¶ … Strength in Themes of Modernist Poetry Things fall apart, the center cannot hold," wrote Yeats of the modern, human condition. Yeats later poetic vision highlights a central notion in much of modern poetic philosophy, namely that the old ideological and religious structures have begun to unravel in modern life. What ideologies that once held up the human form and human social norms are no more, in the face of modern war and destruction. The title of this poem "The Second Coming" refers to the fact that the awaited solution to the crisis, that of the second coming of the Messiah, seems no where to be found, and while human beings wait for meaning, it seems to be no where, and all human strength...
Ezra Pound saw as the solution to the modern absence of meaning in life, and the searching for a new poetic form that could express the crisis of modern life in the past and the forms of the Far East. While Yeats ultimately rejected the folkloric Irish poetry with which he began his career, Pound returned again and again to other, older poetic traditions such in the Asiatic tradition. The speaker of his poem "Fan-Piece, For Her Imperial Lord" is philosophical when the center of her world, her lover, rejects her: "O…
" In more general terms, Conrad uses Marlow to give his tale, neither the full close of the plot of earlier fiction, nor James' more limited completeness in the formal structure, but a radical and continuing exposure to the incompleteness of experience and the impossibility of fully understanding it." (Watt, 1978) The strength of subjectivity as far as perception was concerned is another modern theme. It is safe to state that
Tarsila Do Amaral One of the most important Brazilian artists of the 20th century, Tarsila do Amaral, was born in Sao Paulo in 1886. She had a privileged childhood as the grandchild of a rich farmer. This brought with it various advantages, including an education that taught her to read, write, embroider and speak French (Damian, 1999). Finishing her studies in France and returning to Brazil, this artist left an impression
Hemingway is classified as a modernist in fiction. Modernism rejected traditions that existed in the nineteenth century and sought to stretch the boundaries, striking out in new directions and with new techniques. More was demanded of the reader of literature or the viewer of art. Answers were not presented directly to issues raised, but instead the artist demanded the participation of the audience more directly in finding meaning and in
William Wordsworth: A Wordsmith for All Time Harold Bloom in his book Genius: A Mosaic of One Hundred Exemplary Creative Minds says "Wordsworth remains, in the twenty-first century, what he has been these last two hundred years: the inventor of a poetry that has been called, at intervals, Romantic, post Romantic, Modern, and Postmodern, yet essentially is one phenomenon: the replacement of subject matter by the poet's subjectivity" (377). It is
Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" to F. Scott Fitzgerald's "Winter Dreams" writing styles; James Baldwin's "Sonny's Blues" compare to my own life. Modernism vs. postmodernism Over the course of the late 19th and early 20th century, American literature began to turn inward. Instead of looking to outer manifestations of the human character, American authors began to use interior monologues as a way of creating a narrative arc. Stories such as
A Vonnegut theme, however, is often hard to miss; especially since part of Vonnegut's style placed the author in a position where many readers could palpably feel him throughout the novel. Vonnegut seems to read alongside the reader and assist him; he seems to teach and guide -- gently -- as well as write. As such, Vonnegut helped re-define what high art, and the novel specifically, could be: Irving, who
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