Hello readers,
This blog is one of the activities of our academics. And this time it is based on Modernist Literature. Here I have tried to interpret ten Modern poems according to my understanding.
Before proceeding forward here I put a brief description of what is Modernism??
Modernist literature is quite difficult to understand and when it comes to the poetry, it even becomes more difficult. Though meaning of the words can be understood, meaning of the poem is difficult to understand. These ten poems demands thinking and their shortness makes us to think more.
Click Here ....for..... the quest for more Information....
Modernism ....
Modernism is a philosophical movement that, along with cultural trends and changes, arose from wide-scale and far-reaching transformations in Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Among the factors that shaped modernism were the development of modern industrial societies and the rapid growth of cities, followed then by reactions of horror to World War I. Modernism also rejected the certainty of Enlightenment thinking, and many modernists rejected religious belief.
Characteristics of Modernist Literature:-
* Complexity in structure
* Fragmentation
* Use of Negative words
* Experimentation with language and form
* Use of allusions and paradoxes
* Use of myth and classical references
* Isolation
* Brokenness
* Nothingness
* Disinterested
* Disillusionment
* Effects of war
* Sexual perversion and spiritual degradation
* Art for Life's Sake
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.
Interpretation...
First, a short paraphrase of the poem: on London’s Embankment, a ‘fallen gentleman’ reflects on his past and how he found pleasure in worldly social activities (the ‘finesse of fiddles’ suggesting musical gatherings, such as dances) and beautiful women – probably (given the ‘flash of gold heels on the hard pavement‘) courtesans or prostitutes. But now, down on his luck and most probably sleeping rough on the streets, he realises that warmth is what really matters and is what poets should be singing about. The poem then ends with a heartfelt entreaty to the heavens, with the poem’s speaker beseeching God to make a blanket of the starry sky so that the speaker’s wish for warmth might be granted. The internal rhymes of the poem, running from the poem’s subtitle or description to the last line – those of cold, gold, old, fold – help to form a chain that unites the central images of the poem.
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.
Interpretation....
Here title itself reflect some kind of the darkness. In the poem poet present view of night that how the sky has because dark without star and queries night everywhere, if we see in night is most represented to show beauty of stars and Moon. “we feel peace of mind but a poem is reflected of the darkness its symbol of downfall some kind of the civilizations that is ." a stars no longer but is silver ribbon of light" it means disinterestedness prevalent in Modern Times so decade pass on condition or civilization is presented.
3.....'Image' - Edward Storer
Forsaken lovers,
Burning to a chaste white moon,
Upon strange pyres of loneliness and drought.
Interpretation...
..4..
A. a station of the metro by Ezra pound.
The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.
Interpretation...
Burning to a chaste white moon,
Upon strange pyres of loneliness and drought.
Interpretation...
The title suggest itself the image of Victorian age.
Poem is depiction of forsaken lover is described.
The poem as per its title “Image” presents an image of the
modern people and their way of living, they requires purity
like moon.
..4..
A. a station of the metro by Ezra pound.
The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.
Interpretation...
The title of the poem itself gives an image of the mechanism of life. The lifeless people going for the daily routine. The crowd of people are like living dead. Going for work without any enthusiasm. 'Petals' is used as metaphor for people and 'black bough' for a culture of living dead.
The Pool by hilda Doolittle
I touch you.
You quiver like a sea-fish.
I cover you with my net.
What are you—banded one?
Interpretation....
-- Here I can read the sarcasm. Its about overpowering or colonising someone. First it was asked that are you alive or not. Very sarcastically, we can see that no. It is not alive. Because now it is there in the net of somebody. Fish after going in the net, cannot survive for longer.
6..Insoueiance by Richard Aldington
In France (1916–1918)
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.
Interpretation ...
In this poem, poet compares his poems with dove. Here the words like 'Trudging' and 'cheerily' gives contrasting meaning. These words give the image of life where we are doing many things unwillingly. Poems can not fly but here poet says he has made poems that can fly away like white winged doves. It looks he want to be free.
7....morning at the window by T.S. Eliot
T. S. ELIOT, 1888 - 1965
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.
Interpretation....
The whole poem has negative words. The word 'Rattling' means vibrating, shaking plates and 'Damp' means in low spirits from loss of hope or courage. The fog and twisted faces gives negative glimpse and an aimless smile suggests artificiality of Modern civilization. This poem gives images and symbols of the dead spirit in people.
8...The Red wheelbarrow by William Carlos Williams
WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS, 1883 - 1963
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens.
Interpretation....
With four stanzas the poem describes in humongous detail not just a wheelbarrow but a whole scene, a moment stuck in time. Williams’s form in the poem accomplishes this by using the strange break points to emphasize certain words and letting the words and their rhythms work for themselves. The first stanza, “so much depends/ upon” illustrates this by making the reader’s eye and mind just hang off the word ‘depends.’
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.
Interpretation....
.
Anecdote of the Jar is an imagist poem in which Stevens explores the question of the superiority between art and nature: Is nature superior to human creations, or does human creativity surpasses nature in some way? This is an age-old and puzzling question. This poem solves the riddle by recognizing the unique differences between art and nature: art may sometimes be more beautiful than nature but it cannot be as creative as the nature.
10.."I"....By E.E lumming
l(a... (a leaf falls on loneliness)
l(a
le
af
fa
ll
s)
one
l
iness
Interpretation....
This poem reflects the modern time people were
people living in one country together like leafs live on a tree
but when they fall it is only their fall. There was not strong
relation between them. One question pops up in my mind
after reading this poem that Can we trust people or not.
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