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Poetry
After Modernism
In
simple terms, modernism is the name
given to the movement which dominates
the art and culture of the first half
of the 20 th century (i.e. 1950). During
this movement poet like Eliot with his
The Waste Land
and Pound with Cantos
came up as the early modernist masters
through their innovatory techniques.Similarly
Robert Frost with his work like
A Masque of Reason, A Masque of Mercy
became the most widely acclaimed modern
poet of America. He broke the tradition
by writing pastoral poems.So the poet
like Frost, Eliot, and Pound etc came
up with their own poems written in various
ways about various things during 20
th century. The one thing that was common
between them was that they all tried
to break up from the traditional past
and start their own individual style.
ROBERT
FROST
Robert
Frost was such a modern poet who started
early with his poem A Boy’s
Will (1913). Frost basically
dealt with nature and pastoral life
due to which people did not take him
as an innovator. Frost was not satisfied
with the 20 th century industrial society
and its uncertainty. So he complained
about it by writing pastoral poetry.
Giving excess importance to nature as
he was highly influenced by Thoreau
and Wordsworth, he showed how pastoral
life was better than industrial life.
His poems A Boy’s
Will, A Masque of Reason, A Masque of
Mercy, Steeple
Bush are simple and readable
on the surface, but they reveal complex
feelings through subtle irony and dry
wit.
WALLACE
STEVENS
Wallace
Stevens was a contemporary to Frost,
who was also not satisfied with the
industrial society as it brought the
loss of faith from religion. He did
not adopt the pastoral mode; rather
his poems are heroic and brilliant attacks
against the emptiness of Heaven.
As Stevens believed in the emptiness
of heaven he attempts to fill this emptiness
with an imagined hero, whom he calls
major man and is larger than any individual.
This attempt can be noticed in his works-
A private like an Orb, Harmonium.In
regard of poetry, Wallace Stevens believed
that 20 th century poetry is experimental
poem in terms of the use of language.
Through his woks it can be said that,
Wallace Stevens worked with the awareness
of Romantic heritage, and at the same
time, He was also aware of modern sensibility.
So Stevens is considered as one of the
masters of modernist poetry in thought
and in style.
T.S.
ELIOT
The
most admired work of poetry published
during the war was T.S. Eliot’s
Four Quartets.
He is another trend- setter of American
poetry, who focused on the jeopardy
(danger) brought about by the series
of war and the idea of the collapse
of the world. The effect of Eliot up
on his successors was so over powering
that he is considered as a literary
dictator. He was a prime mover of the
revolutionary aesthetics of modernism
with his works like The
Waste Land. In American
poetic scenario, Eliot is seen to be
working together with Pound. Eliot regarded
himself as a classicist in Literature,
royalist in politics and Anglo-catholic
in religion. He was very much influenced
by metaphorical poets because there
he found balance between sense and imagination
(i.e. emotion and reason).
EZARA
POUND
Pound
is the contemporary poet of Eliot and
one of the influenced poets of the modern
20 th century. He was very much influenced
by the rebellious attitude of Shelly
himself being a rebel against industrialization
and free flow of materialism in capitalistic
system. So, Pound was the next writer,
who like Eliot, proposed the corruption
of the spirit brought about by materialism
and industrialism. In 1930 s he attacked
that the decline of western civilization
is due to the corruption of spiritual
values. As his voices started to spill
over from poetry to politics, he was
captured by American military force
and put in security jail with the charge
of treason.
He
was also declared to be mentally unfit
and kept in the insane asylum in Washington
D.C. There he continued to write and
by 1940 he had published The
Cantos.This work of Pound
is the collection of ground breaking
poems which became so influential that
he not only provided directions for
succeeding poets, but he also dominated
the post war period especially with
his style of using self as the fulcrum
of historical and personal experience.
W.H.
AUDEN
Auden
emigrated in the United States from
London, and soon became a fair exchange
with Eliot. Though Eliot was a literary
dictator of that time, Auden was the
successful one to break down the traditional
established by Eliot.He disagrees with
Eliot’s impersonality and claim
that one can be influenced not only
by traditional but also by contemporary
ideas and a poet is free enough to express
his personal feelings. Besides refusing
Eliot’s views Auden also criticizes
capitalism.
So
we find a leftist tone in his works.
Also being a part of depression, W.
H Auden was against industrialization
as well. He was established as a leading
poet by his works like poems, The
Orators, The Dance of Death
and Look Stranger.
On the whole, in Auden’s work,
there can be observed two main phases.
In his earlier works, Auden is more
tilted towards Marxism; but in his later
works, he seemed to be more influenced
by Freudian philosophy. Therefore, Auden
started with focusing on social issues
and then, shifted on to focus on psychological
aspects. |
