艾略特荒原中的现代主义分析

1、T.S艾略特荒原中的现代主义特征分析*毕业论文 系 部 外语系 年 级 2008级 专 业 英语语言文学 班 级 英语本科 学生姓名 * 学 号 * 指导老师 *An Analysis on the Modernistic Features of T.S Eliots Waste LandBy *Submitted to the Department of Foreign Languages of Shandong University of Political Science and Law in Partial Fulfillment to the Requirements for the

2、 Degree of Bachelor of Arts in EnglishUnder the Supervision of Professor Ms. *June, 2012T.S艾略特荒原中的现代主义特征分析摘要:艾略特不仅仅是英国和美国现代诗的先驱，也是荒原派的创始人，对当代和以后的作家产生很大的影响。他的诗歌极具现代性，这种现代性特征在他的诗歌荒原里被表现的淋漓尽致。作者使用各种不同的现代主义表现手法把当时的社会现实如实的反映给读者，这些手法不仅包括诗歌主题，也包括一些文体特征和写作技巧。本文试图对爱略特荒原一诗的现代性特征进行分析，作为现代主义运动之一的现代文学全方位、多角度的反映了

3、西方的社会现实，其主要特征就是新：主题新、写作手法新。这种表现方式远不同于传统的诗歌表现手法。全文共分四章，第一章对爱略特的文学成就和贡献以及将要分析的诗歌进行简要介绍；第二章对现代主义进行详细解释，并通过分析其特征引出本文的研究目标，全新的现代性诗歌主题和写作技巧；第三章对荒原的现代性特征的表现方式着重进行分析，并通过举例论证的方式来引导读者对该诗歌有一个全面的了解和认识；最后一章对论文进行简要总结。关键词：现代主义，现代主义特征，主题，艺术技巧An Analysis on the Modernistic Features of T.S. Eliots Waste LandAbstract:

4、 T.S.Eliot(Thomas Sterns Eliot 1888-1965), as the leader not only of modern poetry in the U.K and U.S.A, but also of a whole generation of writers later to be identified as Waste Land Painters. He remains a shaping influence on many of his contemporaries and followers. Eliots poems are extraordinary

5、 with great modernity; the point is especially expressed in his famous poem the Waste Land, which gives inspirations to other poets of the followers. He is not the inventor of modern poetry, but he has exerted great influence on the new trend.The thesis is devoted to the analysis of modernistic feat

6、ures in T.S. Eliots masterpiece Waste Land. As one of the modern movements, modern literature reflected the realities of the western modern society thoroughly and multi-angled. The main characteristic of the modern literature is novelty. The new theme and new artistic techniques are both different f

7、rom the traditional ones. The article is divided into four parts: chapter one introduces the achievements and contributions of T.S. Eliot and the viewpoints of other critics on the poetry. Chapter two explains the survey about characteristics of modernism, modern literature, the general idea of what

8、 is called modernistic feature then points out the aim of the research work, introduces Eliots new and precious instruments: modern artistic techniques and the post war new theme. Chapter three researches the new theme expressed in the poem by analyzing the whole poem part after part, exposes the mo

9、dernistic features hidden in the depth of the complex content, discusses the modernistic artistic techniques with which the great poet expresses his sensations and emotions at the bottom of his heart to make the poetry one of the famous poems in modern literature. Chapter four concludes the modernis

10、tic features have been discussed above.Key Words: Modernism, Modernistic features, Theme, Artistic techniquesContents摘要i关键词iAbstractiiKey WordsiiChapter One Introduction11.1 Brief Introduction of T.S.Eliot and the Waste Land11.2 Literature Review of the Poetry2Chapter Two Modernism and Modern Litera

11、ture32.1 General Knowledge of Modernism and Modern literature32.2 New Ways to Express Modernism4Chapter Three Modernistic Features in the Waste Land53.1 Theme of the Poetry53.2 Stylistic Features of the Waste Land73.3 Poetic Techniques of the Poetry83.3.1 Symbolism in the Waste Land83.3.2 Stream of

12、Consciousness in the Waste Land113.3.3 Dramatic Monologue in the Waste Land123.3.4 Montage in the Waste Land13Chapter Four Conclusion15Bibliography16An Analysis on the Modernistic Features of T.S Eliots Waste LandChapter One Introduction1.1 Brief Introduction of T.S.Eliot and the Waste LandT. S. Eli

13、ot (Thomas Sterns Eliot, 1888-1965), the leader not only of modern poetry in the U.K and U.S.A, but also of a whole generation of writers later to be identified as Waste Land Painters. He was famous not only for his poetry but also for his criticism and his verse drama who was awarded the Nobel Priz

14、e in 1948. Eliot pioneered the modernist poetry of the 20th century in the sense that he brought into modernist poetry the intellectual resources of wit and irony. He used the “un-poetical” imagery of modern urban life. He rejected the meaningless rhythms of conversational verse and adopted a non-di

15、scursive mode. The complexity, impersonality, “orthodoxy” and the mixture of formal and conventional registers, the fresh and spontaneous rhythms marked a decisive development in English poetry.So many works were created by the great man, such as the Waste Land, the Hollow Man Four Quartets, The Lov

16、e Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, etc. However, it is the poetry titled the Waste Land that expresses perfectly the modernistic features, which gives inspirations to other poets of the followers. His poetry conveys his pessimistic view that the modern world is chaotic and its life is futile and fragment

17、ary. Man lives in a frustrated and disillusioned life. The modern world is a spiritual “wasteland”.As to The Waste Land, it is a poem of 433 lines, mainly free verse with occasional snatches of rhyme and with several quoted lines in German, French, Italian and references and allusions to English wri

18、ters as Shakespeare, Spenser, Milton and Goldsmith. First published in 1922 in the Criterion, “it was a landmark in English poetry, bringing the Romantic period into the end and signifying the emergence of Modernism” (刘炳善 400) 3The poem consists of five sections, “The Burial of the Dead”, “A Game of

19、 Chess”, “The Fire Sermon”, “Death by Water”, and “What the Thunder Said”, together with Eliots own “Notes” which explain his many varied and multicultural allusions, quotations, and half-quotations and express a general indebtedness to the Grail legend and to the vegetation ceremonies in Frazers Th

20、e Golden Bough. “The poem is filled with allusions to Ovid, Dante, Shakespeare, Baudelaire, Christian and pagan myths, fertility legends, Holy Grail legends, etc.” (刘意青361)51.2 Literature Review of the PoetrySince The Waste Land was published, it was rapidly acclaimed as a statement of the post-war

21、sense of depression and futility; it was seriously praised by I.A.Richards as a perfect emotive description of a state of mind which was probably inevitable for a while to all meditative people, and less seriously but significantly chanted as a kind of protest against the older generation by the und

22、ergraduates of the day. Complex, erudite, cryptic, satiric, spiritually earnest, and occasionally lyrical, it became one of the most recognizable landmarks of Modernism. The Waste Land: A Facsimile and Transcript of the Original Drafts, edited by Valerie Eliot, sheds much light on the circumstances

23、of the poems composition, and particularly on the well-heeded and detailed textual advice offered by Pound.Some people give multi-dimensional analysis of the images in the Waste Land, such as the images of humans, the images of animals and objects from the categorical dimension, and the images of si

24、ght, the images of voice and other senses from the psychological dimension. Thus gives us so many indications that the poem contains images that help to convey the ideas of the poet about the realities of western society. Others, however, make some contributions to the analysis of the symbolic art o

25、f the poem. They dissect the overall symbolic art of the poem by analyzing the prototype image of the “wildness” and they also research the death image, the sexual and erotic images, exposing the symbolic meaning of the poem by the images of wilt and death and regeneration after death, exploring the

26、 symbolic poetry from the aspects of the causes of wildness, the meaning of sex and lust, and modern gender relations in the wildness. Thus gives us some thorough knowledge of the poem that can simplify our project of analysis of the great work. Chapter Two Modernism and Modern Literature2.1 General

27、 Knowledge of Modernism and Modern literatureModernism was a complex and diverse literary movement in the 20th century. After the World War I all kinds of literary trends of modernism appeared: Symbolism, Imagism, Expressionism, Surrealism, Cubism, Futurism, Dadaism and Stream of Consciousness. Towa

28、rds the 1920s, these trends converged into a mighty torrent of modernist movement across Europe and America. The movement which was international in scope and drew heavily on the French symbolist poets as well as on the new psychological thoughts of Sigmund Freud, Carl Gaustav Jung and their followe

29、rs.Modernist literature involved such writers as Virginia Woolf, T.S.Eliot, Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, James Joyce, William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, W.B.Yeats, D.H.Lawrence, Samuel Beckett and Robert Frost, etc. As one of the forms of the modernism, modern literature reveals a breaking away from

30、 established rules, traditions and conventions, fresh ways of looking at mans position and function in the universe and many experiments in form and style.Modernism takes the irrational philosophy and the theory of psychoanalysis as its theoretical bases. It is a reaction against realism. It rejects

31、 rationalism which is the theoretical base of realism; it excludes from its major concern the external, objective, material world, which is the only creative source of realism; by advocating a free experimentation on new forms and new techniques in literary creation, it casts away all the traditiona

32、l elements in literature, such as story, plot, character, chronological narration, etc, which are essential to realism. As a result, the works created by the modernist writers can often be labeled as anti-novel, anti-poetry or anti-drama.Modernist literature developed a style that can be characteriz

33、ed by a preoccupation with stylistic novelty, formal fragmentation, multiple perspectives, and alternatives to traditional narrative forms. One characteristic of English modernism is “the dehumanization of art”. The major themes of the modernist literature are “the distorted, alienated and ill relat

34、ionships between man and nature, man and society, man and man, and man and himself”. The modernist writers concentrated more on the private than the public, more on the subjective than the objective. Therefore, they paid more attention to the psychic time than the chronological one. In their writing

35、s, the past, the present and the future were mingled together and existed at the same time in the consciousness of an individual. The subject matter of T.S.Eliots poetry is to expose the sterility and futility of the western culture, to reveal the breakdown of communication between human beings, to

36、show mans disillusionment and frustration caught between his sense of meaning and his sense of meaninglessness, to quest for a spiritual regeneration by finding salvation in religion.2.2 New Ways to Express ModernismThe beginning of the 20th century marked a significant difference from the eras befo

37、re. With the change of the society, American literatures situations changed as well. The complete new experience of the society must have the complete new ways of expression. Imagism, Dadaism, Expressionism, Symbolism, Surrealism and other different kinds of ism all came into being. The writers at t

38、hat time were eager to challenge the conventions of the past, and wanted to speak for their fellowman by attacking the dark side of the fragmentary and disorderly society. They expected to restore the dignity of men. With Ezra Pound and T.S.Eliot being the leading figures in American modern poetry h

39、istory, the modernist poets were not only putting down the old tradition of Victorian poetry, but also desiring to establish a new way of expressing the modern world.Firstly, modern poets did not agree with the “seriousness” of the theme in traditional poetry. As we all know, the traditional poets w

40、ere likely to create the poem with the theme of love, death, morality, etc. On the contrary, the modern poets believed that the modern world was in a disorder position, and they tried to represent the world with the complicated and conflicting aspects. Secondly, modern poets did not agree with the t

41、raditional versification. The traditional way of iambic meter was substituted by the free verse. The wide range of choice in the poetic rhythmic pattern was more suitable for the modern poets to express the incongruities in the modern society. Thirdly, modern poets did not agree with the traditional

42、 poetic diction. The modern poets believed that the diction in the traditional poetry was an unnatural way of speaking, and they wanted to create the poem with common speech and conversational style.Similarly, T.S.Eliot expresses perfectly the modernism in his world well-known poetry the Waste Land

43、by using new stylistic techniques and resorting to new modern theme. The article will analyze the modern features of it in the following chapter in detail.Chapter Three Modernistic Features in the Waste LandAt the turn of century, all kinds of contradictions were intensified in the capitalist societ

44、y and the traditional values, art standard and the whole civilization were in question. The modern ideological trend emerged under that historical background. As a form of modernism movement modern literature reflected the social situation of modern western society widely and fully. Its main charact

45、eristic is the new, which is mainly shown in two aspects: First, the new theme, modern literature works against romantic bucolic feelings, and shows loneliness, anxiety, despair, and spiritual void of the modern society as its theme. Second, the new ways of expression, as it is said that most of the

46、 modernist literature achievements praised are its innovation in art forms. In order to show its breaking away from the tradition, modern literature used poetic techniques widely in art, such as symbol, fables montage, stream-of-consciousness. With bold technical innovations in versification and sty

47、le, the poem not only presents a panorama of physical disorder and spiritual desolation in the modern western world, but also reflects the prevalent mood of disillusionment and despair of a whole post-war generation. Eliots poetry embodied the characteristics of the modernist literature not only fro

48、m the theme but also from such aspects as the skills perfectly. And the new things are well demonstrated in the poetry Waste Land. The thesis will analyze the theme, the stylistic features and the poetic techniques of the Waste Land to reveal its modernistic features.3.1 Theme of the PoetryEliots po

49、etry deeply reveals the modern western mans spiritual void, wandering through life. He reveals the social reality, mainly from the ugly facet of modern social life, modern peoples spiritual emptiness, loneliness, despair and lack of confidence. He, on one hand, reminds readers of the association wit

50、h the ugly social reality indirectly with symbols, and on the other hand, depicts the reality directly with uncluttered gimmick. In the Waste Land, Eliot describes a dirty, ugly and detestable society. This poems title gives readers a kind of hint that the modern western society is a barren, drought

51、 and desolate land without vitality and it at the same time also suggests the fact that the human lives in the spirit wasteland. In the poem, Eliot shows the modern peoples ugly reality with even more detailed descriptions, no life also not death, rich people in the luxurious house staying along wit

52、h loneliness and empty, the pub womens vulgar topic, modern peoples love-making with no love, the dense of bones on the river Thames and so on. Eliot writes through the four seasons, and from the past to the present then to the future, looks insightfully into many different kinds of people. However,

53、 there is only one objective in his mind that to show the crisis of religion belief, the ugly reality of pursuit of fame and fortune of the modern western people multi-angled, multi-layered, and thoroughly. “APRIL is the cruelest month, breeding /Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing /Memory and desir

54、e. (613 Lines1-3) 3These lines comes at the very beginning of The Waste Land and illustrate a fact that Eliot plays on the familiar nostalgic associations of spring, but darkens and deepens them through the strong adjectives “cruelest” and “dead” and through the interruption of the lilting r and l a

55、nd front vowels by the long u of the first line, the scattered stop-sounds, the sharp breaks in movement forced by the punctuation, and the contemplative effect of the two participial phrases. While he has not yet presented the great theme of death and resurrection, these lines definitely prepare us

56、 for it.”(Rosenthal. M.L 85)1 Unreal City, Under the brown fog of a winter dawn, A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many, I had not thought death had undone so many. Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled, And each man fixed his eyes before his feet. .That corpse you planted last year in your

57、garden, Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year? Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed? Oh keep the Dog far hence, thats friend to men, Or with his nails hell dig it up again! You! hypocrite lecteur!mon semblable,mon frre! (616-617 Lines 60-76) 3“A crowd flowed over London Bridge.”(616 l

58、ine63) 3The line indicates that so many workers went through the London Bridge to work. The people in the big cities worked day to night without the spiritual purpose, and they struggled for life and did not think about the meaning of the whole world and life. “And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.”(616 line65) 3 The person who “fixed his eyes be