The English poet W.H. Auden wrote "Partition" in 1966. Though it never mentions him by name, the poem describes Cyril Radcliffe: the British lawyer who was tasked with drawing the boundaries during the 1947 Partition of India, which divided the country into a Hindu-majority India and a Muslim-majority Pakistan. The poem illustrates how little thought or care the British put into a decision that would affect millions of people, depicting Radcliffe as rushed and ill-prepared. The poem also implicitly critiques colonialism in general, presenting it as a system that allows outsiders to make decisions for groups of people they don't fully respect or understand. "Partition" was published in Auden's 1969 collection, City Without Walls.

• Read the full text of “Partition”

• “Partition” Summary

• “Partition” Themes

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    The Violence and Hubris of British Colonialism

    Where this theme appears in the poem:

    • Lines 1-25

• Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Partition”

  • Lines 1-4

    Unbiased at least ...
    ... and incompatible gods.

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 5-7

    "Time," they had briefed ...
    ... lies in separation.

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 8-12

    The Viceroy thinks, ...
    ... rest with you."

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 13-16

    Shut up in ...
    ... Of millions.

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 16-19

    The maps at ...
    ... Contested areas.

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 19-22

    The weather was ...
    ... or worse divided.

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 23-25

    The next day ...
    ... might get shot.

    

    

    

    

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• “Partition” Symbols

  • 

    The Lonely Mansion

    Where this symbol appears in the poem:

    • Lines 13-15: “Shut up in a lonely mansion, with police night and day / Patrolling the gardens to keep the assassins away, / He got down to work”

• “Partition” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

  • Asyndeton

    

    

    

    

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    Where asyndeton appears in the poem:

    • Lines 15-16: “He got down to work, to the task of settling the fate / Of millions.”
    • Lines 18-19: “But there was no time to check them, no time to inspect / Contested areas.”
    • Lines 21-22: “But in seven weeks it was done, the frontiers decided, / A continent for better or worse divided.”

  • Consonance

    

    

    

    

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    Where consonance appears in the poem:

    • Line 2: “partition”
    • Line 3: “peoples,” “odds”
    • Line 4: “different diets,” “gods”
    • Line 5: “short,” “It's too late”
    • Line 6: “mutual reconciliation or rational debate”
    • Line 7: “only solution now lies in separation”
    • Line 8: “Viceroy thinks,” “see,” “letter”
    • Line 9: “less,” “seen”
    • Line 13: “police”
    • Line 14: “Patrolling”
    • Line 16: “millions,” “maps”
    • Line 17: “Census,” “Returns,” “almost certainly incorrect”
    • Line 18: “time to,” “check,” “time to inspect”
    • Line 19: “Contested”
    • Line 20: “dysentery kept,” “constantly,” “trot”
    • Line 21: “done,” “decided”
    • Line 22: “divided”

  • Alliteration

    

    

    

    

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    Where alliteration appears in the poem:

    • Line 2: “partition”
    • Line 3: “peoples”
    • Line 4: “different,” “diets”
    • Line 7: “solution,” “separation”
    • Line 13: “police”
    • Line 14: “Patrolling,” “assassins,” “away”
    • Line 16: “millions,” “maps”
    • Line 17: “incorrect”
    • Line 18: “inspect”
    • Line 21: “done,” “decided”
    • Line 22: “divided”

  • Irony

    

    

    

    

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    Where irony appears in the poem:

    • Lines 1-2: “Unbiased at least he was when he arrived on his mission, / Having never set eyes on the land he was called to partition”
    • Lines 19-22: “The weather was frightfully hot, / And a bout of dysentery kept him constantly on the trot, / But in seven weeks it was done, the frontiers decided, / A continent for better or worse divided.”

• “Partition” Vocabulary

  Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

  • Unbiased
  • Partition
  • Fanatically at odds
  • Incompatible
  • Briefed
  • Mutual reconciliation
  • Viceroy
  • Accommodation
  • Hindu
  • Moslem
  • Census Returns
  • Contested
  • A bout of dysentery
  • On the trot
  • Frontiers
  • (Location in poem: Line 1: “Unbiased at least he was when he arrived on his mission,”)

• Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Partition”

  • Form

  • Meter

  • Rhyme Scheme

• “Partition” Speaker

• “Partition” Setting

• Literary and Historical Context of “Partition”

• More “Partition” Resources

  • External Resources

    • A Succinct Overview of India's Partition — Watch a TedEd video explaining the British partition of India, its bloody aftermath, and how its effects are still felt today. 

    • The Poet's Life and Career — Read a Poetry Foundation biography of Auden. 

    • A 2018 Humanities Feature on Auden — Read an article juxtaposing the poet's disheveled persona with his disciplined literary output. 

    • "Children of Partition" — Watch a video in which five childhood survivors of the 1947 Partition describe how the event changed their lives. 

    • The Joy of Reading Auden — Susan McDonald writes in the Guardian about the lasting impact of Auden's poetry.

  • LitCharts on Other Poems by W. H. Auden

    • As I Walked Out One Evening

    • Epitaph on a Tyrant

    • Funeral Blues (Stop all the clocks)

    • In Memory of W. B. Yeats

    • Lullaby

    • Musée des Beaux Arts

    • Refugee Blues

    • September 1, 1939

    • The Capital

    • The More Loving One

    • The Shield of Achilles

    • The Unknown Citizen

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