Twentieth Century Poetry 1

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Twentieth Century Poetry 1

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Teaching Plan

• T.S. Eliot ( 45)
• Thomas Hardy and A. E. Housman(5)

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Technical Revolution in Poetry

• Three influences
• Imagism Ezra Pound( Imagism which demands
  precision in imagery and freedom in rhythmic
  movement
• Metaphysical poets of th e17th c (John Donne)
• French Symbolist poetry
• Ps the rediscovery of William Blake and The
  publication of th etwo editions of G.M. Hopkins
  poetry also contributed to the development of
  20th c poet

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Chief Traits of Modernist Poetry

• insisted on direct treatment of things and on
  the avoidance of all words that di not
  contribute to the prensentation
• freer metrical movement
• introduced to poetry a much higher degree of
  intellectual complexity because o f the
  enthusiasm of Metaphysical p

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T. S. Eliot 1888-1965

• A poet playwright and literary critic
• Born in the US and as an adult became a British
  subject, his works are considered a part of both
  national literature

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• In 1915 settled down in London working as a bank
  clerk later an editor of a litery magazine and a
  reviewer for several journals
• In 1917 published his first book , Prufrock and
  Other Observations
• 1922 founded The Criterion an influential
  right-wing literary journal the Waste land
  appeared in the first issue
• In those London years he formed his mutually
  admiring and fruitful relationship with Ezra
  Pound

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• In 1927 he became a British subject and was
  received into the Church of England. He declared
  that he was Anglo- Catholic in religion,
  royalist in politics and classicist in
  literature.
• 1948 awarded the British Oder of Merit and the
  Nobel Prize

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• His poetic output is not very large hit its
  influence on the development of 20thc poetry has
  been substantial.
• He established his style and demonstrated his
  departure from traditional form and metaphor in
  his first important poem The Love Song of
  J.Alfred Prufrock, . It in general anticipates in
  germinal form all of Eliots later linguistic and
  formal achievements. It is also an example of the
  important new experiments and technical
  innovations in the early 20thc

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• frequently made use of symbolism which gave their
  poetry the subtlety of suggestiveness and
  overtones (??,??,???)
• brought poetic language and rhythm closer to that
  of conversations by the use of colloquial
  expressions and even slangs

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Continued

• employed irony and puns which had been banished
  from serious poetry for over two hundred years.
• often international and urban in theme
• Modernism is of great importance to the 20th c
  literature it coexist with more traditional forms
  it never achieved the monopoly

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The Waste Land

• his most important work,
• a long, complicated poem that reveals
  disillusionment and pessimism with contemporary
  society and is remarkable for its originality in
  form and content.

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Excerpts of The Waste Land

• 1. I The Burial of the Dead
• 2. V What the Thunder Said
• Discussion What does the author want to say in
  the first four lines?
• What is the symbolic
  meaning of water in the poem?

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17
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The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

• Sio credesse che mia risposta fosse A persona
  che mai tornasse al mondo, Questa fiamma staria
  senza piu scosse. Ma perciocche giammai di
  questo fondo Non torno vivo alcun, siodo il
  vero, Senza tema dinfamia ti rispondo. 2
• Dante Alighieri
• Inferno

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• Let us go then, you and I, When the evening is
  spread out against the sky Like a patient
  etherized upon a table 3Let us go, through
  certain half-deserted streets, The muttering
  retreats Of restless nights in one-night cheap
  hotels And sawdust restaurants with
  oyster-shells Streets that follow like a
  tedious argument Of insidious intent 4To lead
  you to an overwhelming question ... Oh, do not
  ask, What is it? Let us go and make our visit.
  

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• In the room the women come and go Talking of
  Michelangelo. 5The yellow fog that rubs its
  back upon the window-panes, The yellow smoke
  that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes, Licked
  its tongue into the corners of the evening,
  Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
  Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from
  chimneys, Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden
  leap, And seeing that it was a soft October
  night, Curled once about the house, and fell
  asleep.

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• Among his other poems, The Hollow Men and Ash
  Wednesday are considered his most personal
  statements.

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Eliots chief poetic influence

• the French Symbolists
• the English metaphysical poets
• the contemporary Imagists

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• He added complexity and suggestiveness to the
  precision stressed by the Imagists.
• He also introduced into modern English and
  American Poetry the kind of irony achieved by
  sudden shifts from the formal to the colloquial
  and by oblique(???) allusions to objects or ideas
  that contrasted sharply with those carried by the
  surface meaning of the poem.

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• He is as important and influential as critic as
  he was as a poet.
• His literary criticism includes a revaluation of
  the past and a representation of the new poetic
  theories. The Sacred Wood, Homage to Dryden, the
  Use of Poetry, On Poetry and Poets

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• Eliot also did much to revive the verse drama
  that had been dead for more than 200 years Murder
  in the Cathedral, The Family Union, the Cocktail
  party , the confidential (???)Clerk, the Elder
  Statesman.

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Main References

• ???, ??,???, ??????????, ?????????,1992