Anxiety about the Influence of the Political on Poetry: A Case Study of W. B. Yeats, W. H. Auden, and Robert Lowell

Anxiety about the Influence of the Political on Poetry: A Case Study of W. B. Yeats, W. H. Auden, and Robert Lowell

This article discusses W. B. Yeats’s “Politics,” W. H. Auden’s “A Thanksgiving,” and Robert Lowell’s “Epilogue” as a case study of the complex relation between poetry and the political. These poets’ well-known works embody the zeitgeist of political upheavals, but they also disclose a sense of anxiety about the infiltration of the political into their own writing. Given that the poems were written nearly at the end of their lives or careers, it is not far-fetched to speculate that even these masterful poets find it difficult to appraise their own writing in association with political subjects and situations. The discussion about these poems purports to indicate that while poetry and the political can be intertwined, political matters in poetry are worthwhile when they are treated as aesthetic matters.