Modernism and T.S. Eliot

Modernism Period: late 19th century- 1945 (end WWII) Radical shift in aesthetic and cultural sensibilities—modernists rejected Victorian notions of beauty, morality, and religion. Wide-spread influence: art, music, literature

Pre-Modern (Victorian,Romantic) Values Ordered Meaningful Optimistic Stable Faith Morality/Values Clear Sense of Identity

Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, Brueghel, 1560’s

Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2, Marcel Duchamp, 1912

Igor Stravinsky His work, Rite of Spring, caused an uproar, inciting riots. Experimented with tones, meter, rhythm, and dissonance Rite of Spring, first performed on May 29 1913

T.S. Eliot 1888-1965 Youngest of seven children in moderately wealthy family in St. Louis, MO Attended Harvard, secretary of The Advocate Spent a post-graduate year in Paris, entered intellectual scene (Henri Bergson, Pablo Picasso, Emile Durkheim) Returned to Harvard to study philosophy (but took many courses in Sanskrit and Hindu as welll) Met Ezra Pound in London in 1914, Pound was impressed by Eliot. Married Vivien Haigh-Wood and settled in England, where he edited an avant-garde magazine called the Egoist. 1917- began work as a continental document evaluator at Lloyd’s Bank because of his knowledge of languages.

Life and Writing Published Prufrock and Other Observations in 1917, supported financially by the Pounds. Became the American darling of the British intellectual elite: Yeats, Pound, painter Wyndham Lewis, Bertrand Russell,etc. The Wasteland was published in 1922 to much acclaim, 434-line poem Offered editor position at Criterion in London—central to London’s literary scene Continued to write poems, plays and literary essays Died in 1965—epitaph reads (from Four Quartets) : "In my beginning is my end. In my end is my beginning."

1962 Oil Painting by Sir Gerald Kelly

Terms to know Metonymy: word exchanged for another closely associated with it (“suits” for officials) Synecdoche: referring to part of a thing that represents the whole (“hands” for workmen) Syntax: sentence structure, refers to sentence length, beginning, arrangement of ideas, and patterns. Tone: the writer’s attitude toward the subject, himself/herself, or the audience

Eliot reads “Love Song” Audio