Modernism & “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock ”

Modernism & “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” ENG4U

Contents • Introduction: The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot • Influences • Characteristics • Famous Modernist Writers • Postmodernism: A Caveat • T.S. Eliot • “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”

Introduction • The Waste Land, by T.S. Eliot, is a seminal Modernist text. • It was published in 1922 after undergoing many revisions by Eliot’s good friend, the poet Ezra Pound. • It is a long poem characterized by its density and many allusions. • Take a look at some quotations from the poem to help you understand the spirit of Modernism.

Son of man, You cannot say, or guess, for you know only A heap of broken images, where the sun beats, And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief, And the dry stone no sound of water. The Waste Land

I will show you fear in a handful of dust. The Waste Land

A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many, I had not thought death had undone so many. Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled, And each man fixed his eyes before his feet. The Waste Land

“My nerves are bad to-night. Yes, bad. Stay with me. Speak to me. Why do you never speak? Speak. What are you thinking of? What thinking? What? I never know what you are thinking. Think.” The Waste Land

She turns and looks a moment in the glass, Hardly aware of her departed lover; Her brain allows one half-formed thought to pass: “Well now that’s done: and I’m glad it’s over.” The Waste Land

I sat upon the shore Fishing, with the arid plain behind me Shall I at least set my lands in order? These fragments I have shored against my ruins. The Waste Land

Historical Influences • Charles Darwin (1809-1882) & On The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection • The beginning of the 20th century: “avant-garde” coined • Industrialization, railways, advancement in physics, engineering, and architecture • Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) & subjective reality • Friedrich Nietzsche & the will to power • WWI, Rise of Fascism, & the Great Depression

Literary Influences • Romanticism (1798-1870) was a reaction to the Industrial Revolution. • subjective • Realism (1820-1920) was a reaction to Romanticism. • objective • Modernism (1910-1965) was a reaction to Realism. • subjective

Characteristics • Isolation & Despair • Pessimism • Nihilism – life is meaningless • Break with Tradition/Experimental • Stream-of-consciousness & subjectivity • Abstract & Symbolic • Juxtapositions • Collage/Pastiche (“Make it New”) • Shattering Binaries & Preconceptions • Pop culture > High culture • Feminism

Famous Modernist Writers • Virginia Woolf • William Faulkner • James Joyce • Samuel Beckett • e.e. cummings • Wallace Stevens • Ezra Pound • William Carlos Williams

Postmodernism: A Caveat • After-Modernism • One critic's postmodernism is another critic's modernism. - Andreas Huyssen • Is there a division between Modernism & Postmodernism? • Is Postmodernism a continuation of Modernism? • Modernism = Pessimism, Postmodernism = Optimism

This is the way the world endsNot with a bang but a whimper The Hollow Men

T.S. Eliot (1888-1965) • Born in the USA, but moved to the UK at age 25 • Said his first marriage, “brought the state of mind out of which came The Waste Land.” • Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats (1939, light verse) inspired Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical, Cats. • Believed his poetry was a combination of American and British influences • Died of emphysema caused by heavy smoking

Modernism & “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock ”