"The Unknown Citizen"

Title"The Unknown Citizen"
Year for Search1939
AuthorsAuden, W[ystan] H[ugh](1907-73)
Tertiary AuthorsAuden, W. H.
Secondary TitleThe Listener (London)
Volume / Edition22.551
Pagination215
Date PublishedAugust 3, 1939
KeywordsEnglish author, Male author
Annotation

Poem describing a bureaucratic dystopia that honors a man who is "normal in every way."

Additional Publishers

Rpt. in The Collected Poetry of W.H. Auden (New York: Random House, 1945), 142-143; in Collected Shorter Poems, 1927-1957 (New York: Random House, 1967), 146-147; in Selected Poems. Ed. Edward Mendelson (New York: Vintage Books, 1979), 85-86; in The Hedgehog Review (Charlottesville, VA) 10.3 (Fall 2008): 38-39; and in The Complete Works of W.H. Auden: Poems. Volume I 1927-1939. Ed. Edward Mendelson (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2022), 368-369, with a Textual Note on 767-768.

Author Note

(1907-73)

Full Text

1939 Auden, W[ystan] H[ugh] (1907-73). “The Unknown Citizen.” The Listener (London) 22.551 (August 3, 1939): 215. Rpt. in The Collected Poetry of W.H. Auden (New York: Random House, 1945), 142-143; in Collected Shorter Poems, 1927-1957 (New York: Random House, 1967), 146-147; in Selected Poems. Ed. Edward Mendelson (New York: Vintage Books, 1979), 85-86; in The Hedgehog Review (Charlottesville, VA) 10.3 (Fall 2008): 38-39; and in The Complete Works of W.H. Auden: Poems. Volume I 1927-1939. Ed. Edward Mendelson (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2022), 368-369, with a Textual Note on 767-768.

Poem describing a bureaucratic dystopia that honors a man who is “normal in every way.”