Introduction: High-Seriousness in Modern Poetry
'High-seriousness’ in poetry, to quote Matthew Arnold’s favourite phrase, is well pronounced in Wilfred Owen and T.S. Eliot, two great names in modern English poetry, in their powerful treatment of the social reality of the modern world. Of course, their subject-matters are not identical. While Owen exposes sharply the grim, poignant, dreadful reality of war, Eliot delineates the dreary, passive, emotionally empty urban civilization of the modern age. But poetry is found to change as civilization advances. This is true in respect of modern English poetry, too. A new kind of social reality, however, is found treated by a new group of English poets in the thirties of the last century.
The Poets of the Thirties: A New Literary Movement
These new English poets, popularly called the poets of the thirties, have a new poetic treat, with a new point of view, for their readers. Though inspired by Owen and Eliot, along with Hopkins, as admitted by their pioneers, the plane of the social reality of their poetry is altogether different and, perhaps, more immediate to the changing problems of their age and society. This new poetry is found animated with an intense social consciousness and imbued with a new political idealism, under the impact of the existing social and political environment of Europe.
The Historical Context: Post-War Crisis and Political Upheaval
The new poets started their literary career in a crucial period. War was over, but peace was not ensured, despite the function of the League of Nations. Distrust, hatred and grievance were freely generated, and Europe seemed to have been staked by political opportunism and sinister manoeuvre to preserve authority and domination.
But more threatening was the state of affairs on the economic front. Europe was almost engulfed by the post-war economic depression that hit England severely in particular. Privation, unemployment, economic insecurity and consequent social perversity disturbed the structure of the existing society and exposed the hollowness of the capitalistic order.
The social picture was, indeed, a dismal one. At the same time, there was a new ideological stimulation from the establishment of the socialistic society in Russia and the emergence of communism as a principle of social living. The Russian political experiment, with the principle of communism, was favoured by liberal intelligentsia, overlooking its atrocities and regimentations. Moreover, the growing threat of Nazism began to take dimensions to affect the political affiliation.
Political Poetry and Left-Wing Ideals
The poets of the thirties came in such a situation and were affected strongly both by the desperation of the post-war economic situation and by the inspiration of the socialistic revolution in Russia. They appeared, to some extent, akin to the early Romantic poets of the nineteenth century.
Like them, they were filled with disgust at the state of their society and drawn to the political revolution that had promised a happy future for mankind. The Romantic poets had before them the French Revolution and Rousseauism, as social ideals, while the poets of the thirties set before them the stimulus of the Russian Revolution and the gospel Marxism and Leninism.
They were thoroughly annoyed with the whole trend of their capitalistic civilization, sought a remedy for the existing social ills and inequalities and found it in the principle of communism, no doubt then in an experimental stage in Russia. They missed the brutal business of war, witnessed the economic ills of the Post-War time, had no social security to lose, felt guilty of the privileges enjoyed even by themselves and were invariably drawn to the ideal of equality and even of the revolution to attain the same.
They believed, as stated by one of their protagonists, that ‘only a revolution’ could ‘save’ the English standards of living from the present degeneration. They believed, too, ‘that the full development of the individual’ could be ‘possible in a state of social communism’ and detected ‘the vibration of new life’ in it.
Cultural Unity and Literary Objectives of the Poets
The poets of the thirties had some commonness in their cultural associations and literary objectives. They were young, upper, or at best, middle class intellectuals, with good education at renowned institutions and at the University of Oxford or Cambridge.
They were responsible thinkers, conscious of the prevalent frustration of their society, and humanitarian idealists, with visions for a new kind of society. They had contempt for the bourgeois outlook and for the capitalistic standard of living.
They were all imbued with the new missions to employ art to the service of the community for the welfare of the exploited masses. They shared in common the belief that poetry must be revolutionary, aiming to have a new world of human happiness and fraternity.
They worked together, under the inspiration of the red banner, developed a mutual understanding of the social objective of poetry and took the Russian poet, Maykovesky, as their very literary idol. Their poetry had a political background and a left-wing swing. In the Spanish war, they supported the Republican against the menace of expanding Fascism under General Franco.
They were political poets — left-wingers, so to say, with social consciousness and humanitarian conscience.
The Key Figures of the 1930s Poetry Movement
Those young poets of the thirties, who, thus, thought and acted together, were not many. The protagonists of them included:
- W. H. Auden
- Stephen Spender
- Cecil Day Lewis
- Louis MacNeice
Other, though less notable, poetical personalities of the group were:
- Michael Roberts
- Charles Madge
- John Lehmann
- George Barker
Two South African born poets — Roy Campbell (1901–57) and William Plomer (1903–73) — are also anthologized with the Auden group for their political affiliation.
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