Orwell, Poetry and the Microphone

This paper argues that poetry is an important preoccupation and reference point in George Orwell’s identity as a writer. His first publication when a child was a jingoistic poem. It would seem his last draft of writing was a poem expressing the agonies of his declining body, dying and struggling for breath from tuberculosis. The publication in 2015 of a volume dedicated to his poems certainly pointed to the biographical significance of his poetic writing. This paper aims to demonstrate that there is an important connection between Orwell’s criticism of poets and their poetry, the poetic cultural phenomenon, the potential of retrieving the oral tradition of poetry through broadcasting, as well as his own poetic expression. The analysis merits an artistic revaluation of the poetic Orwell and its relationship with his experience of radio broadcasting.