write an essay on modern poetry

QuestionsAnswered.net

What's Your Question?

10 Great Essay Writing Tips

Knowing how to write a college essay is a useful skill for anyone who plans to go to college. Most colleges and universities ask you to submit a writing sample with your application. As a student, you’ll also write essays in your courses. Impress your professors with your knowledge and skill by using these great essay writing tips.

Prepare to Answer the Question

Most college essays ask you to answer a question or synthesize information you learned in class. Review notes you have from lectures, read the recommended texts and make sure you understand the topic. You should refer to these sources in your essay.

Plan Your Essay

Many students see planning as a waste of time, but it actually saves you time. Take a few minutes to think about the topic and what you want to say about it. You can write an outline, draw a chart or use a graphic organizer to arrange your ideas. This gives you a chance to spot problems in your ideas before you spend time writing out the paragraphs.

Choose a Writing Method That Feels Comfortable

You might have to type your essay before turning it in, but that doesn’t mean you have to write it that way. Some people find it easy to write out their ideas by hand. Others prefer typing in a word processor where they can erase and rewrite as needed. Find the one that works best for you and stick with it.

View It as a Conversation

Writing is a form of communication, so think of your essay as a conversation between you and the reader. Think about your response to the source material and the topic. Decide what you want to tell the reader about the topic. Then, stay focused on your response as you write.

Provide the Context in the Introduction

If you look at an example of an essay introduction, you’ll see that the best essays give the reader a context. Think of how you introduce two people to each other. You share the details you think they will find most interesting. Do this in your essay by stating what it’s about and then telling readers what the issue is.

Explain What Needs to be Explained

Sometimes you have to explain concepts or define words to help the reader understand your viewpoint. You also have to explain the reasoning behind your ideas. For example, it’s not enough to write that your greatest achievement is running an ultra marathon. You might need to define ultra marathon and explain why finishing the race is such an accomplishment.

Answer All the Questions

After you finish writing the first draft of your essay, make sure you’ve answered all the questions you were supposed to answer. For example, essays in compare and contrast format should show the similarities and differences between ideas, objects or events. If you’re writing about a significant achievement, describe what you did and how it affected you.

Stay Focused as You Write

Writing requires concentration. Find a place where you have few distractions and give yourself time to write without interruptions. Don’t wait until the night before the essay is due to start working on it.

Read the Essay Aloud to Proofread

When you finish writing your essay, read it aloud. You can do this by yourself or ask someone to listen to you read it. You’ll notice places where the ideas don’t make sense, and your listener can give you feedback about your ideas.

Avoid Filling the Page with Words

A great essay does more than follow an essay layout. It has something to say. Sometimes students panic and write everything they know about a topic or summarize everything in the source material. Your job as a writer is to show why this information is important.

A Collection of Critical Essays on Modern Poetry

Related Papers

Mariwan Barzinji

Ol'ga M. Ushakova Tyumen State University (Tyumen, Russia) ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0656-3774 A b s t r a c t. Several flowers are referred to in T. S. Eliot's poems which are used symbolically. The article "Lilacs and Hyacinths: Two Symbols of Sadness in T.S. Eliot's 'The Waste Land'" deals with research of symbolic meanings of the floristic imagery in the major poem by T. S. Eliot. The notion of the symbol with reference to modernism is unusual and polemic, so the authors examine the structure and essence of modernist symbols that evoke deep and unconscious responses in the reader focusing on terminological and theoretical aspects of the problem. Historical and archetypical approaches have been used to interpret and explore the meanings of lilacs and hyacinths in Eliot's 'The Waste Land'. The analytical survey has been carried out to demonstrate the peculiar use of two flowers mentioned in 'The Waste Land'. Data were gathered from the text of the poem and from theoretical and historical sources. The important research goals were to find out if the two flowers have been used symbolically and differ from each other. For each flower its symbolic and common meanings that have been explored in different contexts of the poem (historical, biographical, mythological, cultural, anthropological, etc.). The international research team (Iraq, Russia) have also tried to take into account the challenges of teaching English modernist poetry to the international students in the age of global education.

Филологический класс

Olga Ushakova

Olga Ushakova. University of Tyumen (Tyumen, Russia) ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0656-3774 A b s t r a c t. В поэзии Т. С. Элиота встречается целый ряд цветов, которые могут быть интерпретированы символически. В статье «Сирень и гиацинт: два символа печали в „Бесплодной земле“ Т. С. Элиота» исследуется символика образов цветов в одной из самых значительных поэм Т. С. Элиота. Само понятие символ по отношению к модернизму может вызвать полемику, поэтому авторы статьи уделяют внимание изучению структуры и природы модернистского символа, вызывающего у читателя глубокие и бессознательные реакции, обращаясь к терминологическим и теоретическим аспектам проблемы. Для интерпретации и анализа символики сирени и гиацинтов в поэме Элиота применялись, прежде всего, историко-литературный и архетипический подходы. В ходе анализа была выявлена неоднозначность и оригинальность семантики двух цветов в «Бесплодной земле». Материалом исследования послужили как поэтические тексты, так и теоретические и историко-литературные работы. Одной из важных задач также было выяснение сходства и различия символических уровней и соответствий того и другого флористического образа. Символическое и универсальное значение каждого из цветов рассматривалось в различных контекстах (исторический, биографический, мифологический, культурный, антропологический и т. д.).

Modern poetry "The Hollow Men"

T.S. Eliot has reached a stage of maturity in which he confirms the hollowness of the modern men. This realization may be due to his strong religious belief and his personal experience. His religious belief is a mixture of his previous belief and his new religious belief and these have been clear in "The Hollow Men". Also his personal experience is quite rich as he has lived in the US and moved to England as well as visited Germany and France. Eliot has started the poems with two epigraphs which carry significant meanings and the beginning of the poem is a great stage as it contains the confession of the modern hollow men who act as Mr. Kirtz of The Heart of Darkness. Modern man is empty of spirituality, religion and real love as Eliot presented it in "The Hollow Men". A textual approached is used along with a historical approach to explore the emptiness and hollowness of the modern man. It was found out that Eliot did not mean to humiliate the hollow men, but he rather praises them for repenting from their sins.

T. S. Eliot and Modernism Preface Eliot is the master of modern poetry. His poems are insight to the life of people in the modern age. His complicated poems delve deep in the modern issues. Also his impersonal poetry though is like a science, quite well deals with the problems of people in the twentieth century. Eliot’s poetry explains both the modern problems with the modern problems. Eliot has realized that he could convey his thought through his poetry. Moreover, Eliot’s quest reaches to the point where the poet looks at the modern life as gloomy, nihilistic and meaningless. People who lived in the modern age feel alienated and alone in the crowd. All the solid and significant things were trivialized. Freud’s idea, Darwin’s idea and Marx’s ideology have actively taken part in making shifts in people’s understanding of life. Having lived in a religious family, Eliot’s poems are usually talking about the value of the individual and religious belief. This should not be forgotten that Eliot has been influenced by the above mentioned philosophies and his teachers at Harvard. Although Eliot has undergone several influences yet he was having his own unique style of writing. This is certainly has been reflected in his plays, poetry and prose writings. In this regard several studies have been conducted when he was a young poet.

Caterina Guardini

"Eliot’s Four Quartets tend to be identified with the struggle for classical order and the music analogy implicit in the title of the poem, but, as some scholars have tried to demonstrate, Eliot’s concern with the visual avant-gardes, in particular ballet, does have an influence on his poetry. These pages are an attempt to analyse the images, metaphors and terminology borrowed from dance which are used in the poem and compare them to a recent transposition of the poem into ballet by the Canadian choreographer Deborah Dunn: the reciprocal connection between word and image testifies to the visual dimension of Four Quartets".

The main goal in writing this paper is to illustrate and shed light on the four main themes of the poem; myth and misogyny, violence and sexuality, self-importance and carelessness, human desire and animality in the poem and how Eliot describes his own preview on modern man and the condition of life which is full incompleteness by presenting this poem. Reading the poem carefully will make that clear that Eliot chose those themes for some reasons; firstly because the modern society suffers from lack of communication and live in an imaginary life and most of them construct a relationship just to quench their whims, not to complete their lives. Eliot believed that modern man is selfish and careless about the main points of building sabbatical life for themselves and others. In his paper, modern man's problem has been shown on the shape of duplicity, lack of relationship and the effect of poverty on women in society, these problems are depicted by Eliot in "Sweeney Erect". Moreover, the paper focuses on Eliot's portrayal of women in the poem and finally through these themes Eliot tells us "Sweeney Erect" is a mirror, in which the condition of modern society is reflected.

University of Kurdistan

Critical Literary Studies (CLS)

The current paper provides an analytical study of Eliot’s poem, “The Hollow Men.” The methods that have been employed in this research are textual and reader-response analyses. The poem has been explored from both approaches in order to know the first impression of the researcher of the poem and backed by critics’ notions of the poem. The study thus intends to shed light on two main themes including religion, spirituality, meaninglessness and nothingness. It also tends to demonstrate how Eliot portrays his own view on the modern men and the modern life through this poem. Eliot believes that modern men are hollow from their insides, and they are empty yet filled with straw just like a scarecrow. The paper tackles the critics’ views on Eliot, Eliot’s view on modernity, and the role of tradition and intertextuality in Eliot’s poetry. The paper finally depicts major themes in the poem. Eliot, in his quest for finding a satisfying religion, penned “The Hollow Men” as a mirror to the conditions of the society after the World War I which caused suffering from lack of faith, religion and morality.

The current paper provides an analytical study of Eliot's poem, "The Hollow Men." The methods that have been employed in this research are textual and reader-response analyses. The poem has been explored from both approaches in order to know the first impression of the researcher of the poem and backed by critics' notions of the poem. The study thus intends to shed light on two main themes including religion, spirituality, meaninglessness and nothingness. It also tends to demonstrate how Eliot portrays his own view on the modern men and the modern life through this poem. Eliot believes that modern men are hollow from their insides, and they are empty yet filled with straw just like a scarecrow. The paper tackles the critics' views on Eliot, Eliot's view on modernity, and the role of tradition and intertextuality in Eliot's poetry. The paper finally depicts major themes in the poem. Eliot, in his quest for finding a satisfying religion, penned "The Hollow Men" as a mirror to the conditions of the society after the World War I which caused suffering from lack of faith, religion and morality.

Ian Probstein

History in Four Quartets is revealed through the images of time and space. The image of time in Eliot, especially, in Four Quartets is, so to speak, a dramatis persona, one of the main characters of the poem. Mikhail Bakhtin in his seminal The Forms of Time and Chronotope in the Novel applies chronotope only to prose disregrading other genres, or arts, or culture in general. Bakhtin states that genre and genre varieties are determined by chronotope and that the most essential and leading part of it in literature is that of time. However, time-space, or chronotope, is perhaps even more important in poetry, even in lyric poetry, than in prose since poetry is much more condensed than prose and can be defined as time-space condensed in images. This is certainly the case of Four Quartet. The chronotopes of the road and of the quest, to use Bahktin’s formula, are dominant in Four Quartets, and it is evident that time plays the most crucial part in it. This interrelation between time and space is already reflected in the titles themselves alluding to the places meaningful for Eliot. The philosophical and musical integrity of Four Quartets is a contrapuntual integrity of tensions and contradictions where each new movement denies the previous one, each fifth movement, a coda, is a solution and resolution of the entire quartet while the first movement of the next quartet reveals new contradictions — point counter point. “Little Gidding” reveals its own contradictions and at the same time is a coda, a denouement of the whole cycle; its fifth part in a circular movement unites the themes of the rose and of the yew-tree, the end and the beginning. There is another characteristic feature of the ‘dialogic imagination’ in Four Quartets: according to Bakhtin, “dialogic imagination” is seeking the truth, while ‘monologism’ pretends to know it. The whole composition of Four Quartets, its architectonics, is built, as I tried to show, according to the principle of investigation, that is to say, of seeking the truth: each movement reveals its tensions and contradictions of being, the last movement of each "Quartet" is usually a denouement while the first movement of the next "Quartet" denies or develops the previous and reveals new contradictions.

Oxford Bibliographies - T. S. Eliot

Christopher Mcvey

Aggregating, annotating, and synthesizing more than one-hundred years of scholarship on T. S. Eliot's life and work, this Oxford Bibliographies entry for T. S. Eliot was the result of a year-long team effort. I contributed entries for scholarship on The Waste Land and Ash Wednesday and Ariel Poems, in addition to advising and contributing to other sections of the bibliography. ---- From the Oxford Bibliographies website: "Oxford Bibliographies provides faculty and students alike with a seamless pathway to the most accurate and reliable resources for a variety of academic topics. Written and reviewed by academic experts, every article in our database is an authoritative guide to the current scholarship, containing original commentary and annotations." https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/

RELATED PAPERS

Othman A Marzoog , alaq diaa

Anderson Araujo

Modernism/Modernity

cassandra Laity

nabil bensalem

Roxana Birsanu

Michael Coyle

Gui Freitas

Rassegna iberistica

Margalit Serra

Journal of Foreign Languages and Cultures

David Kellogg

Viorica Patea

Gender Forum

Julia Hoydis

Jamie Callison

American Literary History

Matthew Hart

Anthony Cuda

Juan Manuel Escamilla González Aragón

Patrick R . Query

Timothy Materer

Make It New, Ezra Pound Society

Andrew Houwen

James Gifford

Shobhana Bhattacharji

Ralf Haekel

Journal of Inklings Studies

Stephen Barber

Abuse Practice of Power in Orwell's Animal Farm: A Historical Approach

Nayef Al-joulan

'On Margate Sands'

Susie Hamilton

Abu-Baker H Shamal , Shamal Abh

Aaron Aquilina

The Year's Work in English Studies

Sophie Vlacos

Muhammad Ehsan

Poetic Plethora: An Annotated Anthology of Select Victorian and Modern Poems, ed. Nilanko Mallik (New Delhi: Educreation)

Aaron Edwards

International Journal of Comparative Literature and Translational Studies

Anna Kurasova

Dr. John Wallen

The Glass, No. 32

Roger Kojecky

Modernist Poetry Analysis Based on The Concept of Invention and Its Poets

Categories: Modernism Poetry World History

About this sample

Downloads: 31

Cite this Essay

Let us write you an essay from scratch

450+ experts on 30 subjects ready to help
Custom essay delivered in as few as 3 hours

Get high-quality help

Verified writer

Expert in: Arts & Culture Literature History

+ 120 experts online

By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy . We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email

No need to pay just yet!

Related Essays

4.5 pages / 1944 words

2.5 pages / 1236 words

3 pages / 1375 words

5 pages / 2323 words

Still can’t find what you need?

Browse our vast selection of original essay samples, each expertly formatted and styled

Related Essays on Poetry

Wallace Stevens, it seems, never spoke a great deal about his poem “Sunday Morning.” Because Stevens gives us very little insight into his own thoughts, it is important to examine the thoughts of other critics before analyzing a [...]

Richard Wilbur’s poem “Boy at the Window” describes a young boy looking at the snowman he has built outside his window at twilight. Noting the cold outdoor environment in which his snowman must spend the night, the boy weeps; [...]

Ovid’s Metamorphoses is a work about transience, and perhaps no two things in the natural world are more fleeting than life and beauty. Artists aim to preserve these two qualities in their work by simultaneously imitating the [...]

As one may look into a mirror, the reflections that they see may vary. For Dana Franklin in Octavia Butler’s Kindred (1979), she sees her long lost ancestor Alice Greenwood. The story tells the tale of Dana, a young black [...]

Knut Hamsun’s fin de siècle novel Hunger sets the reader up for a journey with its opening sentence when Hamsun writes, “Christiania, singular city, from which no man departs without carrying away traces of his sojourn there.” [...]

Donne is sick and his poetry is sick. - Stanley Fish Fish's comment, though extreme in its reductive appraisal, is nevertheless understandable. He may find Donne's poetry objectionable on three accounts: style, [...]

Get Your Personalized Essay in 3 Hours or Less!

We use cookies to personalyze your web-site experience. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .

We can help you get a better grade and deliver your task on time!

Instructions Followed To The Letter
Deadlines Met At Every Stage
Unique And Plagiarism Free

20th Century (Modern) Poetry in English Literature: Characteristics & Themes

Back to: History of English Literature All Ages – Summary & Notes

Table of Contents

Introduction

The 20 th century was like no time period before it. Einstein, Darwin, Freud, and Marx were just some of the thinkers who profoundly changed the Western Culture. These changes took distinct shape in the literature of the 20 th century.

Modernism, a movement that was a radical break from 19 th century Victorianism , led to post-modernism, which emphasized self-consciousness and pop art. While 20th-century literature is a diverse field covering a variety of genres, there are common characteristics that changed literature forever.

20th Century English Poetry Development

The 20th century English poetry emerged in the early years of the 20 th century through various schools, styles, and influences:

The first phase of the movement, the school of imagism, the style of French symbolist poetry influence of Dome and the dominance of war poetry, these were all different manifestations of modernism in English poetry (1909-16)A.D.

During the flowering of Modernist poetry between 1917 and 1929, the 2 nd phase of the movement, all these initial manifestations of modernism combined to find a full nature expression in the poetry of T.S. Eliot, Edith Sitwell and later Yeats most notable of which is,Eliot’s The Waste Land , Sitwell’s Gold Coast Customs and Yeats’s Michael Robartes and the Dances

The 3 rd and the final phase of Modernist is largely the decade of the 30s which is marked by the Marxed (Non-Marxist) poets such as Auden, Louis McNiece, C. Day-Lewis and Stephen Spender.

Characteristics

Diverse variety of themes.

Poetry today can be written on almost any subject. The modern poets find inspirations from railway trains, tramcars, telephones and things of commonplace interest. Modern poets have not accepted the theory of great subjects for poetic composition.

The whole universe is the modern poet’s composition. He writes on themes of real-life e.g. The Songs Train by John Davidson, Goods Train of Night by Ashley, Machine Guns by Richard Aldington, Listeners by Walter

The poetry of the 20 th century is marked with a note of realism. Realism in modern poetry was the product of a reaction against the pseudo- romanticism of the last century over and above the influence of science.

The modern poet sees life and paints it as it is with all its wait and ugliness. He tears the veil which the romanticists had hug between life and art. Robert Frost, Edmund Blunden, and Gibson are the poets of realism in modern poetry.

Love forms the subject of many modern lyrics Robert Bridges has produced fine sonnets of love in The Growth of Love. E.g. I Will Not Let Thee Go. W.B. Yeats’ When You are Old etc.

There is a note of pessimism and disillusionment in modern poetry. The modern poet has realized the pettiness of human life and the tragedy and suffering of the poor have made him gloomy and sad.

Poetry as the expression of the feeling has become autumnal in tone T. Hardy, Huxley and T.S. Eliot are the poets of Pessimism and disillusionment in modern poetry.

Romantic Elements

In spite of the dominance of realism, in modern poetry, the spirit of romance continues to rule the minds of certain poets like Yeats, E. Thomas, Masefield etc. The works of these poets have the fact that the spirit of romance is as old as the life itself.

Walter De La Mare’s poetry is full of true romantic spirit bordering on supernaturalism. With him, the ghosts and fairies of the old world have come into their own in the 20 th century.

Nature attracts the modern poet no less than the poets of the earlier ages. But for the modern poet, nature is not a mystic. He does not find any spiritual meaning in nature. He feels jolly at the sight of nature’s loveliness.

He gives a clear picture of birds, clouds landscapes, sea and countryside in his poetry. Masefield, Robert Bridges, Edmund Blunden etc are the great poets of nature in modern poetry.

Humanitarian and Democratic Note

Modern poetry is marked with a note of humanitarianism and democratic feeling. The modern poet, more than Wordsworth ( read A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal ) , is interested in the life of labourers, workers etc.

He sees, in the daily struggles of these people the same potentialities that the older poets found in those of high rank. Masefield, Gibson, Goldsworthy are mainly interested in the common man and his sufferings.

Religion and Mysticism

The modern age is the age of science, but even in this scientific age, we have poems written on the subject of religion and mysticism. W.B. Yeats, Francis Thompson, Robert Graves etc are the great poets who have kept alive the flame of religion and mysticism in their poetry.

Diction and Style

Modern poets have a preference for simple and direct expression. Modern poets have chosen to be free in the use of the meter. They have followed freedom from the trammels of verse. Verse rhythm is replaced by sense rhythm. There is free movement in 20th-century English poetry.