Modern Age:-

Modernism doesn’t speak about contemporary time; but about past time, prim time of modernism is between first war and second war world war (1940-50).questioning everything was important in modernism.


Here is my interpretation on some modernist poems, which is part of my classroom activity.



(1) The Embankment :-T.E.Hulme


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.

Poet is recounting his past by using the words like finesse of fiddles, musical gathering and flash of gold heels used for women star-eaten blanket is used as negative word. But now what all he need is warmth; which he will get under the blanket of sky where he will get comfort, comfort from the harshness of life.

(2) Darkness:- 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.

Title itself reflects negativity. Here star is metaphor, by which poet actually means Victorian age , he is not affected with the shine of Victorian age, he just looked at it and pass on.

(3) Image :- Edward storer

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

By the title of this poem may be poet wanted to present image of modern age people. White color presents positivity but here it seems in negative sense. Other metaphor are loneliness and drought.



(4) In a station of the metro:- Ezra pound


THE apparition of these faces in the crowd;


Petals on a wet, black bough.


Title itself says that its about Metro. Poet sees various faces and gives it metaphor ‘apparition’. This means ghostly. He compares these faces to ‘petals on a wet black bough”- suggests that on the dark subway platform, the people look like flower petal stuck on tree branch after a rainy night.

(5) The Pool:- 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?

speaker asking person that ‘are you alive?. Person shivers like a sea fish.


which indicates that someone is dying and presents liflessness.


(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.


Here poet have used metaphors like deary trnches, trudging cheerily flock of doves, white winged doves.






(7) Moring at the window- 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.



At first reading of this poem way feel that this poem is about everyday life. But we also can say that this line:- ‘” tear from a passer-by with muddy skirts.”


(8) The Red Wheelbarrow – William carol Williams

so much depends
upon a red wheel 

barrow
glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens

This poem is difficult to understand. But f we go on by words like Barrow(stones raised over a grave) Glazed (showing no liveliness) chicken(young man); these words indicates a young man’s death.


(9) Anecdote of the jar:- 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.

Here in this poem metaphor is jar. And poem is about the Tennessee( a state of the united states of America)

(10) I(a, :- E.E.Cummings

l(a
le
af
fa
ll
s)
one
l
iness


A falling leaf is symbol of loneliness. The word ‘fall’ symbolized in any way. Fall means death, fall of spirituality; fall word also presents the damage caused because of world war and its effect on people.
Modernist literature is difficult to understand, it is absurd, there is hidden meaning, it becomes hard to get the whole meaning of poem.


Thank you....