Widespread changes

Modernism

Cubism

Symbolists

Imagism

Literary influences

What is it?

Free verse – experimentation with non-traditional forms

Rejection of the sentimentality and discursiveness seen in Romanticism and Victorian poetry.

DANTE - Italian Poet of the Middle Ages (1265-1320)

Thus when Eliot wanted to write with an economy of words and a verbal beauty and elegance he used Dante’s works as inspiration.

He loved Dante’s “clear visual images and concise and luminous language”.

Eliot believed that Dante’s language was ‘perfection’.

The divine comedy

Dante’s poetry is best recognised through his work, “The Divine Comedy”.

Dante creates a vision of a traveller through the three circles of hell, purgatory and paradise.

Movement in early 20th-century English and American poetry which sought clarity of expression through the use of precise images

Faceted treatment of solids and space to create multiple sides/perspectives

Blurring distinctions between time and space

The period post WW1 was a time of great spiritual, intellectual, emotional and physical turmoil

His critique is marked by scepticism and unique imagery, using contemporary objects and vernacular to challenge his audience’s perceptions.

What is it?

Eliot’s poetry encapsulates this questioning period.

“The term modernism refers to the radical shift in aesthetic and cultural sensibilities evident in the art and literature of the post-World War I period.

Desired to free poetry from restrictions of conventional versification

Symbol and metaphor to suggest mysterious and and inexpressible subjective emotion

Rebel poets who turned inward to express the shifting subtle states of the human psyche

Poetry, a succession of creative moments, precision of imagery, clear, sharp language.

Eliot believed that his culture revolved around romanticism and this he saw as a style to be challenged

What is it?

Early 20th-century style and movement n which perspective with a single viewpoint was abandoned and use was made of simple geometric shapes, interlocking planes, and, later, collage.