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Auden Vs Ginsberg

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Literature has a lengthy history of odds and ends that get categorized by critics as unworthy of widespread study, yet some are the most brilliant statements of their time. W. H. Auden’s book-length poem The Age of Anxiety won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1948. It, along with Allen Ginsberg’s poem Howl, are diamonds that are often disregarded by literary critics and the public as worthless rough. Each piece was a major breakthrough in its time. Auden and Ginsberg both attempted to define the period of time and turmoil that they lived in as members of “the other” in their respective societies. Both make booming battle cries for a generation, fit well into places of deserved canonical respect, and receive influence from political and personal …show more content…

Undoubtedly, W. H. Auden’s Pulitzer Prize winning poem holds up to the work of Ginsberg, which is included in the anthology that is used in many college English courses. Age of Anxiety is a poem set in a bar with four vague characters: Malin, Quant, Rosetta, and Emble. Howl is a fight song clearly sung against society of the day and for a friend of Ginsberg’s. Numerous similarities exist in the reasoning behind the works and the lives and beliefs of their authors. First of all, both authors lived during times of war: Auden published Age of Anxiety during the post-war stress in America after WWII, and Ginsberg’s Howl was a result of the Cold War as it was published in 1955. World War II caused overwhelming anxiety for all American citizens because of changes in gender roles, economy, values, etc. Auden was led to name that generation. People had become used to the wartime way of living. Peace was not a part of their repertoire, so the changing times led to unsurety on all sides. Then, almost ten years pass, the Soviet Union rises to power, and development of nuclear weapons is rapid and threatening to the safety of the globe. Yet another season of malaise hits the country with the Cold War, …show more content…

Its worth is hotly debated. W. B. Yeats and T. S. Eliot were contemporaries of Auden’s, and being a part of that legendary group is close to an automatic deservance of being a canonical poet. Alternate views from critics either list him as the worst of the three, yet others argue strongly that Auden was the greatest poet of the entire 20th century for what he could do with words and form. Content in the book-length poem speak volumes of the talent that the American immigrant had. He created something that is hotly debated as both a failure and his greatest accomplishment, and uncertainty in making that decision make it all the more worthy to be in the canon. His uncertainty is the only real part of the poem as Auden’s character laments that “The less I feel/The more I mind” (commentary mag). The best works are pieces that make one think about their worth. Characters that seem to mean little actually have a lot to say with what they do as well as their words. Little happens, but the characters’ actions comment on major themes of the human being. Halting speeches and words take the reader inside of the mind as frailties become clear. What this poem has to say is vastly important once one gets past the errors in form. Psychological and social problems are concerns that Age of Anxiety covers. “Verse should be neither too free nor too formed, as human experience is also neither: breath and

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