By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
Its title echoing the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior, ‘The Unknown Citizen’ is a poem that demonstrates W. H. Auden’s fine ability to fuse irony and wit with pathos and pity. Written in 1939, the poem was one of the first Auden wrote after he moved from Britain to the United States.
You can read ‘The Unknown Citizen’ here before proceeding to our analysis below.