The Unknown Citizen by W H Auden - Poetry Reading

The Unknown Citizen -- A poem by W H Auden.

About the poet -- Wystan Hugh Auden (1907 -- 1973) was an Anglo-American poet born in England, later an American citizen. He was born in York, England. His work mostly centered around moral and political issues. The central themes of his poetry are love, politics, religion, morals, relationship between unique human beings and the anonymous and impersonal world of nature. He is regarded by many as one of the greatest writers of the 20th century.

By describing the "average citizen" through the eyes of various government organizations, the poem criticizes standardization and the modern state's relationship with its citizens. The last lines of the poem dismiss the questions of whether he was "free" or "happy", implicitly because the statistical methods used by the state tobe his life have no means of understanding such questions

[srilankacricket]

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