Thinking activity on Modern poems

                    Hello readers,

                    Introduction  👀

As a part of task we want to study some modern poems. Basically, the word modernism has very different meaning. however, we are studying the T.S Eliot's poem :The West Land. It is modern poem but very difficult poem without teaching we can't understand. Also, as a part of study we would find the metaphor and Symbol of the Modern poems.

The Embankment

BY T. E. HULME

(The fantasia of a fallen gentleman on a cold, bitter night.)

Once, in finesse of fiddles found I ecstasy,

In the 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.

T. E. Hulme, ‘The Embankment (7 lines). T. E. Hulme (1883-1917) was an influential poet and thinker in the first few years of the twentieth century.

  First, a short paraphrase of the poem: on London’s Embankment (an area well-known for homeless people sleeping rough), 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.

Joseph Campbell, ‘Darkness‘

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.

'Star' is a symbol of prosperity and brightness means that there was some goodness in civilization but now it's all dark. If anyone looks at the stars, he or she will sit and admire the beauty of the night, but here post just looks at it and passes on. This reflects the disinterestedness prevalent in modern times.  How modernists were not interested in the so-called brightness of the Victorian age can be seen here. The decayed condition of the civilization is presented.

Edward Storer, ‘Image’ (3 lines)

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

     poem is about the  poet uses the symbol of white moon as it connects heart of two lovers, while here the poet use it in opposite side that it burns lovers that they can't chaste each other, their loneliness is there though they are together , this shows the modern aspect that people are alone though they are in crowd.

 Ezra Pound, ‘In a Station of the Metro‘ (2 lines)

 The apparition of these faces in the Crowd;

  Petals on a wet, black bough

 Here “Metro” itself is a symbol of Modernism and the crowd represents the people. So here we can say that it represents the people who are living physically but mentally they all are dead because of their daily hasty schedule. “Bough” is a branch of a tree, and here he used “black bough” which means the dead branch of a tree (culture). Here society is a tree and branch is culture.

H. D. (Hilda Doolittle), ‘The Pool‘ (5 lines)

Are you alive?

       I touch you

       You quiver trembling like a sea-fish

       I cover you with my net

       What are you- banded one?

The title ' The pool' gives us an image of stored water. Water symbolizes purity and rebirth. Here water is in pool it's not flowing which symbolises the rottenness of the civilization. This poem reflects the lifelessness in the people who are lost in the monotonous life like a ' fish caught in net'

 Richard Aldington, ‘Insouciance‘ (5 lines)

      

      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.

 This poem shows the carelessness of people . its also seems like war poem and poet talks about life of Soldier as Ajit said earlier in his blog. The metaphor like ' dreary trenches', 'flock of doves' and 'white winged dove' etc used by poet to express his thought about lifestyle of people that how they are unaware and don't have any exitement but still they are going on to live their life.

T. S. Eliot, ‘Morning at the Window‘ (9 lines).

They are rattling breakfast plates in basement kitchens,

And along the trampled edges of the street

I am aware of the damp souls of housemaid

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.

      In this poem there are many words like “rattling”, “damp souls”, “despondently”, “fog”, “twisted faces”, “fear”, “aimless”. Here we can find negativity I each line which represents the darker side. In this poem we can find images of “dullness” and “dead spirit”. Here we  can refer  the first part “the burial of dead” of T.S Eliot’s “The Wasteland” in this poem also we can find negativity all around. In this part Eliot used the image of “dull roots”, “snow” and “a heap of broken images”.

William Carlos Williams, ‘The Red Wheelbarrow‘ (8 lines)

so much depends

 upon

a red wheel

barrow

 glazed with rain

water

beside the white

chicken.

Poem is quite confusing as we see it in normal way  it give the  picture of rural scene where the Rainwater, chicken and cart are found but its different from it that it talks about dependence and independence that we are depend on many thing here red wheel barrow suggested the it carrying loads of different things, white Chicken suggests the pure and peaceful atmosphere.

Wallace Stevens, ‘Anecdote of the Jar‘ .

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.

The poem is about the control over civilization of a state or a place. Here poet discussed about the state “Tennessee” in United States of America. In this poem poet placed a jar on the hill. After some time jar at hill owns the place slowly and steadily. Through this line poet wants to say that how an outsider comes as different place and owns that place or we can say that an outsider made its place on that place slowly and steadily. There is one word “wilderness” which represents the unsettled way of an outsider. There is a phrase “sprawled outsider” which means to spread out in a disorderly fashion.

E. E. Cummings, ‘l(a‘ (9 lines)

 

l(a

 

le

af

fa

ll

 

s)

one

l

 iness

There is a word “fall” which represents the state of dullness. It can be fall of civilization, individual’s hope or fall of anything else. when we carefully read it it is line that 'a leaf falls on loneliness', when we look at the  modernist structure to write a  poem it also look like leaf falls down , it also suggest the feelings or dreams of people after wars that are broken in small pieces.

                                                                                                                      Thanks😇