W. H. Auden, Consider this and in our time

Chris Baldick (Goldsmiths College, University of London)

Ed. by Chris Baldick, Goldsmiths College, University of London
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.08: English Writing and Culture of the early Twentieth Century , 1900-1945.
Vol. editors: Chris Baldick (Goldsmiths College, University of London), Peter Childs (Birmingham Newman University), Louise McDonald (Birmingham Newman University), Andrew Radford (University of Glasgow)

Dates

First circulation or publication Sep 1930

Places

England (Country of Origin; Publication/ performance)

Genres and Modes

Poem

Resources

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“Consider this and in our time” (1930; revised as “Consider”, 1945) is one of W. H. Auden’s most distinctive early poems. Auden wrote it at the age of 23 in March 1930, and it appeared as the penultimate item, numbered XXIX, of his first published collection,

Poems

(September 1930), as an untitled 63-line poem in three verse paragraphs of flexible blank verse. Auden later revised this poem for his

Collected Poetry

(1945) and subsequent collections by excising the first eight lines (42-9) of the third paragraph, while giving it the new title “Consider”. It is an unsettling poem of enigmatically sinister prophecy, menace and accusation, notable for its commanding voice and its imagery of extensive malaise, but also for the obscurity of its invented mythology of conflict and…

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2200 words

Citation: Baldick, Chris. "Consider this and in our time". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 04 June 2019 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=38951, accessed 23 November 2024.]

W. H. Auden, Consider this and in our time

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