Modernism - Modernist Poems

Activity : Identify the " Modernist " symbols, imagery and metaphors from the poems. 

What is Modernism ? : " Any of various movements in art, architecture, literature etc. Generally characterized by a Deliberate break with classical and traditional forms of methods of expression ." 

         People started their own views in the world. Rational thinking seemed increasing. Two wars effects seemed but anti war theme also came. The new term Avant Garde also introduced. Mainly development seemed in the technology, science and in politics. 

Characteristics of the Modernism : 

- Individual perspective came in the existence. 

- Development in  Science and politics .

-  Stream of consciousness seemed. 

- Experiments became necessary. 

- More question  seemed open ending. 

- Loss of faith. 

- Chaos also takes place. 

- Passion for humanity. 

- Marxist influence. 

- Art for life's sake. 

      10 Very Short Modernist Poems

 

Activity : Identify the " Modernist " symbols, imagery and metaphors from the poems. 

 1) T.E. Hulme 's The Embankment : 

Once, in finesse of fiddles found I ecstasy,
In a flash of gold heels on the hard pavement.
Now see I
That warmth’s the very stuff of poesy.
Oh, God, make small
The old star-eaten blanket of the sky,
That I may fold it round me and in comfort lie.

• This poem is about falling of man.  How lust leads man towards the decayed. Because of these kinds of addiction his life is now became totally dull and now the question arises of existence. So the hopeless man prays to the God to give the shelter of sky. Or we can interpret that may be he wants to die or tries to hide himself. 

#Embankment - For the hopeless people 

#Gold Heels - Desire, Prostitution 

# Blanket of the sky -  Shelter, hide himself 

2) Joseph Campbell 's  Darkness :

Darkness.
I stop to watch a star shine in the boghole –
A star no longer, but a silver ribbon of light.
I look at it, and pass on.

• This poem's title it self suggests the depression of somebody. And as a result of it speaker don't likes to see the stars. We can interpret that this sky now gives the  feeling of boghole. But he likes the light.

# Darkness - Dullness ,Evilness 

# Boghole - Which can not sustains the weight because of the softness. 

# Silver Ribbon  - Mental illness

3) Edward Storer 's Image :

Forsaken lovers,

Burning to a chaste white moon,

Upon strange pyres of loneliness and drought.

• This poem seems like an image. The image of sorrow, everything looks like vanished. The situation is became like Moon - deserted land. Somebody is on pyre and due to the lake of love everyone  has paid the price. 

# Moon - As a deserted land 

# Pyre - death, drought, loneliness 

4) Ezra Pound 's 

In a Station of the Metro :

THE apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.

•   This poem also based on imagism. As title suggests the image of Metro Station. The situation is looking crowded. People just disappears in the crowd as apparition.  Everyone is rushing. Faces are compared with the petal of the bough. But speaker uses the black and wet bough, means the situation is of after the rain when branches becomes black.

# Apparition - Ghost, Imagery 

# Petals - Flowers, Faces 

# Wet, black bough - After the Rain

5) H .D.  Hilda Doolittle 's  The Pool : 

Are you alive? I touch you.  You quiver like a sea-fish.  I cover you with my net.  What are you—banded one? • In this poem we finds some questions. Which represents the modernism. Imagery also we finds in the work. We can interpret that speaker has visited the pool or pond . It means as a discovery because later on he finds something.....? Again it's looks like fish not a fish. So normally The pool gives meaning of rottenness but here it gives positive message.  # Imagery  # Only questions  6) Richard Aldington 's Insouciance :

IN and out of the dreary trenches,
Trudging cheerily under the stars,
I make for myself little poems
Delicate as a flock of doves.
They fly away like white-winged doves.

• It looks like a poem of Soldier. Because they have not at all fear of death. Title also suggest that thing. In the dreary trenches soldiers might feels boring. And speaker writes poem and it is kind like doves. And one day death will come and they all will gone as white winged doves.

# Imagination 

# Dreary Trenches 

# Flock of doves 

# White winged dove 

7) T. S Eliot 's  Morning at the Window : 

They are rattling breakfast plates in basement kitchens, 

And along the trampled edges of the street 

I am aware of the damp souls of housemaids 

Sprouting despondently at area gates. 
 
The brown waves of fog toss up to me        

 
Twisted faces from the bottom of the street, 

And tear from a passer-by with muddy skirts 

An aimless smile that hovers in the air 

And vanishes along the level of the roofs

• As title suggests it seems that Speaker is watching out side from the window at the morning. And he sees the poor condition of the people who lives on the pavement.  These  poor people is  not getting enough food . And children are playing in mud. They have not good clothes. 

# Basement 

#  Trampled edges 

# Damp Soul

# Twisted Faces 

# Muddy Skirts 

# An Aimless smile 

8) William Carlos Williams ' s  The Red Wheelbarrow : 

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

• Poem is of imagination. The red wheelbarrow which is used in the farming. But after raining it becomes more shiny. It gives a rural image Also. White chickens comes near to the wheelbarrow to see its beauty. 

     It becomes so difficult to understand this poem because it depends upon us how we think. 

# Red wheelbarrow 

# White chicken 

9 ) Wallace Stevens' s Anecdote of  the Jar :

I placed a jar in Tennessee,   

And round it was, upon a hill.   

It made the slovenly wilderness   

Surround that hill.

The wilderness rose up to it,

And sprawled around, no longer wild.   

The jar was round upon the ground   

And tall and of a port in air.

It took dominion everywhere.   

The jar was gray and bare.

It did not give of bird or bush,   

Like nothing else in Tennessee.

• This poem is also of imagination. Speaker puts a Jar on the hill. Which represents how an art crests  it's place in nature. But yet it has not as much as power of re creation as nature has. 

#  Jar - Art 

# Bush - Recreation, Wilderness 

10) E.  E. Cummings 's I : 

l(a... (a leaf falls on loneliness)

l(a

le
af
fa
ll

s)
one
l

iness

• It is an innovative poem with imagination. A few lines but gives the feeling of loneliness. How a single leaf falls on the ground. Which gives the effects of loneliness. 

# Leaf 

# Loneliness 

                                                   Thank you