MODERNIST POETRYX - WIKISPACES

1、Modernist Poetry The arts generally have had to recognize Modernism - how should poetry escape? John C. Ransom Modernism in poetry is an artistic movement that came about at the beginning of the twentieth century. Though specific dates are difficult to pin down for the beginnings and endings of move

2、ments, many consider the Modernist period to have run from 1890 until 1925 or 1945 or even later. There is also some contention among scholars about when the Modernist movement became the Postmodernist movement, the former blending into the latter, leaving many poets and important, famous works inha

3、biting the gray area between.The Modernist movement in general does not refer to poetry exclusively, but all forms of art- literature, sculpture, painting, dance, music, etc. Though this article focuses on poetry, Modernisms basic descriptors can be applied to all of these forms. In fact, even the h

4、istory for this time period reflects the bases on which the modernist principles are founded.The main requisites of Modernism are as follows: ExperimentationModernist poets no longer wished to be constrained by traditional forms of poetry. They wanted to express themselves without needing to count s

5、yllables, write a specific number of lines, or even remain within the traditional margins of the page. Its important to note, however, that the Modernists did not throw out form or tradition completely. They studied it, understood it implicitly, then worked to move beyond it.IndividualismWith the re

6、jection of restrictive form rules, Modernist poets felt free to express themselves as they saw fit. Instead of worrying whether or not the meaning of a line or phrase would be clear to the reader, the Modernists focused inward rather than outward. In literature, this often manifested as stream-of-co

7、nsciousness writing, where traditional sentence structure is abandoned for long “streaming” sentences jumping from thought to thought. Virginia Woolfs To The Lighthouse and James Joyces Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man are solid examples of this.Anti-realismThis refers to the inward focus of th

8、e poets, and the belief that the person is more important than the facts. Focus remains on the inner, artistic, stream-of-consciousness world of the poet, rather than the outer, concrete world.IntellectualismModernism poetry is not for the casual and noncommittal. Despite its highly experimental nat

9、ure, Modernism is not anarchical. It does not wish to destroy the past- but rather to evolve beyond it. Therefore, in order to truly evolve, Modernist artists must have a thorough knowledge of the old traditions. Without the base, one cannot build the tower. Most Modernist poets were experts in rega

10、rds to poetic forms and traditions. It was this knowledge that allowed them to experiment with their art form (essentially their speciality) in such riveting and successful ways.Nothing explains as well as an example, so well take a look at poems from three of the big names in Modernist poetry, and

11、how they embody the Modernist principles.T. S. Eliot “The Waste Land”The iconic Modernist poem. Though it is free verse, it is not without form and purpose, all of which hearken back to traditional forms. As mentioned earlier, Eliot was not interested in destroying the old ways, or even merely forge

12、tting them. He respected and studied them, striving to write poetry reminiscent of the old forms without simply imitating them. He wished to take the best from the past, and add to it the best of the present. He was, essentially, facilitating poetic evolution. In Eliots poetry especially we find the

13、 modernist element of intellectualism. Not just anyone can read “The Waste Land” and fully understand. Certain obscure, specialized knowledge is required. In the epitaph and dedication alone Eliot writes in four different languages: Latin, Greek, English and Italian. This is not a poem for the avera

14、ge layperson, but for a scholar knowledgeable of poetic forms, literary history, and multiple languages.e. e. cummings “Buffalo Bills”Cummings is well known for his extreme experimentation, particularly in regards to grammar, punctuation and physical structure. His poetry even looks “modern”, especi

15、ally compared with the set-in-stone forms of Shakespeare and Byron. “Buffalo Bills” for example features indents- the lines moving further and further right across the page, then snapping back. Much in the way of stream-of-consciousness, cummings scoffs at traditional punctuation, jamming some words

16、 together (“onetwothreefourfive” and “pigeonsjustlikethat”) and breaking the sentences across the page. His other poems feature commas and dashes thrown in unexpected places, and sometimes grammar spelled out rather than placed (“period” rather than “.”). This type of experimentation leads itself to

17、 the strong individualism required in modernist poetry. Cummings, like Eliot and Pound and the rest, refuses to let himself be constrained by tradition, and expresses himself in the way that best embodies himself as poet and artist.Other Modernist poets of interest include, Wallace Stevens, William

18、Carlos Williams, Jean Toomer, Gertrude Stein, Elizabeth Bishop, Hart Crane, Mina Loy and Marianne Moore.Buffalo Billsdefunct who used to ride a watersmooth-silver stallionand break onetwothreefourfive pigeonsjustlikethat Jesushe was a handsome man and what i want to know ishow do you like your bluee

19、yed boyMister DeathEzra Pound: “In a Station of the Metro”This poem is a good example of the poet considering the forms and reasons of traditional poetry, and then taking it and making it his own. In an essay describing the thought and formation processes behind this poem, Pound discussed that the b

20、revity and beauty of Japanese haiku style poetry related well to certain moments and emotions. Then, in reference to “In a Station of the Metro”, he wrote, “I wrote a thirty-line poem, and destroyed it . . . Six months later I made a poem half that length.” Its not until “a year later” that he pares

21、 the poem down to a single sentence. This follows the experimentalism of the modernist movement, as well as the individualism and intellectualism of it relating to his personal experience. With regards to intellect, one who is knowledgeable of the haiku form will recognize its influence on the poem,

22、 and therefore draw wider conclusions and deeper analysis from it. As for individualism, Pound himself claimed in the same essay that, “I dare say it is meaningless unless one has drifted into a certain vein of thought.” It is not immediately understood, it requires the reader to be open to a non-tr

23、aditional means of thought, not the everyday type of thought, but closer to the musings of a poet or artist. Pounds purpose in this poem, he states, is “to record the precise instant when a thing outward and objective transforms itself, or darts into a thing inward and subjective.”Ezra Loomis Pound

24、(1885-1972)In a Station of the Metro 1The apparition of these faces in the crowd : 2Petals on a wet, black bough .Notes 1 the metro: the Paris subway system.See Pounds commentary on this poem in his article Vorticism, The Fortnightly Review 571 (Sept. 1, 1914): 465-67 (AP 4 F7 Robarts Library):Three

25、 years ago in Paris I got out of a metro train at La Concorde, and saw suddenly a beautiful face, and then another and another, and then a beautiful childs face, and then another beautiful woman, and I tried all that day to find words for what this had meant to me, and I could not find any words tha

26、t seemed to me worthy, or as lovely as that sudden emotion. And that evening, as I went home along the Rue Raynouard, I was still trying, and I found, suddenly, the expression. I do not mean that I found words, but there came an equation . not in speech, but in little spotches of colour. It was just

27、 that - a pattern, or hardly a pattern, if by pattern you mean something with a repeat in it. But it was a word, the beginning, for me, of a language in colour. I do not mean that I was unfamiliar with the kindergarten stories about colours being like tones in music. I think that sort of thing is no

28、nsense. If you try to make notes permanently correspond with particular colours, it is like tying narrow meanings to symbols.That evening, in the Rue Raynouard, I realised quite vividly that if I were a painter, or if I had, often, that kind of emotion, or even if I had the energy to get paints and

29、brushes and keep at it, I might found a new school of painting, of non-representative painting, a painting that would speak only by arrangements in colour. That is to say, my experience in Paris should have gone into paint . The one image poem is a form of super-position, that is to say it is one id

30、ea set on top of another. I found it useful in getting out of the impasse in which I had been left by my metro emotion. I wrote a thirty-line poem, and destroyed it because it was what we call work of second intensity. Six months later I made a poem half that length; a year later I made the followin

31、g hokku-like sentence: - The apparition of these faces in the crowd:Petals, on a wet, black bough.I dare say it is meaningless unless one has drifted into a certain vein of thought. In a poem of this sort one is trying to record the precise instant when a thing outward and objective transforms itsel

32、f, or darts into a thing inward and subjective.This particular sort of consciousness has not been identified with impressionist art. I think it is worthy of attention.See also a republication of this essay in Pounds Gaudier-Brzeska: A Memoir (1916; London: New Directions, 1960): 86-89).The lines hav

33、e no spaced words in 1916. Online text copyright 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries. Original text: Ezra Pound, Contemporania, Poetry: A Magazine of Ve

34、rse, 2.1 (April 1913): 6. Ezra Pound, Lustra (London: Elkin Mathews, 1916) 45 PS 3531 O82L8 1916 Robarts Library. See also Ezra Pounds Poetry and Prose: Contributions to Periodicals, prefaced and arranged by Lea Baechler, A. Walton Litz, and James Longenbach (New York and London: Garland, 1991), I (

35、1902-1914): 137. PS 3531 O82A6 1991 Robarts Library.First publication date: 1913 Publication date note: See Gallup C76RPO poem editor: Ian LancashireRP edition: RPO 1998.Recent editing: 4:2002/4/15 Composition date: 1911 - 1912 Form: haiku-likeFor no art and no religion is possible until we make all

36、owances, until we manage to keep quiet the enfant terrible of logic that plays havoc with the other faculties. John C. Ransom Poetry: A note on Ontology Ransom main idea hare in the essay poetry: A Note on Ontology is to assert the ontological status of poetry. Ransom divides poetry in to two broad

37、groups. One groups that talk about things. Another group that talks about idea. And the third group comes out of blending of these two qualities. Physical poetry, Platonic poetry and Metaphysical are the names for these groups respectively.Physical poetry: The physical poetry uses physical things/ o

38、bjects. The poets are concerned with material and surface appearance but not an idea. It is concrete form of poetry. Language is plain literal and scientific. It is the poetry of things. They present not the ideas but the things. But the things are represented in language. Physical poetry is pure po

39、etry because it has visual context. It is too realistic, and it does not maintain interest.Platonic poetry: Platonic poetry deals with ideas not with objects. So Platonic poetry does not concern with real poetry. Ransom says that the Romantic and Victorian poems are Platonic. Platonic poetrys main a

40、im is to express ideas, Philosophy truth and morality. Ode on a Grecian Urn by Keats is an example of Platonic poetry. It destroys images. So it is abstract. It is too idealistic.But Ransom is against both Platonic and Physical poetry. Out of the blending of these two poetic qualities, the third for

41、m of poetry comes, which he calls Metaphysical poetry.Metaphysical Poetry: Ransom favors Metaphysical poetry. In Metaphysical poetry there is fusion of reason and feeling, heats and mind, emotion and intellect. Ransom found the intelligence in using conceits in Metaphysical poetry. Conceit is a type

42、 of indirect metaphor which uses far fetched images. In the 17 the century the poets like John Donne and Cowley used conceit to expose both the physical and platonic aspect.Criticism as Pure Speculation Ransom views that criticism is pure speculation or assumption. Firstly he talks about two types o

43、f criticism, physiological and moral criticism. Psychological criticism pretends to be scientific but it fails. Moral criticism tends to prescribe rules and ideology.Both of these forms of criticism go beyond the text. They disregard the text as self sufficient and unified whole. Ransom as a new cri

44、tic denounces biographical, psychological and moral criticism. He says that to make criticism, text is self sufficient. There is no need to point out the historical background and personal impression, since the text is autonomous. For Ransom, ontological criticism is the best kind of criticism, whic

45、h tells the essence to find the being of the text/ poem. By ontological criticism, we mean criticism based up on the ontology of text. It is believed that text has its own ontology, that is, its own existence. In any poem there is interaction between structure and texture. Therefore, structure and t

46、exture are two main elements for critic since structure is a central logic in a text. There is a paraphrasable core in a text that is structure. By paraphrasable core, we mean the core element of any work of art, which is subject to paraphrase. What remains, when texture of a work of art is deleted is paraphrasable core. Texture is local details