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American modernist poetry
2
American Modernist Poetry
1910-1950
Historical Context
historical events
Historical events
First World War (1914-1918)
Great Depression (1929-late 1930s)
Second World War (1939-1945)
old structures and certainties break apart
end of "American optimism" and the American Dream
feelings of disillusionment, chaos
Philosophical Background
Philosophical background
Nietzsche: Nihilism, "God is dead", questioning morals
Marx: socialism and self-determinism
Freud: psychoanalysis
Modernist Poetry
Modernist Poetry
- conflict between generations
- breaking with the repressive Victorian culture and romantic clichés
- skepticism towards coherence of language
- experimental style
- new narrative techniques
Imagism
Imagism
- precise and clear images
- colloquial language
In a Station of the Metro (Ezra Pound, 1913)
"The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough."
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
by T. S. ELIOT
Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let 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
To lead you to an overwhelming question ...
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.
In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.
The 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
[...]
.
[...]
Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.
I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.
Study questions
1. Can you find any concise stylistic devices in the first stanza? What meaning do they express?
2. How is this poem different from more "traditional" love poetry (i.e. Shakespearean sonnets)?