By Nafiur Rahman

“Make it new”, a quote by Ezra Pound formed the basic theory for defining the modernist approach in literature. The term was first identified in the late 15th century which can also be examined as an umbrella movement consisting of other literary movements such as Renaissance (early modern), age of Enlightenment (classic literature when the idea of man as a rational animal formed), Romanticism, Post Romanticism and the movement of Imagism. 

The thoughts and ideas of ancient Greece and Rome can be seen in the classical literatures that spoke about rules, models and largely about the Apollonian drive whereas Romanticism was all about inspiration, imagination, breaking of the rules for creating something new and prioritized the Dionysian drive in terms of nature and instinct. However, Modernism started to be quite different from the previous literary movements that focused on concrete ideas instead of abstract. The poems written by the modern poets consisted of no classic rules (meters, rhymes or punctuations) and targeted the subject/goal quite abruptly and no unnecessary use of words. Thus it can also be said that Modernism not only involves concrete ideas but also is about a particular form of writing. 

The poets that I will focus on to write this paper will be from the 18th and 19th century (Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, Hilda Doolittle and Robert Frost). Their poems consist of a unique type of similarities that will be examined in this paper.

The movement of Imagism is a strand of modernism that rejected the abstract and emphasized the concrete which is explained by the use of simple words, simile and metaphors. It was a reaction of the Modern poets against the Victorian and Romantic Poets who emphasized the subject of their texts/poetries by ornamentations.The poems of these poets did not necessarily maintain a particular rhyme, instead were written in the structure of free verse. Moreover, the poems of these writers also provided an Apocalyptic view of the mankind/world of being in crisis (political, religious, ethical, moral, rights, gender, etc). 

‘The River Merchant’s Wife: A Letter’ primarily was written by the Chinese Poet, Li Po which was translated by Earnest Fenollosa, which he could not finish. After his death, Fenollosa’s wife handed over her husband’s draft to Ezra Pound (1885 – 1972) who later completed the task of translation of the poem. In this poem we can see the lack of any metrical verse which Pound intentionally did to bring out the raw emotions of the characters. It is a poem that speaks about conjugated bliss within a couple where a wife writes a letter to her husband who has left home for five months. “If you are coming down through the narrows of the river Kiang” and “ The monkeys make sorrowful noise overhead”, the lines from the poem provides the idea of Objective Correlative where the emotions of the young wife (boys and girls got married at a very early age in 8th century, China) has been represented by the environment surrounding her. The river also forms a symbol (Imagism) of the relationship that has evolved with time (the constant flow and change of river with time). Moreover, the river also forms a sort of physical barrier between the couple that is stopping them from being close to each other. An Apocalyptic view can also be observed in the poem where the husband had to let go of his emotions to respond to his social responsibilities, “You dragged your feet when you went out” – crisis of loneliness and depression of his wife. ‘In a Station of the Metro’, another poem by Pound also provides Imagism through the short lines with the use of exact descriptive words to address the subject directly – the station fills-up as soon as a train reaches the station and empties within a few moment after the train leaves the station. The use of the word “apparition” is an Objective Correlative as it demonstrates the astonishment of the speaker by seeing the sudden flow of people filling up and the sudden desertion of the station. 

Next we will examine William Carlos Williams (1883 – 1963) and how the features of Modernism have been reflected in his poetries. The time of his contemporaries was during the massive development of medical science when the crisis of faith in religion aroused the theory of evolution by Darwin. Williams provided a solution by merging art/creativity with religion together and created poems consisting of Objective Correlative with Aesthetic impressions. His poems became substitute for religion as his beliefs were that art has the ability to give meaning to life in this chaotic world. The difference between the theories of Creationism and Evolution were brought closer to each other through Williams’ approach to poetry. He stripped of all abstract language and chose words in the poem of ‘The Red Wheelbarrow’ that highlighted it as just a simple machine (without ornamentation). Thus it provided the sensation of the wheelbarrow as a tangible object (Imagism) guided by the close attention to the smallest elements of nature – rainwater covering and the white chickens. Williams focused on the beauty of a common place by zooming in and out of an image in the poem. The concreteness of the elements with the lacking of any abstract/figurative language made it Aesthetically successful. He avoided adding any ideas or emotions, instead providing a simple imagery of  “a red wheel/ barrow / glazed with rain / water / beside the white / chickens”. Imagism can also be observed in his poem of ‘This is Just to Say’ where a husband writes a note to his beloved wife about how he was tempted (Epicureanism) in having the plums that were probably saved for the future. Instead of using any formal words or metrics, Williams chose a very casual conversational tone of words (reactions against the Romantic and Victorian poets) with the simplest of words, “I have eaten / the plums / that were in / the icebox”. The speaker in this poem confesses about this mistake directly while also explaining the reasons for his temptation, “Forgive me / they were delicious / so sweet / and so cold”. In the previous literary eras, nature and rural areas were highlighted but as a Modern poet, Williams was one of the very first poets who wrote about urban life in the poem of “The Great Figure”. The residents of the city were self-concerned that they did not find it necessary to let a firetruck respond to an emergency, “fire truck / moving / tense/ unheeded”. The loss of morality/humanity can be observed in the poems (Apocalypticism). The poem is written in free verse and the lack of enjambment allows the readers to feel a sense of hurry in relation to the speed of the fire truck. 

Hida Doolittle (1886 – 1961) is another Modern poet who also wrote about the chaotic and oppressive society which has been portrayed by the speakers in the poems who are suffering from depression (Apocalypticism). The poem ‘Mid-Day’ focused on the subjective experience along with the speaker’s psychological crisis / disturbed state of mind, “my thoughts are spent / …../ my thoughts tear me”. The speaker represents herself as a tree whose seeds are shedding with the continuity of time, “A slight wind shakes the seed-pods” (the seeds represent her poems that never got published). Hilda compares herself to Ezra Pound and finds herself to be a failure as a poet. Pound succeeded in achieving fame and accomplishment whereas H.D is struggling with the social bindings upon her. Instead of using any ornamentation, she chose to use simple words to present a scenario (Imagism) to demonstrate her depression and anxieties (Objective Correlative). H.D compares herself to a rose that has emerged in between the cracks of a stone in the poem of ‘The Garden’. “I could break a tree”, explains her rigid state of mind – depression, from which she is struggling to get free. It is a call for help to release her from this state of mind and speak against the social norms of her contemporary period, “O wind, rend open the heat”. As her poems represent the psychologically disturbed state of mind, Hilda Doolittle can also be termed as a Confessional poet as well as a Modern poet. 

In modern poetry, poets showed the life of urban rather than rural and explained how the idea of Mortedo (death) can be observed within the lives of city dwellers – loneliness, depression, corruption, fear, anxiety,etc. Robert Lee Frost (1874 – 1963) is considered to be a modern poet though his writing strategies involved the rules of the traditionals. He used elements of nature to represent/deeply analyze the urban system and its residents which marks him different from the Romantics. The poem ‘Stopping by the Woods’ provides an Apocalyptic view of the world where the speaker visualizes the slow death of nature represented in the line, “to watch his woods fill up with snow”. The speaker’s anxiety formed from the social construct of capitalist America. Even though it was his desire to continue watching the snow covering the woods, he is reminded by his responsibilities towards his immediate family and to his society, “but I have promises to keep / and miles to go before I sleep” and anxiety of trespassing another’s property makes him leave and let go of his wish to stay back. The alienation or the distance of citizens of cities with the guardians of law can also be seen in his poem, ‘Acquainted with the Night’ in the line, “I have passed by the watchman on his beat / And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain”. The city is lonely and violence resides within the very core of the heart of cities which the speaker is trying to escape from, “I have looked down the saddest city lane / …. / When far away an interrupted cry”. Depression within him is making him unable to interact with the society because of which he is acquainted with the night where ordinary people usually associate themselves with the day. Similarly another poem of Frost also speaks about psychological fragmentation. The speaker in ‘Desert Places’ is speaking about the fear of isolation with himself which has been compared to the woods covered up with snow (Objective Correlative; Imagism). It was written primarily as a repost to Blaise Pascal’s quote, “The eternal silence of these infinite spaces terrifies me. We shall die alone” where Pascal is worried about the fragile state of mankind in comparison to the vastness of the cosmos. The Desert Place of the speaker in Frost’s poems is within himself and is not in the outer spaces that concern him (Apocalypticism). The loneliness is consuming him as like the snow that is absorbing the entirety of nature that cannot be controlled (untamed nature), “a blanker whiteness of benighted snow / wIth no expression, nothing to express”. Moreover, the fragility of life can also be observed in the poem of ‘Design’ where Frost portrayed the idea of God. According to him, the idea of someone in control of everything in the universe is not comforting, rather it is horrific. The speaker witnesses a disturbing scenario of a white flower on which a white spider has pounded on a white moth that horrifies him. Usually the color white is associated with purity and divinity, but Frost used this particular color with reference to the elements of nature as something that demonstrates pain, suffering and death. The speaker wonders if there is a God to really care about such small things, ‘If design govern in a thing so small” and if there is a supreme power, it must have a twisted mind that is not compassionate towards its creation as it has created such terrors. The modern ideology of power reigning over the weak has been portrayed in the lines of this poem of Frost. He believed that rural life is less complicated and is able to give meaning to life; moreover, through his poems he also identified the importance of relationships between mankind and nature. His approach to poetry to understand the urban by the close observation of rural makes him a pastoral poet as well as a modern one.

Finally it can be said that the modern poets might have been influenced by the social contemporary periods and witnessed the sufferings of people from political oppressions, World War I, forced migration and other social factors which have been portrayed in their works. They represented the chaotic, lonely and depressed people (Apocalypticism) as a voice against the Romantic and Victorian poets by writing in free verse and avoiding the classic rules of poetry. They have used simple words to create concrete ideas to establish solace in art (Aestheticism) as the religions and laws of constitutions have failed to maintain peace and order throughout the world.