Auden extraordinary style and diction make his poetry strikingly obscure. Sometimes the style makes his poem difficult to understand. This difficulty and obscurity arises from the extreme density and epigrammatic terseness of his style.He often writes in a telegraphic style in which connections, conjugations, articles even pronouns are often missing.
Further difficulty is created by his frequent use of the terminology of modern psychology. Auden coins new words and does not hesitate to use archaic, obsolete and unfamiliar, unusual word if they suit his purpose. In a modern age man is suffering from a sense of boredom. Man is lonely even in a crowd, and is spiritually dead. Auden has used different types of landscape to symbolise the spiritual and psychological states of a modern man and so are his peoples and places.Auden has conveyed spiritual desolation of a sick industrial society by the use of desolate rocky landscape.
The final message of his poetry is that life is the blessing and it must be expected as such occurred as a sequence to his faith and universal love for the cure of human ills. The adoption of various style and technique by Auden made him to express his thought in a single way and his use of a long flowering line made his diction to grow simple and rhyme to become conversational.He has been accepted as a leading poet and one whose influence was felt in much contemporary verse. Technically, Auden was an artist of great virtuosity, a ceaseless experimenter in verse form, with a fine ear of rhythm and music of words. There are two school of thought regarding calling him a modern poet.
Some modern critics are of the opinion that he is a great poet who has exercised influence on modern poetry. They feel that he is the modern with some reservations.They are of opinion that he was an old fashioned and traditional in his views, concepts and ethics. This view has been contrasted.
Most of the critics has stressed that he is modern through and through. He exercised great influence on contemporary ideas and topical evil. He can turn inward when he wants. He leaves his poetry as obscure as any modern poet. Modern age is highly obscure.
He has influenced the modern poets because of his techniques. The entire modern poets imitate his modern technique.
