Modernist American Poetry on Anecdote of The Jar by Wallace Stevens

In the Modern Period, we begin to see writers and poets finding new ways to look at relatively common objects.  “Anecdote of the Jar” by Wallace Stevens is one of the examples of this. Wallace Stevens (October 2, 1879 – August 2, 1955) was an American modernist poet who lived in Connecticut.  He wrote the Anecdote of The Jar in 1919. The narrator places a common household object, which is a jar on a hill.  The jar has a rather poor effect on the surrounding countryside: it tames the wilderness and drives away the flora and fauna of Tennessee.

In the poem, Anecdote of the Jar, Stevens portrays the complex relationship of human to nature through confusion of who is greater than whom, how they depend on each other, the connection between the two, and the form the poem is written in. Stevens forces the reader to feel the confusion and chaos present between the jar (a symbol for humans) and nature. This relationship can be felt and read through the form the poem is written in.

         

We can see the connection of humans to the natural world through the first and last lines of the poem. These two lines embody the poem to start and finish in a calm way. Both end in the word Tennessee. This can show the relationship outline as being simple. Just as the port went above all the chaos, the outline of the poem goes around the chaos The first line of the poem is the beginning of the relationship. This opens the reader in a confusing state to figure out what Stevens is really trying to get across. This mass confusion is the body of the relationship. Somewhere in the poem, Stevens shows in a deeper meaning of the relationship through a connection. As the poem nears the end, the same word is used to end the poem. That is the end of the relationship; there is no more to be added. It leaves the reader feeling satisfied, even if he or she didn't understand the content of the poem.

Through the simple use of metaphor, Stevens has created a masterful work in the Modernist tradition.  This poem address the issues of metaphor and fragmentation as well as other modernist poems. Related to the theme of destruction is the theme of fragmentation. Fragmentation in modernist literature is thematic, as well as formal. Plot, characters, theme, images, and narrative form itself are broken.  The fragmentation used in this poem also being used to demonstrate the chaotic condition of human.

All in all, Stevens truly does a wonderful job of portraying the relationship of humans to nature. By using the jar to represent man, he was successful in creating an environment not only expressed in the poem, but also felt by the reader. He used irregular rhymes and role changes to express the complex relationship. The reader is left with confusion but a slight understanding of the relationship. Stevens expressed the relationship of humans to nature very well m this piece of work.

http://students.rockhurst.edu/personal/arnoldjm/Anecdote%20of%20the%20Jar.html

http://academic.regis.edu/jkarpins/Writings%20for%20Hu201%20Fall2000/anecdote_of_the_jar_by_wallace_s.htm

http://www.columbia.edu/itc/spanish/latinhum/ModernistaPoetry.pdf

Modernity in "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S Eliot

In the end of 19th century, appeared “modernists” who were writers and artists. They were trying to find out what was happening when the century turned to 20th century, because there are significant changes from the 19th century to the 20th century. Small cities might be the main field of the urban-life style because they were transformed from farming populations to small urban centers such as banks, cinemas, hospitals, department stores, shops, factories, and ware shops.

One of modernism writer was T.S.Eliot. He was born in St.Louis, Missouri, United States on September 18th 1888. His work, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, was considered as an influential poem in the movement of modernism because it contained imagery, and had introduced some of character such as despair, anxiety, hopelessness and fragmentation.

In this poem, the speaker, Prufrock, wanted to ask something, an overwhelming question, to the woman he desires. On the way to the meeting place, he describes everything that surrounded him in a dull and bitter way. He thought that everything was overwhelming and disorderly arranged. He also scared of the response that he would get when he tell that something to the woman. While he was walking down the street, he thought some random things in his life, which shows a fragmentation. As he walked and describing things around him, he jumped to his worries about future and old age, then he talked about women and Lazarus. In thoughts of his old age, he seemed indecisive, confused and hopeless; we can see that in “Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach? / I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach / I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each / I do not think that they will sing to me”. He also felt that no one would love him and take care of him. He thought that his life was miserable and undesirable, that is why he tell and describe something in a gloomy way. We can see in “It is impossible to say just what I mean” that he felt he was incapable of saying things, which shows his anxiety and despair of himself. Another example of his anxiety and hopelessness is when he was on the way meeting the woman, instead of making himself calm (because of the overwhelming question), he torture himself by asking more of depressing question like “Do I dare / Disturb the universe?”; “So how should I presume?”; “And how should I begin?”. The despair, anxiety and hopelessness of Prufrock show the character of modern man. Furthermore, this poem showed a bit of obsession in a modern man. Prufrock believed that there was no point to ask the overwhelming question to the woman, but he decided to continue meeting the woman. Out of its theme and interpretation, Eliot used imagery in this poem, which is one of sign of modernism. For example, "When the evening is spread out against the sky / Like a patient etherized upon a table" in lines 2–3, the "sawdust restaurants" and "cheap hotels," the yellow fog, and the afternoon "Asleep...tired... or it malingers" in line 77. To conclude, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock could be considered as the sign of modernism because Eliot used imagery in the poem and also feelings like despair, anxiety and hopelessness which were characters of modern man.

References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Love_Song_of_J._Alfred_Prufrock#Themes_and_interpretation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._S._Eliot
https://www.academia.edu/attachments/31623936/download_file

Pessimism in "The Waste Land" by T.S. Eliot

When we talked about the twenty-first century, we might directly think about T.S. Eliot and his famous poem called "The Waste Land". T.S Eliot became the most important literary figure in around 20th century and also a modernist poet. He wrote The Waste Land in 1922. Differed from Housman's poem, he describes optimism from the past while T.S Eliot represents pessimism. That pessimism feeling that many of twenty century poets had wasn't because self-pity, but it was all pure from intellectual and more impersonal. T.S Eliot regarded as a poet who writes about loneliness, boredom, and emptiness in around 20th century. He began to predict about more issues about pessimism after the First World War. He frustrated himself and pessimist about the future lives that people would had later. The poem consist some symbols; water, music and singing, and the fisher king. Those portrays some meaning--water symbolized both life and death. He tried to explain to reader that water can both harm and bring some luck as well. Water can both help for restoring life, but also lead into drowning and death, like what the character name Phlebas the sailor from The Waste Land. The other symbols, which are the fisher king and music and singing, also represent thoughtful meaning. The fisher king is actually the central character in The Waste Land. He represents Jesus Christ as a fish. Whereas, Eliot explains the Fisher King as a symbolic of humanity, as if it's connected to the meaningless of urban existence. On the other hand, Eliot is an ordinary modernist poet, so like the other modernist poet, he was interested in the divide between high and low culture then symbolized it by using music. Eliot believes that opera, drama and art were in decline while popular culture was on the rise.

In the poem, which is The Waste Land, Eliot shows his conviction about people that lived in modern world was actually cannot fully live. He began to say that people who lived in modern world are spiritually dead. Eliot tried to tell readers about how fragile human psychological state in twentieth century. He believes that twentieth century began to destroy yet somehow beautiful and deeply meaningful.  He also adds some details; like "human will only experience to work in their life." Eliot uses techniques like pastiche and juxtaposition to make his points without having to argue them explicitly. From the poem, we can see that the writer wrote in every different section apart. From the first section, we can see that it is called Anglican Burial Service and explain with different speaker. This section mostly can be seen as a modified dramatic monologue. He wrote so many section and explain step-by-step about how the waste land and the problems--troubled religious proposition, transformation, and at the end of the first section, Eliot established waste land as the modern city with some fictional name and described it as desolate, depopulated and inhabited only by ghosts from the past.

We can see that Eliot felt that Western culture was headed to hell in a hand basket, and people were getting dumber and dumber as the time went by.  The whole reason why he wrote this poem is because modern people do not care anything, even an art or spirituality. He assumed that people getting dumbed down by atheism, booze, and also laziness. Overall, The Waste Land is about psychological and cultural crisis which came with the loss of moral identity right after World War I. Pessimist issue become more visible as more people tried to analyze this poem. Eliot attitude through the poem explain enough pessimism in modern era.  Eliot supports his poem with combining images from pagan rituals and religious texts with ancient fertility rituals and allusions to legends of the Grail. These images of ceremony and tradition are set against bleak images of modern life.

In the end, Eliot does write a serious and complex poem to be understood. His imagery through future urban life already pessimist by looking at people's attitude, which are most of them become atheist and general laziness that already conquer them.

References:

SPARKNOTES, TS Eliot Poem Analysis, The Waste Land. http://www.sparknotes.com/poetry/eliot/analysis.html.

POETRY FOUNDATION, The Waste Land by T.S Eliot. http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/176735.

E-Notes. Study Guide, The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot Poem Analysis. http://www.enotes.com/topics/waste-land.

T.S Eliot. http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/t-s-eliot.

SHMOOP, The Waste Land Analysis. http://www.shmoop.com/the-waste-land/poem-text.html.