an elaborate rationalization for not seeking love. Love cannot exist in

this ugly senseless chaotic world. It is a miracle, hopeless yearning of

person for the vitality. The whole scene makes us see that love is not

possessive in this world. Repulsive attitude of the narrator towards what

he sees – images of a pair of ragged claws, mermaids singing each to each.

Leitmotif:

В гостиных дамы тяжело

Беседуют о Микеланджело.

It means that they talk of what they pretend to know.

The poem is full of allusions. The epigraph is quite important, taken

from Dante’s “The Divine Comedy”. The end of poem is pessimistic. It is one

of the most understandable of his poems.

“The Waste Land” (the poem (1922) in ”Dial” & “Criteria”[GB]). The poem

consists of 5 parts & their titles speak for themselves:

“The Burial of the Dead”

“A Game of Chess” – an allusion of a medieval play, where the action was

as if in two playings.

“The Fire Sermon” – the postulates of oriental religion.

“The Death by the Water”

“What the Thunder Said”

In terms of forms the poem is a collage of fragments of memories,

overheard conversations, quotations put together only by the implied

present of a sensible person (= a refined sensibility = a modern poet),

upon whom all these complexibilities & varieties of human world are hipped

& who staggers under the burden of them. We can say that the mind of the

poet is heavily packed with cultural tradition. A poem abounds in highly

sophisticated allusions:

. “The Tempest”

. Anthropological account of “Grail”(“Грааль”) legend– a legend

connected with Christianity – a cup from which Christ drank;

. from “The Divine Comedy”;

. alluded & used words from operas of Wagner;

. refers to the story of crusification;

. uses French symbolists;

. as well as scraps of popular culture – music-hall songs, slang

words, contemporary fashion;

He hips everything together. This bits & pieces are set into a matrix of

flowing stream of consciousness of a man. The dramatic portrait of a single

mind becomes the portrait of an age. Eliot provided 52 notes for “The Waste

Land” when it was first published. The poem was opposed violently but there

were also admirers. They said that Eliot gave a definite description of

their age. Now terms “lost generation”, “post-war disillusionment”, “jazz

age”, “waste land” are used parallelly For many contemporary writers &

critics “The Waste Land” was a definite description of the age.

Civilization was dying. Critics regarded it as the disillusionment of a

generation. Eliot protested against that. The term “waste land” is used in

literature alongside with the term “lost generation”.

He also employed the myth of dying & reviving king – what the poem

expresses is the need of salvation & this is expressed in 3 Sanskrit words

(give, sympathize & control). There are many barbarisms in the poem.

In 1925 he published another poem in the same tonality. “The Hollow Man”

develops the major themes & images of “The Waste Land” – problems of

spiritual bareness, the problem of loss of faith in contemporary

generation. The poem is a set of recurrent symbols. The meaning depends on

cumulative effect of the individual images. The idea of spiritual sterility

in the image of Hollow Man – grotesque caricature of man, their behaviour

is mimicry of human activity. The poem is very short. It is easily read but

not so easily understood. There are 5 parts in the poem. Other images –

Death of the Kingdom. The life of the Hollow Man – is more shadowy & less

real than the life beyond the grave. Religion is substituted by simple

rituals devoid of all true feelings & emotions. The end-of-the-world

(apocalyptic) motive is very strong in the poem. The picture is very

pessimistic. The poem ends hopelessly:

This is the way the world ends,

Not with a bang but a whimper…

Eliot’s development after “The Waste Land” was in the direction of

literary, political, religious conservatism. Classicist in literature,

royalist in politics & Anglo-Saxon in religion he developed more composed

lyrical style.

His mature masterpiece is “Four Quartets” (1944) which is based on the

poetic memories of certain localities of America & Britain. This is a

starting point for his probing in the mystery of time, history, eternity,

the meaning of life. It deals with one single question of what significance

in our lives are ecstatic intense moments when we seem to escape time &

glimpses of supra-ordinary reality (it resembles Joyce’s “Epiphanies”.

There are two epigraphs that give clues to the answer. The epigraphs are

very important.

The first comes from Heroclitus. It contrasts the general wisdom of the

race with moments of private individual insight. It shows the dualism of

individual existence. First of all individuality is apart of a body of

mankind, located in history & tradition. Secondly, it is a unique

personality. Each person embraces both & this predetermines the reaction to

intense moments.

The second is short – “The way up & the way down are one & the same”.

This is another duality, two ways of apprehending the truth. The first one

is an active embrace of ecstatic experience (the way up), the second one is

a passive withdrawal from experience into self (the way down).

The poem got a reputation of a great obscurity due to a philosophical

richness but at the same time it is intensely musical. He tries to make it

closer to music by the motives that return like the tones in music. It is

not by chance that the poem is called “Four Quartets” – 4 instrumental

voices in the quartet. In his essay “The Music of Poetry” he explained this

usage of recurrent things.

From 1926 he experimented with poetic drama “The Cocktail Party”. But

his dramas remain unpopular because drama needs plot.

Eliot received the Nobel Prize for literature in 1949 as recognition of

his innovations in modern poetry. He also wrote critical works “The Sacred

Wood”, “The Use of Poetry & the Use of Criticism”, “On Poetry & Poets” –

most influential literary documents.

David Herbert Lawrence (1885-1930)

Lawrence was very much influenced by Freud’s conception of human

personality. He is considered to be a modernist but he didn’t experiment

with form. On the outside he worked within the confines of English novel

tradition but he broke from the understanding of human relations that were

accepted in critical realism. He was the first who touched upon the problem

of marrying, the relations between sexes, he didn’t hush down the

contradictions between them. His main concern was to liberate a person from

all the constrains which were put by the society upon him. There was so

much taboos, hush-hush attitudes to this topic, that …

He is compared to Eliot. Both started from similar points that

civilization threatens human beings, it is hostile to man. Civilization is

sick, it destroys people morally & bodily. What Lawrence can suggest

instead? His religion was belief in blood & flesh as being wiser than the

intellect. This belief became one of his main themes. He interpreted human

behaviour & character from this standpoint. All his writings were

underlined with a deep discontent with a modern world. And this fact unites

him with other modernists. Civilization is on the wrong track. Science,

industrialization produced a race of robots. Civilization is evil. The only

way out – the way back – to re-awaken our emotional, irrational layers of

consciousness. He was little concerned with social problems. Lawrence’s

treatment of character is based on the assumption that 7/8 are submerged &

never seen. He explored the unconscious mind that was not always seen but

was always present. He is fumbling for the words to describe strictly

indescribable. He enjoyed popularity in his lifetime. His first works are:

“The White Peacock” 1911

“Sons & Lovers” 1913

They were well received. Critics thought that there appeared one more

working-class writer. His late works were received with shock & opposition

because of his frankness to the questions of sexuality, relations of men &

women. These themes suffered from late Victorian prudishness. He was the

first to describe sexual relations using common words not…

“Sons & Lovers” is considered to be autobiographical. Lawrence was

brought up in miner’s family in Nottinghamshire. His mother was cultivated

ex-school teacher. She married beneath herself & so she tried to develop

ambitions in her children. The book centers around Paul Morel & his

mother’s relations. His mother made him fatally unable to love another

woman. “There was something in his life that blocked his intentions.” The

relations that he explores within the Morel family remind us of the

relations in his own family. He must get it clear & get away with it. By

giving this story a form of a novel Lawrence tried to liberate himself of

his ties with the past. Sometimes it is considered an illustration of

Freud’s theory of Oedipus complex.

We consider Lawrence a modernist not because of his innovations in form

& style but by his attitude to human beings (human behaviour is

biologically determined). “Blood & flesh being wiser than intellect”.

Lawrence is a very prolific writer but his books were uneven in quality

– 15 novels & volumes of short stories. The best of them are:

“The Rainbow”(was also condemned as obscene one)

“Women in Love” 1920

“Kangaroo” 1923

“The Plumed Serpent” 1926

“Lady Chatterley’s Lover” (1929) was subjected to obscenity trial. It

was banned for oscine vocabulary till 1960. “His urgency in seeking out the

deepest core of his characters’ being lead him to employ a language

overfraught with portentous vocabulary – repeatedly, ineffectually

gesturing at dark, mystic, passionate, but ultimately vague & ungraspable

emotions.” Critics considered this work to be his greatest one.

Sexual aspect wasn’t the only one though very important. It was a part

of his concept of personal development.

American Modernism.

It appeared in the first decade of the XX when the group of poets

appeared in the USA who tried to bring modernists’ ideas. The most active

of these poets were Ezra Pound & Thomas Eliot. American modernism doesn’t

mean geographical terms. Many American writers created their works in

Europe (mainly in Paris). Ezra Pound said: “Paris is a lab of ideas”.

Modernists:

Ezra Pound

Gertrude Stein

John Dos Passos

Ernest Hemingway

Partially William Faulkner

Francis Scott Fitzgerald

Ezra Pound (1885 – 1972)

A famous poet, publicist & translator. He studied in the University of

Pennsylvania (studied Roman languages). But he had a very brief career as a

teacher & in 1908 he left for Europe. He walked all the way from Gibraltar

to Venice where the first collection of his poems appeared – “A Hume

Spento”. During 2 years from 1908 he gained his popularity. His collections

were:

“Canzoni” – songs

“Ripostes” – leisure

“Lustra” – light

The poems impressed the readers by the original form, new expressiveness &

metrical faction. He is the founder of imagist’s school (opposed

traditional Victorian verse). The poets’ aim was to be precise & clear in

word usage. They did not accept thematic limitations, were responsible for

exploding the traditional form, tried to find form to substitute it. There

was a trend in imagism – wordism – the model for the XXth century poetry.

Its features:

V Mechanistism

V Technisism

V Specific rhyme

Much attention was paid to the metaphorical images. These ideas influenced

young poets like Robert Frost, Thomas Eliot, and W. Butler.

Pound edited magazine “Little Review” where new names & works were

introduced. It is believed that he revolutionized English versification. He

tried to capture the intonation of monological speech. His poems have a

peculiar form of masques. His poetry is dressed in the bright clothes of

Latin, Greek, Japanese, Anglo-Saxon, etc poets.

Translations are the best part of his legacy. They were also thoroughly

polished masques. He developed interest Japanese poetry. He liked the

Japanese way of presenting the most abstract idea through a concrete image.

So he introduced idiomatic poetry when any nation could be rendered through

the combination of concrete images. This principle was employed in “The

Cantos” epic poem, which he started in 1925 & continued almost up to the

end of his life. He called it “неисчерпаемый свод стихотворных форм”. The

synthesis of his ideas of works, autobiography, aesthetic & poetic

principles & reflection of the urgent & poetic issues. “The Cantos” are

uneven in quality. Some fragments are difficult to understand. To

facilitate the process of reading “The Index of Cantos” was published. In

1925 Pound moved to Italy & became interested in politics & economics. He

devoted much time & effort to discuss economics & politics.

“The ABC of ECONOMICS”

“What Is Money For?”

He supported the fascist regime. After the war he was arrested & charged in

prison, but was considered to have mental disease & spent 22 years in

mental hospital. In late 50’s he was let free & went to Italy where he

died. But he continued to write even in hospital. “The Cantos of Pizza” is

a very painful reevaluation of the things passed. The famous critic Malison

said: “He chose a wrong position above the society & that’s the problem”.

He was the poet who transformed the form of English verse – thus his

achievement was great.

Gertrude Stein (1874-1946)

Gertrude Stein is remembered because of her influence on the writers to

come, not for her works. She doesn’t enter anthologies of English or

American literature. She was born in USA, her childhood was spent in

Europe. She studied psychology in Harvard. Her teacher was William James.

She conducted several experiments on automatic writing but she was

interested only from psychological point of view. However, she did not

become a psychologist yet this influenced her writing. In 1903’s she left

for Paris & remained there almost all her life. In 1909 she published the

novel “The Three Lives”. It consists of three parts describing the lives of

three women. The work was unnoticed in that time. But that time she got

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