Modern poetry and it's characteristics

Characteristics of 2oth century poetry, a comparison between T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land", Philip Larkin's "Church Going" and W. B. Yeats' "The Second Coming".

1. MODERN POETRY and it’s characteristics Submitted by Shruti Pandey [email protected]

2. ABrupt BEGINING THE WASTE LAND April is the cruellest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain. Winter kept us warm, covering Earth in forgetful snow, feeding A little life with dried tubers . THE SECOND COMING Turning and turning in the widening gyre    The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere    The ceremony of innocence is drowned; CHURCH GOING Once I am sure there's nothing going on I step inside, letting the door thud shut. Another church: matting, seats, and stone, And little books; sprawlings of flowers, cut For Sunday, brownish now; some brass and stuff Up at the holy end; the small neat organ ;

3. REALISM THE WASTE LAND   Unreal City , Under the brown fog of a winter dawn , A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many , THE SECOND COMING Turning and turning in the widening gyre    The falcon cannot hear the falconer ; Things fall apart; the center cannot hold ; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world , The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere    The ceremony of innocence is drowned ; CHURCH GOING Hectoring large-scale verses and pronounce, Here endeth much more loudly than I'd meant, The echoes snigger briefly. Back at the door, I sign the book donate an Irish sixpence, Reflect the place was not worth stopping for.

4. PESSIMISM THE WASTE LAND April is the cruellest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing THE SECOND COMING The darkness drops again; but now I know    That twenty centuries of stony sleep Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,    And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,    Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born ? CHURCH GOING A serious house on serious earth it is In whose blent air all our compulsions meet Are recognisd and robed as destinies. And that much never can be obsolete Since someone will forever be surprising A hunger in himself to be more serious

5. IMPACT OF WORLD WAR THE WASTE LAND White bodies naked on the low damp ground And bones cast in a little low dry garret, Rattled by the rat’s foot only, year to year. But at my back from time to time I hear The sound of horns and motors, which shall bring Sweeney to Mrs. Porter in the spring. THE SECOND COMING Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, CHURCH GOING For Sunday brownish now; some brass and stuff Up at the holy end; the small neat organ; And a tense musty unignorable silence

6. FIRST PERSON NARRATIVE THE WASTE LAND And I will show you something different from either Your shadow at morning striding behind you Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you; I will show you fear in a handful of dust. THE SECOND COMING The darkness drops again; but now I know    That twenty centuries of stony sleep CHURCH GOING From where i stand the roof looks almost new-- Cleaned or restored? someone would know: I don't.

7. RELIGION THE WASTE LAND What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man, You cannot say, or guess, for you know only A heap of broken images, where the sun beats, And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief, And the dry stone no sound of water. Only There is shadow under this red rock, THE SECOND COMING Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere    The ceremony of innocence is drowned ; The best lack all conviction, while the worst    Are full of passionate intensity . THE CHURCH GOING Reflect the place was not worth stopping for. Yet stop I did: in fact I often do And always end much at a loss like this Wondering what to look for; wondering too When churches fall completely out of use

8. VARIETY OF THEMES THE WASTE LAND Religion and Cult Gulf Between Past and Present Lost Culture Anxiety Materialism Sex THE SECOND COMING Society Political Power War Anarchy Religious Concepts Symbolism Generational Differences Prediction Global Issues CHURCH GOING Religion The Established Church The Need to Worship The Ceremony of Ritual The Future of the Church Superstition Religious Feeling

9. BAD TREATEMENT OF LOVE & SEX THE WASTE LAND He’ll want to know what you done with that money he gave you, To get yourself some teeth. He did, I was there. You have them all out, Lil, and get a nice set, He said, I swear, I can’t bear to look at you. And no more can’t I, I said, and think of poor Albert, He’s been in the army four years, he wants a good time, And if you don’t give it him, there’s others will, I said . THE SECOND COMING A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,   Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it, Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.    The darkness drops again; but now I know  , That twenty centuries of stony sleep Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,  And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,  Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born? CHURCH GOING

10. INTERROGATION THE WASTE LAND “That corpse you planted last year in your garden, “ Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year? “ Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed? THE SECOND COMING The darkness drops again; but now I know    That twenty centuries of stony sleep Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,    And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,    Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born ? THE CHURCH GOING And what remains when disbelief has gone? Grass weedy pavement brambles butress sky. A shape less recognisable each week A purpose more obscure. I wonder who Will be the last the very last to seek This place for whta it was; one of the crew That tap and jot and know what rood-lofts were? Some ruin-bibber randy for antique Or Christmas-addict counting on a whiff Of grown-and-bands and organ-pipes and myrrh?

11. EXISTENTIALISM OR MONOTONY THE WASTE LAND As a silk hat on a Bradford millionaire. The time is now propitious, as he guesses, The meal is ended, she is bored and tired, Endeavours to engage her in caresses Which still are unreproved, if undesired , THE SECOND COMING That twenty centuries of stony sleep Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,    And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,    THE CHURCH GOING Bored uninformed knowing the ghostly silt Dispersed yet tending to this cross of ground Through suburb scrub because it held unspilt So long and equably what since is found Only in separation--marriage and birth And death and thoughts of these--for which was built

12. DYSTOPIA THE WASTE LAND Here is no water but only rock Rock and no water and the sandy road The road winding above among the mountains Which are mountains of rock without water THE SECOND COMING Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand.    The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out    When a vast image out of  Spiritus Mundi Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert  CHURCH GOING What we shall turn them into if we shall keep A few cathedrals chronically on show Their parchment plate and pyx in locked cases And let the rest rent-free to rain and sheep.

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