W. H. Auden : Poetry : Look, Stranger
Auden as a Modern Poet
Question : Essay-type
Would you call Auden a modern poet? Discuss with reference to ‘Look Stranger’.
Introduction
Auden is a leader of modern movement in poetry by both personality and poetic talent. He learnt much from T. S. Eliot and he delighted in the taut line, the brief image, and his thought was packed and elliptical. Yet from the first he declared a natural description of the master. He had a common talent for lyric. Auden sought out more boldly for language which has the mark of music hall.
Auden’s Poem : Look, Stranger : A Critical Appreciation
Auden’s poem ‘Look Stranger’ is about a coaster scene. In fact it is a picture of sea seen from the Dover Cliff. The poet here presents an objective description of the natural scene in the three stanzas, each of which presents a scene of perspective that shifts slightly in the next one.
The opening stanza presents a real little exposition in which the poet introduces us to the scene itself. Somewhat like Wordsworth in his sonnet entitled ‘Composed Upon Westminster Bridge’ Auden here invites us to look at the natural scene at a particular point of time and be conscious of the glory and splendour of that particular sight. Auden asks the stranger to look at the beautiful scene of that island. The stranger is advised to stand firmly and silently there so that the swaying sound of the sea may pass into his ears like a meandering river. So, Auden says–
“Look, stranger, at this island now
The leaping light for your delight discovers,”
In the second stanza, the poet presents a slight shift in his perspective and asks the stranger to pause at the ending of the small field and notice the chalk wall of the cliff falling towards the sea. The stranger is asked to notice the narrow horizontal shelves of this wall braving the blow of the wave and observe the rounded pebbles on the sea-shore crawling towards the sea-waves which break into white foams–
“Here at a small field’s ending pause
Where the chalk wall falls to the foam and its tall ledges”
In the third stanza, the poet presents a different perspective in which we obtain a mere open-ended overall view. The poet presents an almost cinematographic description of the ships in the distant horizon moving out in various directions on different missions. This ‘full view’, the poet hopes, may enter the very consciousness of the onlooker, and moves into the individual memory very much like the clouds that float over the clearly reflecting mirror of the harbour and wander all through the summer through the water of the sea. The stranger also can see a gull entering and resting on the steep of the cliff. So, the poet says–
“Far off like floating seeds the ships
Diverge on urgent voluntary errands,”
Auden’s Patriotic Feeling in ‘Look, Stranger’
In the poem we find the poet’s intense love for England and her sweet sights and sounds. The enthusiasm of the poet for English landscape and seascape is keenly felt through the unadorned language of the poem. As Scarfe has rightly observed, “Auden’s poem was profoundly English. There was hardly a poem in which his strong feeling for England did not find expression.” In loosing his contact with England is likely to loose the most fundamental thing as a poet. In the present poem he gives his interpretation of the Dover. Auden’s geography is psychic as Scarfe has rightly observed.
Psychological Interpretation of the Scene
Auden is not contended with merely cataloguing the beauties of the place, but gives a psychological interpretation of the scene. He paints here the beauty of the Dover Cliff, the sea-waves dashing thereon. The seagull, the sailing ships, and the clouds sailing over the clearly reflecting mirror of the harbour. They contribute the very soul of Dover–its calm majesty. All these are driven home to the heart of the stranger as he approaches the Dover shore in a ship.
Look, Stranger : A Remarkable Poem for its Imagery with the Usage of Words
The poem is thus remarkable for the beauty of its imagery. We notice that phrases–‘channels of the ear’, ‘sucking surf’ present powerfully descriptive images that add to the impact created by the poet. The ‘sound’ is allowed to wander ‘like a river’ and a comparison has been made between the two movements. Suddenly there is a shift from the visual imagery to the auditory one. Again there is a simile ‘like floating seeds the ships’ and the comparison made by the poet is unique. The poet presents a metaphor–‘harbour mirror’ where the harbour is identified as a mirror. We notice that the words ‘knock of the tide’, and ‘sucking surf’ imitate the very sound of the action they represent so that we may almost hear the activities taking place.
So we find that the poem, which presents a remarkable technical facility, contains exquisite imagery. The use of alliteration and onomatopoeia intensify the effectiveness of the use of image. The repetitions of the ‘l’ sound in the second line of the first stanza like–‘The leaping light for your delight discovers’, and the ‘s’ sound in the last line of the first stanza like–‘The swaying sound of the sea’ give the poem a certain musical effect and helps in creating the husked atmosphere of the scene. Alliteration is again used in the next stanzas like–‘shingle, scrambles, sucking surf, move in memory’. Thus the poem is remarkable for the poet’s uses of words.
Conclusion
So we find that Auden is a modern poet. He has been liberating influence in modern poetry. He broke down the new snobbery of intellectualism which was in danger in creating a minority poetry. He was able to enlarge ‘the younger writers’, the vocabulary syntax, rhythm and imagery poetry. The most important point of his modernity is the use of style. He tried to create the poetry which is very close with common speech. His ideas were influenced with his particular twist of mind. Here in lies his modernity.
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Related Questions
1️⃣ Give a critical appreciation of Auden’s poem ‘Look Stranger’.
2️⃣ Write a critical analysis of the poem ‘Look, Stranger’ by W. H. Auden.
3️⃣ What is the critical estimate of Auden’s poem ‘Look, Stranger’? Write about it.
