Modern Poetry

Features of Modern
Poetry
Characteristics of Modern
Poetry
 Modernism
Modernism is a comprehensive movement
which began in the closing years of the 19th
century and has had a wide influence
internationally during much of the 20th
century.
It is particularly concerned with language
and how to use it with writing itself.
Style or movement in the arts that aims to
break with classical and traditional forms.
According to M.H.Abraham
Modernism:
"The term modernism is used to
identify new and distinctive feature in
the subject, forms,concept and style of
literature and other art...."
Poetry
• Definition
"Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of
powerful emotions". (Wordsworth)
 Poetry means literature in metrical
form .
"Any communication resembling poetry
in beauty or the evocation of feeling."
 Features of Modern Poetry
There are many features of modern poetry.Now
we discuss
Totally against the Victorian and Romantic Poetry
The disappearance of religious faith
Regular metre have been discarded
No regular rhyming scheme
Juxtaposition of ideas
Use of free verse
Use of irony and metaphors
Elements of Modern Poetry
1. Desire to make clean break with the
traditions which came before then
through
2. Experimentation in form and style
3. Attempt to directly represent the
workings of the mind and unconscious.
4. Modernist works are:fragmentary,
relative ,favour a subjective perception of
reality.
Poets of Modern Age
T.s.Eliot

Representative of
modern age
 T.s.Eliot (1888__1965)
Thomas Stearns Eliott was a great modern poet,
critic ,philosopher and traditionalist rooted in
classicism.
Innovator of a new style of poetry
Different from.the Neo_Classicists of the 18th
century
Won Nobel Prize in 1948
According to him, a work of poetry is made
impersonal by the traditions in which the poet is
writing:
Cont'd
Stylistic experimentation
Stream of consciousness
Syntax
The theme of Alienation
Major works :
Tradition and Individual Talent (1919)
Won 2 post humus Tony Awards for
"cats"
 Cont'd
Features of his poetry include:
Stern Realist
Conceives of literature as a continuous
process
Introduce the term Classicism
Change in meter
Borrow words and sentences
Colloquial languages or vernacular
languages
Cont'd
Archaic and foreign words
Extinct languages
Loneliness, sordidness and irony
Used emptiness of modern man.
T.S.Eliot's famous writing include:
The waste Land(1922) is the great
work of English Literature.
The love song of J. Alfred Prufrock
 Cont'd
The Waste Land (1922) famous in English
literature
1. The Burial of Dead
2. A game of Chess
3. A fire sermon
4. Death By water
5. What the thunder said
The other poem is "The Hollow Men"
Main Aspects of his Poetry
Cont'd
Science and technology is radically
different from the life of past
Knowledge of classical literature
Spiritual approach to life

Science and modernism in 20th century

Classicist ,innovator ,critic,poet,social
philosopher, and mystic all combined
into one.
W.B.Yeats
• W.B Yeats was visionary and
symbolist poet.
Famous for
symbolist
movement
 Other poets are:
Wilfrd Owen
Siegfried sasson are war
poets
Edgar Allan poe
Virginia Woolf
E.M.Forster etc
 Characteristics of Modern Poetry

Fragmented in different movements

Abused influences from other countries
Poets began to see themselves in more
international terms.
Poetry was no longer something to enjoy
or to confront (Victorian age) but something
necessary to confront the moral emptiness
of the Age.
Cont'd
Symbolism
Imagism
Stream of consciousness
Absurdity
Marxism
Sanctity
Individualism
Experimentation
Cont'd
Dadism
Feminism
Existentialism
Futurism
Cubism
These are the movements those we
will explain in detail.
 Symbolism
1st stated in France in 19th century
Business of symbolist poet is to express his
individual sensations and perceptions in
language which seems best adopted to
convey his essential quality without caring
for the conventional metres and sentence
structures.
For example, Hawthorne's "young
Goodman Brown" is loaded with symbolism.
 Imagism
The imagists on the other hand,aim at clarity
of expressions through hard, accurate, and
definite images.
The symbolist poetry in England came into
prominence with the appearance of
"T.S .Eliot's The waste Land" .
Stream of Consciousness
In literary criticism, "stream of
Consciousness" also known as interior
monologue ,
 Stream of consciousness is a narrative
mode or device that depicts the
multitudinous thoughts and feelings
which pass through the mind.
For Example
T.S.Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred
Prufrock " is an example of the use of
stream of consciousness.
This technique first introduced by
William James.
 Absurdity
Absurdist fiction is a genre of fictional
narrative
Focuses on the experience of characters in
situation
Where they can't find any inherent purpose of
life
It is mostly represented by meaningless
actions and events.
It presents the aspect of material proserity
had become the basis of social standing.
 Marxism
This movement was given by Karl Marx.
Based on Money
Money is like antennae; without it the human
insect loses touch with its environment.

Sanctity
The Victorians believed in the sanctity of
home life
But in the 20th century the sentiments for
the family circle declined.
Individualism

In modern literature,the individual is

more interesting than society.
Specially the modernist writers were
fascinated with how the individuals
adopted to the changing world.
In some cases,the individual triumphed
over obstacles.
 Experimentation
Modernist writers broke free of old forms
and techniques.
Poet abandoned traditionalist rhyme
scheme and wrote in free verse.
Defined all expectations
Mixed images from the past modern
language and themes
Creating a collige of styles.
 Dadism
• Dadism means negation of beauty
Feminism

Equal rights of women as having a men.

Futurism
• Present is not consider
• They always talk about future.
Existentialism
• Existence of religion
• And existence of everything.

Cubism
• Cubism means inspired by
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