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1969.
Press, John. A Map of Modern English Verse. London: Oxford University Press, 1969.
Scarfe, Francis. Auden and After: The Liberation of Poetry, 1930–1941. London: Routledge,
1942.
Sutherland, John. Stephen Spender: The Authorized Biography. London: Viking, 2004.
Weather head, A. K. Stephen Spender and the Thirties. Lewisburg, Pa.: Bucknell University
Press, 1975.
Periodicals
Fuller, Roy. “Ungenerous Measure.” London Magazine, February/March 1972: 145–46.
Stanford, Derek. Review of The Generous Days. Books and Bookmen, January 1972: 64–65.
Gale Contextual Encyclopedia of World Literature
Susannah Fullerton, Stephen Spender & 'The Truly Great' , https://susannahfullerton.com.au

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