Riddling in W. H. Auden's “the wanderer”

In his poems written in the early nineteen‐thirties, W. H. Auden presents personae whose perspectives are in constant motion. By pulling the reader in several directions at once, Auden forces him to participate in the poem at its most formal level. In these early works the riddling experience of the speaker is reflected in the poem's verbal surface which, in turn, reflects Auden's view that all experience is a riddle. For the oral interpreter, whose task is to embody the persona, the first step is to unravel the poet's language, a task which can prove difficult when the poems turn upon riddle. An analysis of “The Wanderer” illustrates Auden's use of the riddling technique.