''The Age of Anxiety: A Baroque Eclogue'' (1947; first UK edition, 1948) is a long

poem Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings in ...

in six parts by

W. H. Auden Wystan Hugh Auden (; 21 February 1907 – 29 September 1973) was a British-American poet. Auden's poetry was noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in ...

, written mostly in a modern version of Anglo-Saxon

alliterative Alliteration is the conspicuous repetition of initial consonant sounds of nearby words in a phrase, often used as a literary device. A familiar example is "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers". Alliteration is used poetically in various ...

verse. The poem deals, in

eclogue An eclogue is a poem in a classical style on a pastoral subject. Poems in the genre are sometimes also called bucolics. Overview The form of the word ''eclogue'' in contemporary English developed from Middle English , which came from Latin , wh ...

form, with man's quest to find substance and identity in a shifting and increasingly

industrialized Industrialisation ( alternatively spelled industrialization) is the period of social and economic change that transforms a human group from an agrarian society into an industrial society. This involves an extensive re-organisation of an econo ...

world. Set in a wartime bar in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

, Auden uses four characters – Quant, Malin, Rosetta, and Emble – to explore and develop his themes. The poem won the

Pulitzer Prize for Poetry The Pulitzer Prize for Poetry is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes awarded annually for Letters, Drama, and Music. It was first presented in 1922, and is given for a distinguished volume of original verse by an American author, published ...

in 1948. It inspired a symphony by composer Leonard Bernstein, ''The Age of Anxiety'' (Symphony No. 2 for Piano and Orchestra), which in turn was used for both a 1950 ballet by

Jerome Robbins Jerome Robbins (born Jerome Wilson Rabinowitz; October 11, 1918 – July 29, 1998) was an American dancer, choreographer, film director, theatre director and producer who worked in classical ballet, on stage, film, and television. Among his nu ...

and a 2014 ballet by Liam Scarlett. A

critical edition Textual criticism is a branch of textual scholarship, philology, and of literary criticism that is concerned with the identification of textual variants, or different versions, of either manuscripts or of printed books. Such texts may range in da ...

of the poem, edited by Alan Jacobs, was published by

Princeton University Press Princeton University Press is an independent publisher with close connections to Princeton University. Its mission is to disseminate scholarship within academia and society at large. The press was founded by Whitney Darrow, with the financia ...

in 2011. "The Age of Anxiety" is also the title of the first chapter of ''The Wisdom of Insecurity'' by

Alan Watts Alan Wilson Watts (6 January 1915 – 16 November 1973) was an English writer, speaker and self-styled "philosophical entertainer", known for interpreting and popularising Japanese, Chinese and Indian traditions of Buddhist, Taoist, and Hindu ...

(1951). In 2019, musician

Pete Townshend Peter Dennis Blandford Townshend (; born 19 May 1945) is an English musician. He is co-founder, leader, guitarist, second lead vocalist and principal songwriter of the Who, one of the most influential rock bands of the 1960s and 1970s. Townsh ...

's first novel was published. Its title is ''The Age of Anxiety''.

References

External links

The W. H. Auden Society

The Guardian's Book Review
10 Apr 2010 1947 books Books by W. H. Auden Poetry by W. H. Auden Pulitzer Prize for Poetry-winning works Random House books {{poem-stub