W. H. Auden and C. Isherwood



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The Anglo-American poet W. H. Auden (on the right of this picture, standing with Christopher Isherwood) was one of the most highly regarded poets of those who came to prominence in the 1930s, and has proved to be the most influential figure in English poetry since T. S. Eliot. His work contains modernist approaches alongside a fluent and voracious use of traditional forms, and a breadth of subject-matter from the political to the satirical and lyrical. These lines from “September 1, 1939” are read by an actor; they reflect Auden’s fatalistic certainty of the coming of World War II, and his feeling that the 1930s had betrayed the hopes of many people.

Courtesy of the W. H. Auden Estate and Curtis Brown Ltd./Hulton-Deutsch Collection/Corbis

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Auden, W(ystan) H(ugh)

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