Custom essays on Modernism

Thomas Eliot paid a great respect to the Western literary tradition and to myth. That is why his works are filled with allusions, footnotes, reminiscences and quotations. Not only did he expressed his inclinations in his poems, but he also stayed that idea implicitly in his essay “The Tradition and the Individual Talent” of 1919. Thomas Eliot expressed the idea that poems should be written in spiritual concordance with the earlier literary works made by different authors of ancient and recent times. Eliot called for his colleagues to follow the literary traditions of the previous centuries, as he considered literature to be the stream of continuity every writer and poet should enter and swim with. Thus, for example “The Waste Land” is a modernistic work; however it combines various elements of mythic and literary traditions of the past with sounds and scenes from the modern life. The effect achieved by the poem is magnificent – canonical texts combined with historical context contribute to the poet’s examination of the modern humanity and society.
During the Eliot’s life many things changed. Sexuality and gender roles also became flexible. Thomas Eliot could not but reflected these changes in his poems. Thus, the Victorian era made a woman spend all her time at home with her family. Such notion as sexuality was not publicly discussed and almost all social relations were characterized by Puritanism. People were evidently so tired and strained by these tough conditions of life that after the death of Queen Victoria everything began to change very quickly. The World War I contributed greatly to these changes and, as a result, men could not find their places, while women started an active struggle for their rights. There appeared many modernist women writers. Femininity and masculinity were re-imagined. Thomas Eliot did not hesitate to accept those changed views of the new world of the 20th century. This is reflected in his “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”. The poet expressed emasculation experienced by men after the war. The character of the poem is unable to come to a certain decision, he watches women, “talking to Michelangelo” (Eliot). Eliot also expressed disdain for exaggerated sexuality; that is revealed in both works “Sweeney Among the Nightingales” (1918) and “The Waste Land”. “The Waste Land” depicts rape, abortion, prostitution. The central character of the poem is a hermaphrodite. Thus Eliot presented the idea of people’s uncertainty even in such important aspects of human life as belonging to a definite gender. One body is the vessel for both genders.
Thomas Stearns Eliot used a lot of motifs in his works. They were fragmentation, religious and mythic rituals, infertility. Fragmentation was both aimed to reveal the chaotic state of the modern world and to combine literary texts. He intended to juxtapose fragments of images, dialogues, conversations, ideas and views, foreign words and tones within one work. “The Waste Land” demonstrates this feature of Eliot’s poetry. However, Thomas Eliot cared about his readers and therefore made a lot of footnotes in order to sound clear.

His intention was not to confuse a reader, but to broaden his views, even to make a reader educate himself. Using various parts of literary images and themes, Thomas Eliot wanted to make his ideas sound contemporary alongside with the spectrum of history.
Thomas Eliot possessed an incredible knowledge of myths of different nations. He studied numerous religious, ritual, academic works and used this knowledge in his literary works, trying to saturate every piece of poetry with these interesting and mysterious things. Not only did he fill his poems with irreplaceable images and symbols, but he also tried to make his reader interested in the poetry and in the history of humanity in general. Thus, “The Waste Land” is full of symbols, allusions, myths that play a crucial role in the developing of the plot of the poem. He spoke of the Fisher King, thus referred a reader to the mystery of the Holy Grail, knight legends. Eliot knew a lot about religious beliefs of many people, so he could easily introduce Hindu or Buddhist motifs into his poems. His latest poems mainly take their images from Christianity, as in “Journey of the Magi” (1927).
Being the representative of the war generation, Thomas Eliot presented the modern world he and many other people lived in as wasteland. He reflected these ideas in many poems, but “The Waste Land” is the most vivid example. His characters are sexually dysfunctional or sexually frustrated. Thus, the Fisher King is the manifestation of damaged sexuality, Tiresias represents ambiguous sexuality; the women from “A Game of Chess” are the bearers of the sexuality that cannot be controlled. The war also made the land infertile. It is dried, tired, there are no rivers, lakes or sees, trees died.
Water, the Fisher King and music and singing are the major symbols of Thomas Stearns Eliot’s poetry. Water does not only symbolize life, but it also represents death. Water possesses the regenerative power: it can quench thirst and flow rivers, rains quench dry land. Water restores life and fertility. But in the case of the sailor Phlebas (“The Waste Land”) it is the cause of death. Water can imply such ideas of Christianity as baptism, Jesus Christ. These are the traditional meanings of water: cleanness, relief, purity. But the seductive voices of mermaids that attract people also originate from water. But this water can bring death.
The central character of “The Waste Land” is the Fisher King. Eliot took this character from the legends of the Holy Grail and liked it very much due to the great variety of symbols, myths and mysteries. For Eliot the fisher King was the symbolic personification of humanity devoid of its sexuality. The absence of the sexual potency means that there is no sense in the existence of the modern world. However the Fisher King also resembles the figure of Jesus Christ and thus expresses the ideas of rebirth and divine resurrection. It makes a parallel with one of the miracles of Jesus Christ, when he managed to feed hungry people with several small fishes.
Being a modernistic poet, Thomas Stearns Eliot was very interested in the difference between low and high culture, which he symbolized through the usage of music. He strongly believed that popular culture dominated over the high culture. The latter he supposed to be in decline, including opera, drama and art. Moreover, Eliot liked to mix both cultures, as he did in “The Waste Land”, for instance. He combined high and low cultures by blending the lyrics from Richard Wagner’s opera with lyrics that could be heard in pubs. Though it was rather bold and controversial, the result was really astonishing. The new atmosphere of lyrics was definitely worth Eliot’s readers’ appraisal. Eliot used music to make references to literary traditions of the past.
Thomas Stearns Eliot was one of the most influential people of the 20th century. He was a figure that contributed to the formation of views of the people of the century. Not only was he a talented poet, but also a good man, who had a lot of friends and whom many people respected and sincerely loved. Someone even said about Eliot once: “There is probably no kinder man in London today than T.S. Eliot.” (Lehmann 23). He can be definitely called neither American nor English poet. He spent his life in England but his heart belonged to the American land. Moreover if it was possible to define this fact it would be rather unfair for the great poet. His contribution into the world’s literature and poetry of the 20th century is so magnificent that he should be referred to all nations, not only English or American. Thus, Thomas Stearns Eliot is Anglo-American modernistic poet. His works do not stop to excite people even after his death, so great was the talent of this man. The New York Times wrote after his death: “He gave us the sense of the culture crisis of the Western world, when we were suddenly thrown on our own in a different way than ever before” (13). More and more critical works on his poems appear every year all over the world. His modernistic style and new ideas made people see this world in the new way. He managed to perform his task in a perfect way. Thus, he is considered to be one of the best modernistic poets of the 20th century according to his deserts.

 
Works cited
Eliot, Thomas S. The Love-Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. 28 Jun. 2010 <http://people.virginia.edu/~sfr/enam312/prufrock.html>
Jones, Peter, ed. Imagist Poetry. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972.
Kenner, Hugh. The Pound Era. London: Faber & Faber, 1973.
Lehmann, John. “T.S. Eliot Talks About Himself and the Drive to Create.” New York Times 9 Nov. 1953: 23-25.
SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on Eliot’s Poetry.” SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. 2002. Web. 21 Jun. 2010.
“T.S. Eliot, the Poet, is Dead in London at 76.” New York Times 5 Jan. 1965: 13.