The Thirties

In 1939 the coming of mass warfare for the second time in the century brought to an end all illusions that the conflicts which had torn Spain and Germany during the thirties were simply «internal» problems. One of the first British writers to recognize that the twen­tieth century was — and would continue to be — an age of ideo­logical struggle was George Orwell. Orwell's initial insight came during a period of service with the Imperial Police in Burma, when he witnessed some of the destructive (and certainly self-destruc­tive) effects of British imperialism in the East. His insights resulted in dissatisfaction with the status quo, a dissatisfaction which was fueled by his explorations of the world of poverty which he re­corded in his novels and essays of the thirties. His dissatisfaction later Ьссашс a commitment to fight fascism in the Spanish Civil War. In 1946 «Animal Farm» appeared, and three years later, «Nine­teen Eighty-Four». In these novels, Orwell articulated the case for democratic socialism and offered devastating critiques of totalitar­ian rule. In his essays Orwell argues with simplicity, directness, and a rare intellectual honesty. He established a standard for mod­ern English prose.

Of course Orwell was not alone in recognizing the ideological im­plications of modem experience or in establishing literary standards. W. H. Audcn, for example, was one of a number of poets whose ca­reers began during the thirties, a period of energetic political and intel­lectual debate. The economic and political issues debated included the great Depression of 1929, and capitalism and its alternatives (such as fascism, communism, and democratic socialism). The «failure» of ear­lier intellectual movements led writers to adopt and combine in vari­ous ways the insights of psychology, political theory, and mythology, and the innovative techniques of individual predecessors. Audcn, for example, wrote a number of «social action» poems, and he also showed (though not always in the same poems) how much he had learned from «teachers» such as Eliot, Hopkins, and Yeats. Stephen Spender, a close friend of Audcn's, wrote social commentary in both poetry and prose, and like Orwell has been considered one of the most sensitive and eloquent voices of social conscience in his generation. In the end, how­ever, it is more useful to consider Auden, Spender, and their close contemporaries, C. Day Lewis and Louis Mac-Neice, less in relation to the thirties than in relation to the forties and fifties, when their ma­ture work emerged. And it is more useful to tliink of these men in terms of art rather than ideas, for two reasons. First, they cultivated an artistic understanding of irony, matter-of-facuiess, and overall economy of statement. Second, they responded to what Auden called «The Age of Anxiety» as artists of both individual and ecumenical imagination; they shared ideas, experimented with new techniques, and grew with the times.

Individual talent and drive simply resist, and usually outlive, any effort to place them within a «school» — as the careers of Edith Sitwell, Robert Graves, Stevie Smith, and Dylan Thomas Drove. Sitwell and Thomas arc particularly memorable cases in point. Sitwell began writing under the influence of T. S. Eliot and Sym- bolism, and created poctic blends of sight and sound, such as «The King of China's Daughter», which could be thought of as studies in perception. She continued to read and experiment, combined poetic and musical compositions, welcomed the new work of Dylan Thomas, and kept her imposing, controversial, and sometimes ec­centric gifts — both personal and poetic—before the public through the sheer force of personality.

Dylan Thomas emerged from «dark» and provincial Welsh ori­gins to invest the verse forms of the past with emotion and rhetori­cal energy, and to create poems «written for the love of Man and in praise of God». Thomas made his poetry reflect the paradoxes of experience, its overlaps and contradictions. He allowed his talent to express itself not only through poems, but also tltrough stories, plays, and film scripts, the best known of which include «А Child's Christmas in Wales» and «Under Milk Wood».