Modernism Movement
Ortecia Guity
Aaliyah Carson
Bri-Jae Scarbrough
Winsinslow
What is the modernism movement ?
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Modernism is characterized as
a revolutionary force
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In science Einstein was
reassessing time, space, and our
relationship to these concepts
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In global politics two world
wars was bracketed decades of
intense technological advances
in the mass killing of soldiers
and civilians
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Surrealism
Cubo-Futurism
In visual arts surrealism,
futurism, abstraction, and
cubism overthrew most accepted
traditional ideas about pictorial
representation.
Semi-Abstract
Techniques of modernism
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experimentation,
anti-realism,
individualism
intellectual
verbal cleverness
Juxtaposition,
irony, comparisons,
satire
Themes of modernism
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The breaking down of social norms,
rejection of standard social ideas ,traditional
thoughts and expectations,
objection to religion
anger towards the effects of the world wars
the rejection of the truth
rejection of history,
social systems
sense of loneliness
Reject Romanticism and Victorian Literature
Wallace Stevens
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Wallace Stevens (1879-1955)
◦ attended Harvard University as
an undergrad from 1879 to
1900
◦ due to shortages of family funds
he had to withdraw from the
university
◦ once out of Harvard he worked
as a journalist for the New York
Evening Post
◦ his father counseled him to
study law so he graduated from
New York School of Law in
1904 and practiced law in New
York city until 1916
◦ moved to Connecticut where
he became vice president of a
health insurance company
Notable works
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Harmonium (1930)
Ideas of Order (1935)
The Man with the Blue Guitar (1942)
Collected Poems (1954)
The Snow Man
by Wallace Stevens
One must have a mind of
Of any misery in the sound of
winter
the wind,
To regard the frost and the
In the sound of a few leaves,
boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with Which is the sound of the land
snow;
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same
And have been cold a long time bare place
To behold the junipers shagged
with ice,
For the listener, who listens in
The spruces rough in the
the snow,
distant glitter
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and
Of the January sun; and not to
the nothing that is.
think
Snowman Analysis
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overview: man realizes that he must
the snowman symbolizes the “mind of winter”
“mind of winter” is an extended metaphor of a
mind that holds nothing
diction and imagery cause a gloomy/miserable
tone
repetition of nothing
theme: the relation between imagination and
reality
T.S Elliot
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born September 26, 1888, St.
Louis, Missouri, U.S.—died
January 4, 1965, London,
England
T.S. Eliot was an AmericanEnglish poet, playwright and
literary critic
He won the Nobel Prize in
1948.
His first masterpiece was
"The Love Song of J. Alfred
Purfrock,"
a leader of the modernist
movement in poetry in such
works as The Waste Land
(1922) and Four
Quartets(1943)
Notable Works
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The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock— 1915
Gerontion (1920),
The Waste Land (1922),
The Hollow Men (1925),
Ash Wednesday (1930),
Four Quartets (1945)
THE HIPPOPOTAMUS
by: T.S. Eliot (1920)
The broad-backed hippopotamus But fruits of pomegranate and
peach
Rests on his belly in the mud;
And quiring angels round him
sing
Although he seems so firm to us Refresh the Church from over
sea.
He is merely flesh and blood.
The praise of God, in loud
hosannas.
Flesh-and-blood is weak and frail,
Susceptible to nervous shock;
At mating time the hippo's voice Blood of the Lamb shall wash him
clean
Betrays inflexions hoarse and
odd,
While the True Church can never But every week we hear rejoice
fail
The Church, at being one with
For it is based upon a rock.
God.
And him shall heavenly arms
enfold,
Among the saints he shall be
seen
Performing on a harp of gold.
The hippo's feeble steps may err The hippopotamus's day
In compassing material ends,
Is passed in sleep; at night he
While the True Church need
never stir
hunts;
He shall be washed as white as
snow,
To gather in its dividends.
God works in a mysterious way-- By all the martyr'd virgins kist,
The Church can sleep and feed at While the True Church remains
below
once.
The 'potamus can never reach
I saw the 'potamus take wing
The mango on the mango-tree;
Ascending from the damp
savannas,
Wrapt in the old miasmal mist.
Figurative Language
Tone
 Biblical allusion
 Symbolism
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E.E Cummings
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American poet, painter,
essayist, author, and
playwright
Produced 2,900 poems, two
autobiographical novels, four
plays and several essays
Also produced numerous
drawings and paintings (an
artist)
Wife and daughter (the effect
of an affair)
Born on October 14, 1894
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Died of Hemorrhage at age 67
Religion: Unitarian
Notable Works
Spring
 Anyone Lived in a Pretty How Town
 Snow
 A Pretty a Day
 I Carry Your Heart With Me
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Anyone lived in a pretty how town
by E. E. Cummings
anyone lived in a pretty
summer)
how town
that noone loved him
(with up so floating many
more by more
bells down)
spring summer autumn
when by now and tree by
winter
leaf
he sang his didn't he
she laughed his joy she
danced his did
cried his grief
bird by snow and stir by
Women and men(both
still
little and small)
anyone's any was all to
cared for anyone not at
her
all
they sowed their isn't
someones married their
they reaped their
everyones
same
laughed their cryings and
sun moon stars rain
did their dance
(sleep wake hope and
children guessed(but only
then)they
a few
said their nevers they
and down they forgot as
slept their dream
up they grew
autumn winter spring
stars rain sun moon
(and only the snow can
begin to explain
how children are apt to
forget to remember
with up so floating many
bells down)
one day anyone died i
guess
(and no one stooped to
kiss his face)
busy folk buried them
side by side
little by little and was by
was
all by all and deep by
deep
and more by more they
dream their sleep
noone and anyone earth
by april
wish by spirit and if by
yes.
Women and men(both
dong and ding)
summer autumn winter
spring
reaped their sowing and
went their came
sun moon stars rain
Poetry Analysis
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Notes
Anyone is a generalized term for joyous townspeople
No one is the woman referred to in the poem, so… anyone is in love
with no one
Overall message: mankind is selfish and only cares for the living
(disregards the dead)
Literary Devices
Metaphors
Symbolism
Couplet (rhyme used in two consecutive lines)
Repitition
Form
Quatrain (stanza of four lines)
Hilda Doolittle
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Born: September 10, 1886 in
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
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An American poet, she attended
University of Pennsylvania
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Known for her association with
the early imagist movement.
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Work later developed into a
more female centric version of
modernism
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Married once, but had a number
of heterosexual and lesbian
affairs.
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She had an interest in Greek
literature and her poetry often
borrowed from Greek mythology
Notable Work
"Sea Rose"
 "Garden"
 "Mid-day"
 "Hermes of the Ways"
 "The Helmsman"
 "Helen"
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Helen
By: Hilda Doolittle
Helen
All Greece hates
the still eyes in the white
face,
the lustre as of olives
where she stands,
and the white hands.
All Greece reviles
the wan face when she
smiles,
hating it deeper still
when it grows wan and
white,
remembering past
enchantments
and past ills.
Greece sees, unmoved,
God's daughter, born of
love,
the beauty of cool feet
and slenderest knees,
could love indeed the maid,
only if she were laid,
white ash amid funereal
cypresses.
Hilda Doolittle
Analysis of Helen
Literary Devices
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Allusion
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Imagery
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Repetition
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Irony
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Symbolism
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Tone
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Compare and Contrast
Form
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End-stopped
Writing Prompts
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Wallace Stevens constantly implanted aesthetic philosophy,
dealing with the nature of beauty and art, in his poetry. In
the following poems he discusses the conditions of winter.
Read both poems carefully. Then write an essay in which
you compare and contrast the two of them and analyze the
relation between them.
The following poem is taken from Harmonium, a collection
of poems written by the American poet Wallace Stevens.
Read the poem carefully. Then write a well organized essay
in which you analyze how he communicates his opinion
about the power of imagination.
Write a well organize essay in which you analyze the
literary techniques the author uses to characterize winter.
Quiz Questions
1. Which of the following was not a key element of modernist poetry?
a.
experimentation
b.
anti-realism
c.
realism
d.
individualism
2. What ideas did the modernist movement borrow from Romanticism?
a.
an urban setting
b.
willingness to break taboos
c.
artist-centered view and retreat into irrationalism
d.
stress on the cerebral
3. What theme does Steven’s, “The Snowman” embody?
a.
the misery of winter
b.
the importance of a snowman
c.
the relationship between imagination and reality
d.
speech of nature
Quiz Questions
1. What group of poets was Hilda Doolittle apart of
before Modernism?
a. Harlem Renassaince
b. Realistic
c. Romanticism
d. Imagist
2. What was the tone of the poem “Helen”
a. Depressed
b. Happy
c. Unforgiving
d. Aposrtophe
Resources
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http://curiosity.discovery.com/question/what-is-modernism
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http://www.poemhunter.com/hilda-doolittle/
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http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/g_l/hd/hd.htm
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http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/156
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http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/e-e-cummings
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http://www.internal.org/e_e_cummings
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http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/wallace-stevens
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http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/s_z/stevens/bio.htm
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http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1948/eliotbio.html
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http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/a_f/eliot/eliot.htm