Modernism poetry essay

Literature from the 20th century has benefited greatly from the ideas that modernism introduced. The way literature views the world in the twenty-first century has undergone a noticeable shift. Some of the ideas that have profoundly affected literature include paralysis, chaos, despair, anxiety, the crisis of belief, loss of faith, a quest for an explanation and meaning, fragmentation, hopelessness, and the fallacy of tradition and cultural norms. (Benard, 1972). Because of these ideas, literary works from the 20th century are now viewed differently and as having less value in the contemporary world. (Gilbert, 2014).

Many modernist writers, including Mr. T.S. Eliot, have used the ideas above. In the poems titled the love song and portrait of a lady by Alfred Prufrock, T.S Eliot points out the problems in the condition and perception of the modern man. He analyzes how the modern man perceives life, the divided visions, faith, and norms. Eliot’s poems “the love song” and ”portrait of a lady” is characterized by a lot of hopelessness, questioning, and fragmentation (Knapp, 1974). These two poems have various examples that bring out the aspect of modernism and how modernism has changed the way people perceive and appreciate life and all it entails.

In the poem, the love song, the speaker is in a state of hopelessness and anxiety (Carter & Friedman, 2013). The environment around him looks meaningless to him, and he is trying to fight that sense of meaninglessness. The speaker perceives his surrounding as being disorderly with a lot of chaos and very fragmented. The fact that the speaker is unable to interact well with women yet he is getting older each day and realizing that his clock is ticking creates a sense of desperation and hopelessness to the poem (Knapp,1974). In one of the stanzas, he says ”It is impossible to say just what I mean.“ This means that the speaker admits the annoying facts about him and life and him in some way gives in. The surroundings do not favor his and his character. He is very shy to hold a conversation with a lady which is the only way he can interact with one. There is a lot of hopelessness in his life. He does not seem to see anything positive about his life and the general world as well. He is not comfortable with his surroundings and the people in it as well. So much is running through his mind on how he can handle the situation and try to find the meaning of such an environment.

Therefore, the speaker makes the poem to have a dull mood as he opens up about the psychological torture he is going through in his life. That is what the materialist, modern world has offered this man. His desperation and hopelessness come in because he feels that he cannot connect with people and also the feeling of inadequacy. He is not in the capacity of relating and interacting with people. Therefore, he leads a lonely life. He fills like he is strange to the modern life. The way people run their lives and how they conduct themselves is a very big deal to him. Everything seems new to him.

In addition to hopelessness and desperation, the speaker is anxious about what the future holds for him considering that he is getting old as days go by. These thoughts bring up some psychological torture. He feels so because he is not in a position to fight his fear of making sound decisions and also the fact that he is old. He feels like he is too old to initiate a relationship with any lady. There is also fear that no woman would accept his proposition and love to be with him. He is worried about his future life as an old man amidst of modern people. The speaker feels intimidated by the fact that everyone else seems comfortable with their lives while his own life is a mess with full of despair and hopelessness. Everything seems to be against him with so many undecided actions and thoughts

In the same poem, the speaker says ”… for a hundred indecisions/ and for a hundred visions and revisions.“ The persona is trying to search for meaning on his sufferings on meaninglessness. The speaker is trying to find out why things are the way they are and why he is suffering. Nothing seems to add up for he has so many undecided situations and actions and he is not in a position to decide on what to do. It’s a cloud of embarrassments and confusion. The aspect of searching for meaning and physical torture from meaninglessness brings up another significant issue regarding the implications of modernism by Eliot in the poem ”the love song” written by Alfred Prufrock. The speaker engages himself in a dramatic monologue where he is actively searching for meaning because he fills enclosed in an intensive sense of meaninglessness. He begins to argue with himself an argument that does not end and no solution is reached at.

The speaker is trying to pull up his courage in the monologue, but no solutions are arrived at. The questions remain rhetoric because he cannot provide answers to them. Therefore, instead of finding answers to the questions he is asking himself in the monologue, more questions come up. The situation doubles itself instead. Although he knows that he does not have answers to those questions, he continues to pursue it because, in the modern world, a modern man should search for meaning and answer. This can be seen in the poem where the speaker says ”…”Streets that follow like a tedious argument / Of insidious intent/ To lead you and overwhelming question…/ Oh, do not ask, ‘what is it?’ / Let us go and make our visit”.

Another very important characteristic feature of Eliot’s poetry is the aspect of disintegration and fragmentation. The two elements are evident in the poem in the physical structure of the poem, which is made of either run-on or completely independent lines. They are also apparent in the speaker’s numerous thoughts and questions without answers. The speaker’s mind does not work in an organized manner, but it is rather in fragmented. He does not coordinate events, actions, and his thoughts as well. He causes chaos within himself by his dilly dallies from one issue to the other without finding solutions (Haba, 1997).

For example, there is an incident in the poem where he is describing his surrounding environment without expressing his feelings about it or just sticking to the issue. He jumps off, starts talking about his age and his fears, and worries about the future. He suddenly leaves that point and starts talking about his encounter with women. The speaker’s thoughts and actions undergo fragmentations because of monologue or self- interrogation and self-consciousness. There is coordination in his thinking. Monologue and self-consciousness are a reflection of how modernists perceive literature (Sanchez, 2015).

The speaker continues to argue with himself on a very disturbing question of when he would lose his virginity. The fact that he is getting old day by day, and he still a virgin is very embarrassing in the modern life. It is for this reason that he becomes a wanderer moving from clubs, streets and bars thinking about what he would do to lose his virginity. In this setting, the speaker is looking for the answers to a very disturbing question – how to propose to a woman.

Prufrock has different alternatives on how to go about this issue. He could either hook up with one of the prostitutes in the streets or a woman who is a frequent visitor to a salon near his station. At this point, he could be planning how he was going to hook up with a lady at the entrance of a certain hotel, and on the other hand, he may be doing some rehearsals in his head on how to ask a young woman to marry him. In the above cases, the speaker is stuck in an argument with himself as the streets themselves are an annoying argument because he cannot seem to find a solution to his thoughts. He is trying to gather some courage in both cases.

Joseph Margolis is another observer and interpreter of literature who brings up the aspect of the dilemma in the modern literature. He confirms that Prufrock is in a state of dilemma in the poem “the love song.” The speaker says, ”he is a spectator of both worlds who cannot participate fully and cordially in either,“ that ”he is divided against himself” and that he feels ”isolated from the society of the salon as well as from the workmen’s quarter of the city.” The speaker is therefor in a dilemma of dicing which mode of life he would live. He does not seem to find a culture that would favor his as a sexual and a Very sensitive person. The question that crushes him is ”who am I ?“ in the line ”Let us go then, you and I,“ the speaker is talking to himself. In other words, he is a very isolated man who has not yet found a secure sense of identity.

In the poem ”the portrait of a lady,“ Eliot brings up some several aspects of modernism in literature. Eliot brings up a conflict of feelings, which yields patterns of significance and changing of mood. The tile portrait of a lady is an imagery of a portrait of an adolescent who is torn in between feelings of repulsion and attraction at the same time. The events in this poem take place within a year and therefore the seasons of a year are significant in developing the poem’s theme and tone. There is a transition between the feeling of being superior and the feeling of being uncertain and uneasy. In the first part of the poem, the approach of the lady and how the young man responds are both musical. This musical aspect brings about the aspect of metaphors of malicious innuendo (Hentea, 2017). The metaphors express politeness to the lady about the reception in the adolescent.

The lady’s music brings confusion in the young man’s mind, and he realizes that he is not ready for the lady. It also sets up a preparation in the young man’s mind that he should escape the situation. The escape was only one- that is the masculine escape to the externals. The whole situation intimidates him. Eliot uses a small dash to show a sudden transition. The section ends as the man is trying to find ways of running away from the intimidation by the lady. The fact that the lady is a bit older than the man is intimidation. This shows the modern perception of age between men and women in the society. Age is a very sensitive issue when it comes to man-woman relationships, especially intimate relationships. Another issue that brought mixed feelings in the young man’s mind is the fact that the lady is the one who approached the young man.

In the following section, the writer makes the situation worse by introducing flower imagery to the already existing musical imagery. He does so to develop ”friendship” between the lady and the young man as the lady calls it. The flower imagery serves to aggravate the feelings of the lady and also make the tension of the young man more intolerable. Even with the situation looking more confusing and harder, he struggles to put on a smile on his face not to look uncomfortable though in reality, he is getting more and more disturbed and embarrassed by the situation. As she gets closer to him and expressing herself, the youth gets disturbed even the more.

At this point, running away is once again the only way to escape the situation, but he decides not to show cowardice and takes his hat instead. The overwhelming question is what is his intentions with the lady. Is he pretending that he has feelings towards the lady as well? , or is he just taking advantage of her? Whatever the answer is, he is simply trying to cover his cowardice from the uncomfortable situation. As a man, it would be a coward move to run away from the situation and especially from a lady. He should be strong enough to deal with the situation. There is a problem of cowardice in the poem, but the poet continues to create more problems

The main issue that is disturbing the young man is the floral and musical imagery, which represent the lady in the poem. The situation now becomes worse when the imagery combines with its aspects of attraction and revulsion. The young man is in another state of confusion where he does not know whether how he reacts to those things is right or wrong. The third section is, therefore, providing answers to his question on the decision to make. Though he decides to escape without coming back, his actions show that he still doubts the decision. Mounting the stairs is an imagery that shows his return. The imagery shows awkwardness and effort as well. He fakes smiles that can be seen on his face as forced smiles. It eventually goes back to the theme of escape as it ends up with him escaping and leaving the lady alone.

Another overwhelming question is posed. What has he committed by escaping? He looked forward to getting out of that situation, but again once he gets out of it by running away, he is still not settled. So many questions storm his mind about his decision. He is not sure about the decision he made. Has he shown that he is a coward because he ran away from a problem instead of finding a solution to it? Has he faced temptation but sailed through it? Trying to find out what he had committed to running away and the thought of fornication brings up a new theme of emotional frustration. He has been embarrassed and disturbed but later managed to deal with the situation and escaped by flight. Fornication alone could not be the reason to flee not unless there were mixed feelings of either sexual attraction or repulsion.

The poem is developed in a circle from winter to winter. Section one that is their meeting takes place in December, which is a festive season. Section two where the floral theme comes in takes place in April. April is the season of lilacs and beautiful flowers. October is when the final section of the poem takes place. The poet has organized his work systematically to have a smooth flow of events. At the end of the poem, the man is left with a lot of boredom, restlessness, and nostalgia. In section two, the last stanza expresses the man’s real attitude towards the lady. He was sympathizing with the lady, but he did not have passion. He did not have real and honest feelings towards the lady. This poem, therefore, intends to communicate the mood of a particular social environment and how different people react towards different situations in life.

It studies the characters of two people to bring out the social environment effect to the modern society. The young man suffered from embarrassment and disturbance because he did not want to leave as he would be a coward by doing so. He eventually escaped, and he is now bothered by his actions. The lady on the hand feels disappointed by his decision. She portrays the aspect of hopelessness

Conclusion

Modernism has greatly influenced literature in the twenty-first century. Modern literature is developed on concepts like fragmentation, paralysis, chaos, anxiety, hopelessness, the search of meaning, despair, loss of faith and so forth. It has brought about a huge transition in literature from the past to modern approaches. J. Alfred Prufrock’s works especially the love song is indeed a masterpiece of modernism in literature.

References

Bernard, B. (1992). T.S. Eliot. New York, NY: Macmillan

Carter, M., & Friedman, A. W. (Eds.). (2013). Modernism and literature: an introduction and reader. Routledge.

Gilbert, R. (2014). Modernism and Literature: An Introduction and Reader edited by Mia Carter and Alan Warren Friedman, and: A Handbook of Modernism Studies edited by Jean-Michel Rabaté. Wallace Stevens Journal, 38(1), 105-107.

Haba, J.C. (1997). ”Till Human Volees Wake Us and We Drown Community in ’The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’.“ Modern Language Studies, 7(1), 53-61.

Hentea, M. (2017). Putting Modernism Together: Literature, Music, and Painting, 1872–1927 by Daniel Albright. MFS Modern Fiction Studies, 63(3), 582-585.

Knapp, J.F(1974). ”Eliot’s ^Prufrock^ and the Form of Modern Poetry.“ Arizona Quarterly, 30, 5-14.

Sanchez, R. (2015). Deafening Modernism: Embodied Language and Visual Poetics in American Literature. NYU Press.