They wrote about meaninglessness of life, juxtaposing this with the intensity of experience itself. The tone was often melancholic and the context urban. The poetry of the pre-war years, by contrast, was pastoral, romantic and patriotic, until the horror and chaos of the First World War inspired verse that was notable for its biting impact and its immediacy. Post-war poets such as T.S.Eliot led the Modernist movement with its emphasis on experimentation and the impersonality of the artist. Modernists consciously moved away from the traditional structures, conventional literary diction, and from the established values of artistic practice.
Modern poetry “has to construct a new stage” (Stevens 11). If we look back to the later 20th century we can recall that around this time between 1939-1945 the U.S enters World War II. Wallace Stevens used this as a motive to seek a new way of turning traditional poetry into literature with much more meaning. Stevens brought a newly perceived but real world before the reader (Norton Anthropology pg.767). In Wallace Stevens’s “Of Modern Poetry”, he is strongly emphasizing the jump from traditional poetry to modern poetry as being one of imagination and positive change; modern poetry poems should become one with the audience by relating to them in some way, and should set a new stage of creativity.
Formalism is a school of literary criticism and literary theory having mainly to do with structural purposes of a particular text. In literary theory, formalism refers to critical approaches that analyze, interpret, or evaluate the inherent features of a text. These features include not only grammar and syntax but also literary devices such as meter and tropes. The formalist approach reduces the importance of a text’s historical, biographical, and cultural context. Formalism rose to prominence in the early twentieth century as a reaction against Romanticist theories of literature, which centered on the artist and individual creative genius, and instead placed the text itself back into the spotlight, to show how the text was indebted to forms and other works that had preceded it.
being not defined but open to possibilities). Also, Paz’s concern for the existential meaning of poetry and his belief in the poetic essence of man and history (e.g. in The Bow and the Lyre, 1956) gains coherence when considered alongside of Heidegger’s critique of the aesthetic tradition and his premise that poetic language is the house of Being. Finally, Paz’s ambiguous critique of
Through the use of the reader-response approach, I will evaluate the meaning of the literary work. The poem I have chosen examines the role of a poet living in society. It expresses the risks the poet must take and the qualities of perception he possesses. Ferlinghetti compares the poet to an acrobat using an extended metaphor. Throughout the poem, the initial comparison is continuously pursued.
Literature is the last chance for the hard hearted to feel what humanism is all about and how humanism cures pains and troubles of individuals. Human relationship these days had become more materialistic and private instead it has to be very mature and supportive. Dealing with human values and exploring human relationship through these values makes us to discover countless pleasure hidden within. Right from the renaissance to present scenario literary world and the work of arts has seen an extensive makeover is all fractions, but still, one such area to be covered and amplified is “Humanism”. Literature, having abundant genre in its shell, should make up and teach some human values through relationships, by moving out from the materialistic setup.
Raising thought-provoking questions, issues, and ideas, poetry builds bridges that allow man to transverse great expanses of controversy and debate. The poet, a master of words, shares his visions and perspectives through these pieces of literature; giving life to the poem. I believe good poetry is a form of expression that celebrates revolutionary ideas which provide a broader frame of reference to its readers. The English poet, John Keats, reaffirms this opinion stating, “poetry should be great and unobtrusive, a thing which enters into one's soul, and does not startle it or amaze it with itself, but with its subject” (Poetry Quotes). Depending on the traditional values and principles of the time, poetry should be progressive, allowing for newer ideals and a newer generation.
In it, he provides the readers with insights to his personal style of writing poetry. Before Wordsworth, English poetry was characterized by lofty, abstract, and pretentious diction. Wordsworth believes that poetry should be characterized by a certain simplicity. He feels that if poetry contains overly complex themes and incomprehensible ideas, the true purpose of the poem is reduced. His goal is to create poetry that does not require an in-depth analysis to be understood by his readers.
“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” ,written by T S Eliot ,is a modernistic poem in the form of a dramatic monologue. The term “modernism” refers to a movement that began in the late 1800’s, merging with WWI, and continued to be influential after WWII. Modernist poets such as Eliot were concerned with breaking rules and traditions and finding a contemporary way of expression through variations of form and style. Such poets attempted to describe the world they saw before them in poetry, rather than create a fictional world for their readers. “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” is the first masterpiece of modernism; it is typically a modernistic poem in form, content and in representing the modern man.
Accordingly, Maduka and Eyoh (2000) did the following names dropping when they mentioned “Tennyson, Blake, Wordsworth, Elliot, Pound, Okigbo, Soyinka, Clark, Okara, Osundare, Ojaide, Brutus, Kunene, Mitshali, Peters, Awonoor, p Bitek, Hughes, Baraka, Senghor and Walcott.” The illustration here is to show that these poets though existed during different literary periods; were using poetry to celebrate one voice or the other in their canon. Literary consciousness is the cardinal focus of poetry. Though poems usually employ word economy and distinct message, the dissemination of its subject matter which I called “salient voices” are anchored in the use of