Notes on Modernism and Ezra Pound, fragmentation of the modernist period

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Sarah Robinson
London Southbank University
AHS, English and Creative Writing




DISCLAIMER:
These are only notes and not part of my essay, but feel free to use the ideas here in your own work if you find them helpful. Note there are some quotations here so please refer to Havard referencing system to use these.



discuss how the work of one or more poets studied on the course reflects the scepticism and fragmentation of the modernist period


ezra pound - his ultimate ambition was to communicate a feeling or an image perfectly in the fewest possible words (metro)
- imagism, against victorian sentimentality, celebrates free verse and clear concise images in literature
Modernist poetry is a mode of writing characterised by two main features: the first is technical innovation through the extensive use of free verse and the second a move away from the Romantic idea of an unproblematic poetic "self" directly addressing an equally unproblematic ideal reader or audience.
skepticism is shown in the way that modernists such as pound did not believe that metaphorical language such as the romatic era was not the best form of communication
he thought literal, clear meanings of words without metaphor or underlying meaning were the best forms of communication
eg
From A retrospect

1. Direct treatment of the "thing", whether subjective or objective.
2. To use absolutely no word that does not contribute to the presentation.
3. As regarding rhythm: to compose in sequence of the musical phrase, not in sequence of the metronome.
4. Complete freedom of subject matter.
5. Free verse was encouraged along with other new rhythms.
6. Common speech language was used, and the exact word was always to be used, as opposed to the almost exact word.

ezra Pound’s early poetry exhibiting a purposely diminished quality – their symbolism and imagism as ways to scale poetry down to a concrete point, to avoid abstraction, to avoid the sentimental tug - a time when 'experience was fragmented' and 'alienation and ironic detachment became common responses to the human predicament' (Moore, Lisa , 'Modernism' The Harper handbook to literature second edition, 301)

pound advocates the idea that modernist poetry is diminshed romanticism. IN HIS EARLY WORK- this was the foundations of imagism
modernists tend to value form over content in order to portray the most powerful image - however ironically this use of form tends to alienate the reader making this modernists idea of 'the best possible way to communicate' inaccesible to anyonme outside of the academic circle - 20th century wheni t was written this was more pronounced

we can see more detail into this skepticism of the understanding of the world, and the skepticism of the usefullness(other word) of communication via language and the romantic idea of self within literature.

Fragmentation, plurality, the dehumanisation of the subject, the aestheticisation of experience--all of which remain key elements within the modernist movement, even at its most radical and challenging--emphasise the sphere of individual refusal as the only meaningful sphere
-G Jenkins, op cit, pp114-115.

this opinion of (who) again shows us the modernist idea of drawing the poem away from the world and the idea of self and addressing an equally self concious audience and b ringing it down to the bare minimum in fragments of moments and dehumanising subjects and the aestheticisation of experience. all these elements are clear in the station of a metro

The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough

quote



Pound moving to the longer clusters of lyrics that are simultaneously diminished/personal and and epic - moved onto this in later work (examples)

through pounds changes in his work we can see the complexity and ambivalence in the Modernist attitudes, the desire to approach grand themes paired with skepticism about poetry’s ability to evoke real change and understanding in regards to those themes.

after this change of pounds
post war disillusionment then - modernism in english tended towards a poetry of the fragment that rejected the idea that the poet could present a comfortingly coherent view of life. this itself shows us the skeptic view of modernism and the fragment refers to the modernist idea - capturing fragments of moments

go on to use examples of fragments of moments in pounds poetry
t
thinking of fragmentation as a form within modernism an emphasis on discontinuous narratives, and random-seeming collages of different materials, we can also think of pound:

(examples of collage in his poetry)

the layering of different images and ideas

example of discontinuous narrative in pound


fragmentation as a DISruption at the level of form - pounds ambition was to communicate a feeling or an image perfectly in the fewest possible words and to do this he had do destroy the idea of form within poetry, and create his own

form - a few donts
'
relying on free verse and stream of conciousness narratives. pound actually felt language was an imperfect medium for communication, as did other modernists but it was all they had. abandonment of rhyme for best possible communication of their own thoughts.

example of free form