1

THE 20TH CENTURY ASPECTS OF LIFE IN OUR READ POEM

1. INTRODUCTION
The beginning of the 20th century was the time of great scientific progresses. The
industrial revolution and the latest technological development had filled man with
hope. On the contrary, in the second half of the second decade, the hope changed to
a nightmare as the people witnessed the World War I. People experienced intense
grief of lost of beloved, depression, anxiety and hopelessness, and they saw the dark
side of life and founded poetry for the expression of their thoughts and feelings.
Since literature reflects the age in which it is produced, essentially, the 20th century
poetry reflects these all aspects of contemporary life, even the ugly and awful reality
of life as well. Furthermore, the early years of the 20th century literature marked a
radical break from the 19th century Victorianism. This break was a movement called
Modernism. The Modernist literature had its origin in the years immediately
preceding the First World War (Louise B. Williams 2002).

2. MODERNISM
Modernism refers to a group of characteristics which are new and distinct in form,
concept and style in literature. Modernists had a deep disappointment with their
preceding generation which had led their peaceful world into war and destruction.
As a result, their works reflected a sense of despair, loss, disillusionment and trauma.

Furthermore, the Modernists tried to locate meaning from the view point of the
individual and adopted stream of consciousness technique to represent inner and
psychological realities of man. To modernist writers, there is no absolute truth and
everything is subjective and relative.

Traditionally, poetry had been bounded with some specific subjects such as nature or
love. Whereas, the Modernist poetry can be found written almost on every subject
including society and real life events such as war and death. However, this freedom
of subject made the poetry of the age diverse, distinctive, and innovative covering a
variety of themes. Hence, the term modernism refers to the technical and innovative
 2
features in the writing, and liberal use of free verse, rejecting the 19th century
optimism and presenting a profoundly pessimistic picture of life.

2.1 F EATURES OF M ODERNISM

A prominent feature of modernism is the phenomenon called the avant-garde; a
small group of artists and authors who followed the Ezra Pound's phrase, to "make it
new." They violated the accepted conventions and attempted to bring something
new in literature and art.

Other main characteristics of modernism are: use of images and symbols, use of
ordinary language rather than formal language. Often, the intention of writers in the
Modern period is to change the readers' perception. Ezra Pound is generally
considered the most influential poet for defining and promoting a modernistic
poetry. He came in contact with British and American writers, and became famous
when he advanced the work of such major contemporaries as W. B. Yeats, Robert
Frost, William Carlos Williams, Marianne Moore, and some others. However, Pound's
own significant contributions to poetry begin with his promotion of Imagism.

2.2 I MAGISM
Imagism was a reactionary movement against Victorian and Romantic poetry born in
early 20th century in England and America. It derived its technique from classical
Chinese and Japanese poetry, stressing clarity, precision, and economy of language,
rejecting traditional rhyme and meter in order to create new rhythm. The movement
was promulgated by Ezra Pound in 1913 when he published his 2-lines poem "In a
station of the metro" which is a pure product of Imagery. This short poem is very
sensory in nature; it paints a picture of a scene in the reader's mind while reading
these lines. In this poem, he uses economy of language perfectly that makes the
poem very precise.

3. THE 20TH CENTURY POETRY AND OUR READ POEMS

In the spirit of modernism, radical poets like Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, Robert Frost,
W.H Auden and WB Yeats, saw the modes of the poetry of earlier periods unable to
 3
describe the feelings and attitude of the modern age. As a result, they wrote more
complex and difficult poetry in order to fulfill their need for the expression of their
thoughts. The modern poetry was complex and experimental most often without
metrical patterns or rhymes. A great number of themes that were based on real life
issues such as ordinary men’s life and problems which were the interests of these
poets. The 20th century English poetry was poetry of realism mixed with
disillusionment and pessimism. The suffering and tragedy that marked the modern
life, was of great interest to them.

The 20th century poetry also covers a variety of aspects of life, including
disillusionment, humanitarian, pessimism, man and the natural world, complexity
and psychology, love, realism, war, depression, etc. But from our read poems, we
cannot find all of them. Some of them are explained in detail in ensuing paragraphs:

3.1 M AN AND THE N ATURAL W ORLD

The 20th century poets were also living in the same society where people were
stepping toward the new materialistic world of technology. The poets saw the world
being rapidly urbanized and busy with their daily affairs. As a result, the poet of the
age attempted to bring people back in contact with the natural world, and often
depicted the end of life as well - death. Ezra pound's "In a Station of the Metro" is
the greatest depiction of the natural vs technological world, or perhaps the depiction
of the life cycle from our read poems. A Late Walk by Robert Frost is also another
example from our read poems.

I N A S TATION OF T HE M ETRO BY E ZRA P OUND

"The apparition of themes faces in the crowd"

"Petals on a wet black bough"

In this poem, the poet observes that peoples are coming and going, their faces are
like ghost which appears and disappears in a moment and the poet is unable to
clearly see their faces, and he then compares the crowd in the metro station with the
leaves of a branch of the tree.
 4
In this poem, he uses the image of metro to symbolize the latest technological
development of man and compares it with a branch of tree symbolizing the nature.
He shows that the people are highly materialists lacking spirituality.

We can also say that, by comparing the faces with "a wet black bough", the poet
refers to the cycle of life where people come, play their role and then they die.
Hence, the black bough can be the symbol of death, because when leaves become
black, so they are next to death, and wetness of the leaves symbolizes the birth of
new leaves.

A L ATE W ALK BY R OBERT F ROST

Beginning with, the poet walking alone in the fall, smelling the dead leaves and
listening to the wind rustling the bare branches of trees. At the same time, he is very
aware of the fragility of life, along with the promise of spring and rebirth. It is the
promise of rebirth that offers a ray of hope.

In this poem, Frost uses autumn as a symbol for impending death. It appears that
someone close to him is nearing the end of his or her life, and this impending death
causes the poet to reflect the inevitability of death. He uses the flower as a symbol
for spring and rebirth. Death is just part of the cycle of life, but the cycle continues
and from death comes new growth.

3.2 W AR AND P ESSIMISTIC P OETRY

As it is already mentioned that poetry reflects the society in which it is written, a
large portion of the 20th century poetry was based on the theme of cruelty, war,
degeneration of modern civilization, and the deaths of innocence. There are few
such examples from our read poems such as WB Yeat's "Easter 1916", Anne Sexton's
After Auschwitz, and WH Auden's "In Memory of WB Yeats 1940".

E ASTER 1916 BY WB Y EATS

"Easter 1916" is a revolutionary poem about the death of the rebels killed in the war
between England and Ireland. This poem is written when Ireland got its
independence over England and the Irish leaders and political revolutionaries
occupied government, proclaiming a new independent state. At this time, Ireland
 5
was under British rule. After the Rising, the leaders were executed. He wrote about
their deaths in the poem ‘Sixteen Dead Men'.

In his poem, Yeats gives honor to the Irish revolutionaries who lost their lives in the
tragedy of 1916. For him, in his own words, Ireland was "changed utterly" and
resulted "a terrible beauty". He describes Dublin, where the revolutionaries lived and
worked. At last, he wonders whether the rebellion worth it or not, or whether they
deserved the lost of their lives.

A FTER A USHWITZ BY A NNE S EXTON

After Auschwitz by Anne Sexton depicts the poet’s emotional reaction to the horrors
of the Holocaust and her plea to God to hear her. The poem is a reaction, written by
a speaker that is filled with anger over the cruelty committed by the Nazis, and he
disappointed with God that he does not feel the emotions of the people who are
losing their innocence beloved. She expresses her anger as "death does not care
about what’s happening and does not take those who really deserve it". She
expresses her emotions depicting her pessimism as god is helpless or not interested
in the affairs of man that he does not take action.

He describes that every day when she wakes, anger bothers her, it is “black as a
hook". It is cold and dark and violent. Death is described as looking, “with a casual
eye". The deaths he is observing of innocent life do not bother the God. He takes no
action to stop the Nazis in their child murder. He shows God shows his ignore by
picking "at the dirt under his fingernails". She then talks about the destructive side of
man in the rest of the poem, saying that they should no longer be worshiped like
“temples”. what she believes should be done about him. She says aloud, “Man is
evil,” and that he is a "flower that should be burnt,/ I say aloud". Man has been
something beautiful, a flower that was once full of life, but no longer should his
outward beauty be a reason not to destroy him. The speaker ends the poem by
hoping that God has not heard all she has said, perhaps fearing she is becoming like
the men she condemns.

I N M EMORY OF WB Y EATS BY WH A UDEN

However, the 20th century poetry also reveals turbulent politics of the period. WH
Auden, in his poem, "In Memory of WB Yeats", depicts the outbreak of WWII 1939.
 6
Though it is an elegy written on the death of WB Yeats, it also attempts to depict the
events around Yeats' death. He writes, "In the Nightmare of the Dark/ All the Dogs
of Europe Bark/ And the Living Nations Wait/ Each sequester in His Hate". In these
lines, he describes the gloomy scenario of the post-WWII. It gives the reader more
information about the poet's death which occured at the year of World War II. It was
a nightmare, he says, that all the nations of the world are separated from one
another in their individual hate.

3.2 R EALISM
A large portion of the modern poetry is largely the depiction of the reality around
the man. The modern poet perceives the life with his naked eyes, and paint it with all
its wicked and ugly aspects. Robert Frost's "Home Burial is one of a realistic poem
written on the lost of child of a couple. Andrienne Cecile Rich's "Living in Sin" is also
concerned with the negative side of a relationship. From our read poems, her this
poem is a dipiction of extremely depressed, bored, and exausted couple.

H OME B URIAL BY R OBERT F ROST

Robert Frost in this poem, describes a relationship in which both the husband and
wife have lost their child, both are suffeeing from the same tragedy of the lost of
child, but apart from the death of their child, their relationship is also in danger of
death.

However, Frost was greatly influenced by emotions and events of everyday life. He is
famous for being a pastoral poet, as he often takes the subjects from everyday life.
His Home Burial is an incredibly sad poem. Frost depicts a mother's grief for the loss
of her son, and her conflicts with her husband.

In this narrative poem, Frost describes a tense conversation between a rural husband
and wife whose child has recently died. As the poem opens, the wife is standing at
the top of a staircase looking at her child’s grave through the window. Her husband,
at the bottom of the stairs, does not understand what she is looking at or why she
has suddenly become so distressed. The husband begs her to stay and talk to him
about her grief, but she becomes tense and tries to leave the home. The husband
then accepts her anger, but she leaves the house and the husband threatens to drag
her back by force.
 7
The poem describes two tragedies: first, the death of a young child, and second, the
death of a marriage. Although the death of the child is the accelerator of the
couple’s problems, the conflict that destroys the marriage is the couple’s inability to
communicate with one another. Both man and woman feel grief at the loss of the
child, but neither is able to understand the way that their partner chooses to express
their sorrow.

L IVING I N S IN BY A NDRIENNE C ECILE R ICH

Andrienne Cecile Rich's poem "Living in Sin" is an extremely depressing and hopeless
poem by its tone. It is a free verse about a woman’s fairy tale dream of marriage
versus the reality of the sin of not loving each other. The subject of the poem is a
woman starting a life of hope and happiness in a perfect relationship. The speaker of
the poem observes the woman’s life as sad and boring using the past tense versus
the present. The title tells that the subject of the poem is an unmarried couple living
together. The poem describes the difference between the way the woman imagined
her relationship would look absolutely perfect and charming, and in actual reality,
the man in the relationship acts bored and exhausted. Later that night, the woman
feels a bit better for a moment, but realizes her real life very quickly.

This poem mainly focuses on the dark side of a relationship. As she is a feminist lady,
her poetry of the 1970s and 1980s serve as central texts for the second-wave
feminist movement. This poem, written in the 1950s, does not yet take the strong
feminist stance that some of her later poetry takes, which deals more directly with
women's rights and social and political issues that matter to women.

This poem does an interesting job of describing the miserable life of a woman
looking for love. The poet uses colorful language and imagery to show the dark,
unhappy life of this woman. There is a lot of emotion and feelings throughout the
poem. The words like, grime, writhe, coldly, sepulchral, beetle-eyes, jeered, and
demons all give a feeling of the sadness that this woman feelsevery day. The poem is
easy to read and feel the loneliness this woman has. In conclusion, Living in Sin
paints a picture of a woman finally realizing that her marriage is not a fairy tale
ending. Through imagery, run on lines, and tone the sin is in the guilt from not living
in the present and not being in love with her husband, who is not in love. This was an
 8
interesting poem on the sin of not loving each other and accepting each other for
who they are.

3.3 U SING M YTHOLOGY IN P OETRY

Despite of harsh realism in Modern poetry, much of the poets were interested in the
myths of ancient time. We find this interest for myths in the poetry of John
Masefield, Yeats, and Rita Dove. Fortunately, from our read poems, we can also find
poems using myths in their poems. The example of mythological poems from our
read poems are Yeats' Leda and The Swan, and Dove's Demeter's Prayer to Hades.

L EDA AND T HE S WAN BY WB Y EATS

Yeats was a politically active poet as he was a member of the Senate. As he grew
older, he developed a friendship with Ezra Pound, a poet who drew him away from
his mystical, lyrical style into something drier and sparer. His most famous collection,
The Tower (1928) contains political poems as well as a more modernist return to
mythological topics like "Leda and the Swan". Of these poems, Leda and The Swan
remains one of his most read works.

This poem is essentiallya retelling of a Greek story in which Leda is raped by Zeus,
who takes the shape of a swan. Zeus, in swan form, attacking Leda so he can mate
with her and Leda gets pregnant. Yeats suggests that through mating with a god,
Leda is able to have a vision of the future and sees the horrible fate that will be fall
Clytemnestra.

Rape, violence, sex desire and free will are four major themes of the poem. Although
this is a historical event that Yeats has put into his poem, the significance of rape and
its consequences become clear by the end of the poem. This rape through violence
and the “shudder” makes things clear that sexual desire is uncontrollable even if it is
linked to gods.

D EMETER ' S P RAYER TO H ADES BY R ITA D OVE

‘Demeter’s Prayer to Hades’ by Rita Dove is a short, beautiful poem that discusses
the fact, through a myth, that all actions have consequences no matter who you are,
as she says, "each desire has an edge" The poem was included in Dove’s 1996
 9
collection Mother Love, which examines mother-daughter relationships using mainly
Greek mythology as a source. In his poem, Dove uses the stories of the gods and
goddesses of Greek mythology to talk about human beings, our error, and our
weakness.

The myth tells the story of Persephone who is abducted by Hades and forced to
come to live as his bride in the underworld. Her mother, Demeter tries to find
Persephone but she becomes fail. With Zeus’s help, it is decided that Persephone can
spend six months in the underworld and the other six months with her mother. She
tells Hades that she’s not going to curse him for stealing her daughter. Instead, she
tells him to look in the mirror. They are “held up to the souls of gods and mortals“.
This is her way of saying that no matter who you are, no matter what power you
hold, you will face the same consequences she warns.