Eliot, Prufrock & Modernism

1. Eliot, Prufrock & Modernism

2. Eliot’s Themes Eliot’s theories about modern poetry are enacted in his work: his w • Eliot’s theories about modern poetry are enacted in his work: • his writing exemplifies not only modernity, but also the modernist mode • it seeks to put the reader off balance so as to capture the incoherence and dislocations of a bewildering age.

3. Eliot’s Themes • the modern individual is “no longer at ease here” • he has witnessed the birth of something new and unprecedented, and finds the change to be a “[h]ard and bitter agony” • he also attempts to counteract its disorderliness: • bringing disparate elements into some sort of conceptual unity. • “The poet’s mind is in fact a receptacle for seizing and storing up numberless feelings, phrases, images, which remain there until all the particles which can unite to form a new compound are present together”

4. Modernism • Modernism is a literary and cultural international movement which flourished in the first decades of the 20th century. Modernism is not a term to which a single meaning can be ascribed. It may be applied both to the content and to the form of a work, or to either in isolation. It reflects a sense of cultural crisis which was both exciting and disquieting, in that it opened up a whole new vista of human possibilities at the same time as putting into question any previously accepted means of grounding and evaluating new ideas. Modernism is marked by experimentation, particularly manipulation of form, and by the realization that knowledge is not absolute.

5. Modernity Productive insecurity originated • Aesthetics of experimentation • Fragmentation • Ambiguity • Nihilism • Variety of theories • Diversity of practices

6. Theoretical Background Marx and Darwin had unsettled societyfrom their secure place at the centre of the human universe. Their theories threatened humanist self-confidence and caused a feeling of ideological uncertainty • Marx had revealed men’s dependence on laws and structures outside their control and sometimes beyond their knowledge. Historical and material determinism. • Darwin in his conception of evolution and heredity had situated humanity as the latest product of natural selection

7. Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny

8. Influential thinkers • Physicist Einstein on Relativity (1905) • Physicist Planck on Quantum Theory (1900) • Philosopher Nietzsche on the Will of Power • Philosopher Bergson on the Concept of Time • Psychologist William James on Emotions and Inner Time • Psychologist Freud on the Unconscious (The Interpretation of Dreams, 1900) • Psychologist Jung on Collective Unconscious • Linguist De Saussure on Language • Anthropologist Frazer on Primitive Cultures

9. Sigmund Freud (1856-1938) Austrian psychologist and psychotherapist • Discovered a new method to investigate the mind through analysis of dreams and free associations • Known for his theories of the unconscious mind and the defense mechanism of repression • Renowned for his redefinition of sexual desire as the primary motivational energy of human life directed toward a wide variety of objects • Famous for his therapeutic techniques, including • theory of transference in the therapeutic relationship • value of dreams as sources of insight into unconscious desires

10. Albert Einstein (1879-1955) The Theory of General Relativity A metric theory of gravitation Einstein's equations link the geometry of a four-dimensional space-time with the energy-momentum contained in that space-time Phenomena ascribed to the action of the force of gravity in classical mechanics, correspond to inertial motion within a curved geometry of spacetime The curvature is caused by the energy-momentum of matter Space-time tells matter how to move Matter tells space-time how to curve.

11. Max Plank (1858-1947) Considered the founder of quantum theory, and one of the most important physicists of the twentieth century, he discovered Quantum mechanics • the study of the relationship between quanta and elementary particles • regarded as the most fundamental framework we have for understanding and describing nature

12. James Frazer (1834-1841) Scottish social anthropologist influential in the early stages of the modern studies of mythology and comparative Religion. His most famous work, The Golden Bough (1890), documents similar magical and religious beliefs across the globe. He maintained that human belief progressed through three stages: • primitive magic • religion • science

13. Modern Art • Intentional distortion of shapes • Focus on form rather than meaning • Breaking down of limitation of space and time • Breakdown of social norms and cultural values • Dislocation of meaning and sense from its normal context • Valorisation of the despairing individual in the face of an unmanageable future • Disillusionment • Rejection of history and the substitution of a mythical past • Need to reflect the complexity of modern urban life • Importance of the unconscious mind • Interest in the primitive and non-western cultures • Impossibility of an absolute interpretation of reality • Overwhelming technological changes

14. Eliot believed Poetry should be a Reflection of Life: • Modern life is chaotic, futile, fragmentary • Eliot argues that modern poetry “must be difficult” to match the intricacy of modern experience. • poetry should reflect this fragmentary nature of life: • “ The poet must become more and more comprehensive, more allusive, more indirect, in order to force, to dislocate if necessary, language into his meaning” • this nature of life should be projected, not analyzed.

15. Eliot Believed:The Poet Should Draw Upon Tradition: • use the past to serve the present and future • “simultaneous order” • how the past, present, future interrelate • Sometimes at the same time • borrow from authors that are: • remote in time • alien in language • diverse in interest • use the past to underscore what is missing from the present.

16. Eliot’s Style/Technique • disconnected images/symbols • literary allusions/references • Sometimes VERY obscure!!! • highly expressive meter • rhythm of free verses • metaphysical whimsical images/whims • flexible tone

17. Eliot’s Style/Technique Let us go then, you and I, When the evening is spread out against the sky Like a patient etherized upon a table; Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets, The muttering retreats Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels And sawdust restaurants with oyster shells: Streets that follow like a tedious argument Of insidious intent To lead you to an overwhelming question . . . Oh, do not ask, "What is it?“ Let us go and make our visit. T.S Eliot Prufrock • Use of poetic line • Flexibility of line length • Massive use of alliteration and assonance • No use of traditional metre • No regular rhyme scheme • Use of visual images in distinct lines

18. Stream of consciousness • Aims to provide a textual equivalent to the stream of a fictional character’s consciousness • Creates the impression that the reader is eavesdropping on the flow of conscious experience in the character’s mind • Comes in a variety of stylistic forms • Narrated stream of consciousness often composed of different sentence types including psycho-narration and free indirect style • characterized by associative (and at times dissociative) leaps in syntax and punctuation

19. J. Joyce (1882-1941) EXCERPT FROM Ulysses – by James Joyce – the Calypso Episode He halted before Dlugacz’s window, staring at the hanks of sausages, polonies, black and white. Fifty multiplied by. The figures whitened in his mind unsolved: displeased, he let them fade. The shiny links packed with forcemeat fed his gaze and he breathed in tranquilly the lukewarm breath of cooked spicy pig’s blood. A kidney oozed bloodgouts on the willowpatterned dish: the last. He stood by the nextdoor girl at the counter. Would she buy it too, calling the items from a slip in her hand. Chapped: washing soda. And a pound and a half of Denny’s sausages. His eyes rested on her vigorous hips. Woods his name is. Wonder what he does. Wife is oldfish. New blood. No followers allowed. Strong pair of arms. Whacking a carpet on the clothesline. She does whack it, by George. The way her crooked skirt swings at each whack.

20. G. Orwell (1903-1950)

21. V. Woolf (1882-1941) “It seemed to her as she drank the sweet stuff that she was opening long windows, stepping out into some garden. But where? The clock was striking--one, two, three: how sensible the sound was; compared with all this thumping; like Septimus himself. She was falling asleep”.

22. Interior monologue "The total range of awareness and emotive-mental responses of an individual, from the lowest prespeech level to the highest fully articulated level of rational thought. The assumption is that in the mind of an individual at a given moment a stream of consciousness . . . is a mixture of all the levels of awareness, an unending flow of sensations, thoughts, memories, associations, and reflections; if the exact content of the mind ("consciousness") is to be described at any moment, then these varied, disjointed, and illogical elements must find expression in a flow of words, images, and ideas similar to the unorganized flow of the mind" • A particular kind of stream of consciousness writing • Also called quoted stream of consciousness, presents characters’ thought streams exclusively in the form of silent inner speech, as a stream of verbalised thoughts • Represents characters speaking silently to themselves and quotes their inner speech, often without speech marks • Is presented in the first person and in the present tense and employs deictic words • also attempts to mimic the unstructured free flow of thought • can be found in the context of third-person narration and dialogue

23. Eliot's Poetry: • Prufrock and Other Observations (1917) • The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock • Portrait of a Lady (poem) • Poems (1920) • Gerontion • Sweeney Among the Nightingales • The Waste Land (1922) • The Hollow Men (1925) • Ariel Poems (1927-1954) • The Journey of the Magi (1927) • Ash Wednesday (1930) • Coriolan (1931) • Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats (1939) • The Marching Song of the Pollicle Dogs and Billy M'Caw: The Remarkable Parrot (1939) in The Queen's Book of the Red Cross • Four Quartets (1945)

24. Eliot's Plays: Sweeney Agonistes (published in 1926, first performed in 1934) The Rock (1934) Murder in the Cathedral (1935) The Family Reunion (1939) The Cocktail Party (1949) The Confidential Clerk (1953) The Elder Statesman (first performed in 1958, published in 1959)

25. Eliot's Nonfiction: • The Second-Order Mind (1920) • Tradition and the Individual Talent (1920) • The Sacred Wood: Essays on Poetry and Criticism (1920) • "Hamlet and His Problems" • Homage to John Dryden (1924) • Shakespeare and the Stoicism of Seneca (1928) • For Lancelot Andrewes (1928) • Dante (1929) • Selected Essays, 1917–1932 (1932) • The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism (1933) • After Strange Gods (1934)

26. Eliot's Nonfiction: • Elizabethan Essays (1934) • Essays Ancient and Modern (1936) • The Idea of a Christian Society (1940) • A Choice of Kipling's Verse (1941) made by Eliot, with an essay on Rudyard Kipling, London, Faber and Faber. • Notes Towards the Definition of Culture (1948) • Poetry and Drama (1951) • The Three Voices of Poetry (1954) • The Frontiers of Criticism (1956) • On Poetry and Poets (1957)

27. Thomas Stearns Eliot Born: 26 September 1888 St. Louis, Missouri, United States Died: 4 January 1965 (aged 76) London, England Occupation: Poet, Dramatist, Literary critic Nationality: Born American, became a British subject in 1927