Modernist Poems - Identifying Modernist Metaphors

Hello Readers!

Have you ever observed a retro wall clock which has pendulum ? Yes, it keeps on swinging from left to right, right to left. Each oscillation occur with precision and sharpness. We have heard that history repeats itself. Events which are recorded in past is echoed somewhere sometimes in current time also. Modernist literature and the events which are recorded in it, is evidently repeating themselves. Poetry and verse find such voice in the modern age. Here we shall bring out the modernist metaphors from selected poems.

https://blog.dilipbarad.com/2016/06/modernist-poems-activity-identify_25.html

(1) The Embankment by T. E. Hulme

Once, in finesse of fiddles found I ecstasy,
In a flash of gold heels on the hard pavement.
Now see I
That warmth’s the very stuff of poesy.
Oh, God, make small
The old star-eaten blanket of the sky,
That I may fold it round me and in comfort lie.

Star-eaten blanket, gold heels, hard pavement are some of the modern metaphors. It can be said that machination and industries had impoverished the laymen. The voice is heard from some deprived and needy person who wishes to have blanket to wrap up it's body. Hard pavement can also be seen as footpath in which every class of people, rich, poor, working people walk and find their way to somewhere.

(2) Darkness by Joseph Campbell

Darkness.
I stop to watch a star shine in the boghole –
A star no longer, but a silver ribbon of light.
I look at it, and pass on.

Darkness and boghole can be seen as modern metaphor in this poem. The speaker might be watching a reflection of a star in the surface of a boghole.

(3) Image by Edward Storer

Forsaken lovers,
Burning to a chaste white moon,
Upon strange pyres of loneliness and drought.

Metaphors: pyre of loneliness, drought

(4) In a Station of the Metro by Ezra Pound

The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.

Faces in the crowd, petals, black bough can be the modern metaphors.

(5) The Pool by Hilda Doolittle

Are you alive?
I touch you.
You quiver like a sea-fish.
I cover you with my net.
What are you—banded one?

Sea-fish, net, banded are metaphors.

(6) Insouciance Richard Aldington

In and out of the dreary trenches,
Trudging cheerily under the stars,
I make for myself little poems
Delicate as a flock of doves.

They fly away like white-winged doves.

Metaphors: trenches, white winged doves

(7) Morning at the Window by T. S. Eliot

They are rattling breakfast plates in basement kitchens,
And along the trampled edges of the street
I am aware of the damp souls of housemaids
Sprouting despondently at area gates.

The brown waves of fog toss up to me
Twisted faces from the bottom of the street,
And tear from a passer-by with muddy skirts
An aimless smile that hovers in the air
And vanishes along the level of the roofs.

Metaphors : damp souls, faces, aimless smile, 

(8) The Red Wheelbarrow by William Carlos Williams

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens

Metaphors: wheel, chickens

(9) Anecdote of the Jar by Wallace Stevens

I placed a jar in Tennessee,
And round it was, upon a hill.
It made the slovenly wilderness
Surround that hill.

The wilderness rose up to it,
And sprawled around, no longer wild.
The jar was round upon the ground
And tall and of a port in air.

It took dominion everywhere.
The jar was gray and bare.
It did not give of bird or bush,
Like nothing else in Tennessee.

Metaphors: jar, wilderness

(10) l(a by E. E. Cummings

l(a

le
af
fa

ll

s)
one
l

iness

l(a leaf falls)oneliness.  This is very short and one line poem. Still it tells two major metaphors such as loneliness and fall. Here loneliness can be seen as lack of empathy. In modern scenario it is seen that relations are full of plasticity. Human touch is now losing the ground and machines are found everywhere. Perhaps the metaphor of fall might be regarding the fall of humanity. Oneliness is indicating something about individuality. In a way, the tone of poem seems tragic.

Thank You!

20th Century English Literature - General Characteristics

Hello Readers!

History repeats itself and time records the events through its lenses of zeitgeist. The historical sense leads one to study the succeeding ages. One has to have historical sense even to understand the simple words and images of literature. Metaphorical way of writing always makes a reader curious to know more about the age and its culture. Here we shall see a remarkable age of literature: Modern Age or 20th Century Literature.

20th Century was much of the upheavals of the time. With the hammer of critical thought and rationale, the age happened to find newer means of social and literary concerns than the previous age. All, that had been sharply practiced in the Victorian Age, was turned topsy-turvy in the Modern Age. Didacticism and staunch Victorian practices were losing the ground. The impact of World Wars was much more than a mere scar to the age but a wakening slap for social reformations. Life was to start in an extremist levels of modernity and then it had to come down towards postmodernist days. The roots of such fervour lied in the rebelliousness of people. The thought of "make it new" itself evidently establishes the disgusts and boredom of the rigidity of Victorian thought. A change, which historians might have recorded, in cultural practices, intelligence of people, critical ability to think was aptly found in this age.

Historical Aspects of the age

1. World War I (1914 - 1918) WW II (1939 - 1945)

The combatant nations of these wars were majorly considered as “centre of the world”. But the imperialistic temperaments led them to a blindness which, then never recovered to see the disastrous consequences of these two World Wars. History evidently puts a remark on the nuclear attacks upon Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It would be now easy to assume that how the common people might have suffered and what the societal changes had gone through.

2. Industrial Revolution.

Though it took place in 19th century but the echoes of this revolution reflected in the 20th century. Society witnessed a drastic change in class demarcation. Those who were landowners, those who had plenty of room to invest their excessive amount of money, became factory owners and those who were hardworking and enthusiastic became the workers of these factories. Assembly line brought a smiling curve in the economy of Europe and United States, but on the parallel, it killed the craftsmanship of individual. Machination became prominent centre and skillful people submerged in the periphery. This led to unemployment and then somehow created anarchy among the masses. Rich became more rich and poor became more poor. The three "M" are worth considering here. M for Muscle power, M for Mind power and M for Money power. Senselessness sprouted through the seeds of excessive materialistic lifestyle. The money mindedness is reflected in Arthur Miller's play "All My Sons". Colonial aspects are also found in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness.

3. Spiritual/Religious Questioning

The modern age also brought dilemma and confusion in the belief system of people. It seemed that money became more mightier than the divine; which was thought in the previous Victorian age. Some isms also found in reference of asking about spirituality that is Existentialism. To quote few lines. . .

To some, the voice of Darwin in The Descent of Man sounded more credible and more authoritative that the voice of God in the book of Genesis. (The Setting - A. C. Ward)

More scientific temperaments were being established and convincingly the constructive arguments also gave some wind to the thought. Victorian orthodoxy was losing a ground. The horrific war experience made people think about one another and live life with spiritual thought.

Literary Characteristics

Literature rightly mirrored the changes of society in it's texts. Nations were looking for the classics and masterpieces of authors which found much acceptance in the modern age than the previous age.  In the early stage of the century the practice of depicting mythical narratives in newer ways was still in in continuation. Ulysses by James Joyce is an example of it. Writings about futuristic events were much celebrated. 1984 by George Orwell and Animal Farm stand at the doorstep of the modern age which welcomes the reader to the newer aspects like monotony in human life, bureaucratic mindset of controlling people, and continuous surveillance. The metaphor of animals is rightly used by Orwell... All animals are equal but some are more equal. Canons of literature were steadily changing from the stereotypes to something newer ones. Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and H. G. Wells' The Time Machine drew the futuristic caricature which was much ahead of their time. Lost generation which emerged a class of society in the 20th century also found it's voice in works of Gustav Flaubert. Gothic element, which was already much celebrated by the publication of Frankenstein, also resurrected in the 20th century. Edgar Allan Poe penned much of the darkest of the human psyche and viciousness in his short stories like Black Cat. The audience was still demanding some more entertaining literature which resulted in the creation of devilish fiction like Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. T. S. Eliot also marked its timeless presence by the penning his wide ranging poem The Waste Land. It majorly talked about sexual perversion and spiritual degradation. D. H. Lawrence's books were banned due to extremity of sexuality. Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne set a question of individual free choice. Old Man and the Sea by Earnest Hemingway oiled to the motivational thought for upcoming generation. The undercurrents of human nature like Oedipus and Electra complexes find the narration in pen of Eugenie O'Neill's play Mourning Becomes Electra. Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse made an evident contribution in the psychological movement called Stream of Consciousness. 

Furthering the genre of poetry, Robert Frost, John Masefield, Rupert Brook, W. B. Yeats, T. S. Eliot made noteworthy contribution to literature.

The later part of the age came up with many artistic movements such as Surrealism, Dadaism, Imagism, Vorticism, Cubism, Expressionism, Individualism etc.

In a nutshell, 20th century was an age of social unrest, progression as well as regression, freedom as well as captivity in terms of machination. The age carried the time, the time which recorded much larger portion of the events and zeitgeist of modernity. No other age in the history of English literature carried this much diversity in thought and in its texts.

References;

Ward, Alfred Charles. Twentieth-Century English Literature: 1901-1960. 1966.

Long, William J. English Literature. AITBS India, 2015.

Thank You.

Alfred Tennyson and Robert Browning

Hello Readers!

In English literature the Victorian Age (1850 - 1900) was the remarkable one to bring various changes which were prevalent in the previous ages. Queen Victoria came to reign in 1837, when there was a kind of literary vacuum created by the death of the poets and writers like Keats, Shelley, Byron, of the previous age. To fill this gap, two major poets, Alfred Tennyson and Robert Browning contributed their best in the Victorian literature. Basically this age is known as the age of prose, because the Sun of Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, George Eliot, was shining at middle of the sky.

Alfred Tennyson (1809 - 1892) | Robert Browning (1812 - 1889)

* Alfred Lord Tennyson was a British poet laureate who was one of the major Victorian figures. He has written many poems in blank verse like Ulysses, Idylls of the King and Tithonus, In Memorium.

He knew the true art of poetry. Rather than being a leader he chose to be a teacher. His poetry was rather spiritual and philosophical.

W. J. Long writes for Tennyson,

"Throughout the entire Victorian period Tennyson stood at the summit of poetry in England... For nearly half a century, he was not only a man and a poet; he was a voice, the voice of a whole people, expressing in exquisite melody their doubts and their faith, their grief and their triumphs."

* Robert Browning was English poet and playwright. He became popular by writing dramatic monologues. One of his famous poems was Pauline, published in 1833. The Ring and the Book is his long dramatic narrative poem.

Best be yourself, imperial, plain and true

                                        -Robert Browning

Victorian era was the prime time of revolting the old norms and establishing new ideals. With the succession of Queen Victoria in 1837, the English literature seemed to enter in totally new realm, leaving the Romantic age behind. With the touch of morality, people were becoming more peace loving and curious to learn. In this age slaves were made free. The direct effect was on industries and employments. Apart from the social unrest, it was an age of democracy as the House of Commons came to the ruling power. Several reform bills were passed for needful and poor people.

* Comparing and contrasting the Victorian age and Romantic Age

Difference between the two literary ages

Age of Romanticism (1800 – 1850)	The Victorian Age (1850 – 1900)
Influence of French Revolution (5th May 1789)	Influence of Industrial Revolution (1760 – 1840)
Romantic Enthusiasm, realism	Social Unrest and Democracy, Ideal of peace
Age of Expressionism	Age of questioning, horrors of poverty, deprivation
Age of Poetry, lyrics and ballads	Age of Prose, novels, essays, non-fiction
Poetry - Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Keats, Byron	Poetry – Tennyson and Robert Browning
Prose – Jane Austen (female novelist)	Prose - Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Thackeray.
Wordsworth’s Lyrical Ballads	Dickens’s Oliver Twist, G. Eliot’s Middlemarch

1. Democracy - Many disputes an empirical wars were settling down and democracy was established. Henry VIII was the last monarch who enjoyed the chamber at the Palace of Westminster in England, and after tremendous changes and alterations, England found the shining the rays of democracy and the House of Commons became the ruling power of the country.

2. Social Unrest - It was the time of social unrest where people were utilizing their freedom but they were divided into rich and poor classes. Slavery was the central force for this unrest. For industrial use, rich used to purchase slaves There were many class differences, such as a working class person and some landlord kind of person, but the unrest was that they shared the same land, same locality. They used to walk along at streets. In short, huge difference was there in people. Some of the people were working at mills and factories, as it was the time of industrial revolution and some of them were belonging to high society and elite class who were the owners of the cotton and wool mills and factories.

* Charles Dickens and George Eliot

Charles Dickens (1812 - 1870) | George Eliot (1819 - 1880)

Charles Dickens and George Eliot were the major and prominent prose writers and novelists of the age. They have made an active attempt to highlight the provincial life and the life of the darkness. The area of society where only few put the eyes and

Works of Charles Dickens - He has written four major novels including, A Tale of Two Cities, David Copperfield and Oliver Twist. Here is one quote form A Tale of Two Cities. Charles Dickens was the voice of the unheard. He has produced a remarkable novel Oliver Twist, in which the character of Oliver is best portrayed by Dickens, speaking of the innate true Victorian time.

"It was the best of the times; It was the worst of the times..." - Charles Dickens

George Eliot actually was a female writer whose actual name was Mary Ann Evans. As per the patriarchal tendency of the Victorian Age, she hid her identity and produced literature by the pen name George Eliot. Middlemarch A Study of Provincial Life (1871 - 72), is the notable novel by her, portrayed the best provincial life.

In a nutshell, the Victorian Age was fully rich with literary production along with the shackling social unrest, handling the shining shrine of democracy. The age reflected the whole new spirit which were going to be the significant one for England in the succeeding ages. Authors, through their pens, made the age more true to it's type and more considerably important age of the whole English literature.

Thank You!

References:
(1) Long, William J. English Literature: Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English-Speaking World. AITBS, 2015.

(2) "Alfred, Lord Tennyson." Wikipedia, Wikimedia Contributors, 13 Jan. 2020, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred,_Lord_Tennyson.

(3) "Robert Browning." Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 6 Jan. 2020, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Browning.

(4) "Victorian Literature." Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 4 Jan. 2020, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victorian_literature.

(5) "Victorian Era." Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 27 Dec. 2019, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victorian_era.

(6) Habib, Habibur Rahman. "Alfred Tennyson vs Robert Browning Two great Victorians a Comparative Study."

Thank You!