HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE

TWENTIETH CENTURY POETRY

W.B. YEATS:

William Butler Yeats, born in 1865 and died in1939 is Ireland’s greatest modern poet. He was influenced by the French symbolists, Celtic mythology and various mystic traditions. He was influenced by Spenser, Shelley, Rossetti and the aesthetic movement of the late nineteenth century. Being Irish, he was influenced by the Irish national movement in Dublin. Dublin introduced him to Irish literary nationalism, to George Sigerson’s translations of older Gaelic poetry and Douglas Hyde’s translations of Gaelic folk songs. London brought him into contact with the younger English poets. He hated Victorian science and felt that it had made belief in orthodox Christianity impossible. So, he sought for a new religion, an aesthetic religion. His reading of Blake and other impulses encouraged his mystical interest and he was seeking truth and order from theosophy to neo-Platonism.

“His two Byzantium poems, ‘Sailing to Byzantium’ and ‘Byzantium’” according to David Daiches, “haunt the mind and probe the emotions as no English post has done since 17th century.” The theme of both the poems is an attempt to escape from old age and decay by escaping altogether from the world of biological change into the timeless world of art, symbolized by Byzantium. Images of breeding, growth, change and death give way to images of a world of artifacts in “Sailing to Byzantium”. But the sense of loss is there. In “Byzantium” the poet subdues the body in the spirit, the world of nature is left behind for the “glory of changeless metal”. In its search for permanence, art wants to leave behind growth and change, of begetting and dying. “Byzantium” is not only about life and death but also about the balance sheet of art, the relation between permanence and change, what is gained and lost from life to art. It is the theme of Keats’ “ode on a Grecian Urn”. Like other modernists, Yeats was skeptical of order and beauty and his poems reflect the modernist anxiety about impermanence.

Yeats was no doubt the most remarkable poetic genius of his time. He absorbed whatever his age offered him. Yet, he retained his originality. His voice was always his own – haunting, magical, fascinating and sometimes terrible.

T.S.ELIOT:

Born in 1888 and died in 1965, T.S.Eliot is one of the most complex poets of the 20th century. His most ambitious poem “The Wasteland” was published in 1922. Borrowing from a range of sources in Christian mythology and anthropology, incorporating ancient symbols, history and love stories, “The Wasteland’ is an unparalleled work in modernist poetry. The poem is in the form of fragments to indicate that human knowledge is always limited and incomplete. Sexuality is meaningless. Religion has failed. Technology and science are used in wars to kill people. The collapse of civilization is the most pervasive modernist theme that is explored in this poem. Eliot takes recourse to other myths and symbols to highlight the modern emptiness. Hence fertility rites, vegetation myths and Buddhism are used to revitalize Christian hope itself. It is a poem about the urban apocalypse as civilisations fall, cities corrupt and ghosts wail. There is, however, a sense of hope for the future, symbolized by the prophecy of rain in the poem. Though much can be got from the poem without any external aids, “The Wasteland” is noted for its obscurity. It is the longest poem in the 1920 volume.

Eliot’s poetry lacks scope and sympathy. In spite of his immense technical skill and variations of style, his range and interests are limited and he has none of the deep imaginative sympathy with the human condition which the great poets have had. He is impatient with imperfection. His introduction of wit and irony into English poetry, his renovation of the English poetic dialect, and his restoration of intelligence to poetry were all necessary and salutary achievements. Eliot’s work both as a poet and critic will remain the most significant for the literary historian.

  

POETS OF THE 1930S:

The poets of the 1930s faced a world of economic depression, spiritual dryness and they moved from the contemplation of the symbolic wasteland to the portrayal of it. The influence of Marx and Freud can be seen in the writings of Eliot, Hopkins, Owen and Skeleton. In this context, W.H.Auden emerged. His early poems are examinations of the English situation in a tone of farcical and tragic. The Auden generation was influenced by socialist thought until it was disillusioned with socialism because of the totalitarian regime of Hitler and Stalin. Auden wrote about war, culture, morality, workers and humanity. His poetry is notable for its range of subject matter and precise control over rhythm and diction. His dystopic view of war and civilization is best recorded in “September1,1939”. Of his political poems, “The Unknown Citizen” is equal to Orwell’s vision of totalitarian state where in order to survive, one must agree with the dominant political opinion. Influenced by Freud, he saw modern civilization as repressed and unhappy. He suggests return to a certain primitivism. He envies the birds and vegetables because they don’t have a language. According to him, language, the symbol of civilization only makes humanity sad.

Stephen Spender, like Auden was influenced by socialism. Like many other writers of his time, was disillusioned with the way socialism had shaped up. As a consequence of his association with politics, his poems reveal social protest. John Betjeman, a poet laureate from 1972-1984 is notable for his casual tone and dry wit. He sees the present as empty and destructive. His works exhibit a neo-romantic concern with the idyllic world and landscape of the previous era. This romantic description is rarely seen in modernist poetry. 

Kathleen Raine, called a neo-romantic is deeply influenced by Indian mysticism. Her poetry exhibits a love of nature and landscape refracted through mystic vision. It also embodies a lot of myth and symbols.

Of the more anthologized poets from the 1930s is Welsh Dylan Thomas, whose impoverished and chaotic life made him more famous than his poetry. Numerous celebrities befriended him. Unlike the modernists’ obsession with defiled and corrupted ‘Nature’, his romanticism is likened to Wordsworth’s appreciation of ‘Nature’.  The influence of Surrealism can be seen in his writings.