Modernism

The Poetic Revolution

The poetic revolution consists in an underestimation of romantic poetry. It criticized the weaknesses of romantic poetry, its tendency to an auto-biographic form, its emotional softness and its theatricality. Modern poetry, on the other hand, tries to be as objective as possible.

“The modern poet has not a personality to express but a particular medium in which impressions and experiences combine in unexpected ways”. 

T.S. Eliott

Hence, The function of poetry is not self-expression but the proper fusion of meaning andlanguage. Poems are work of arts, not pieces of emotional auto-biography. The function of art is the exploration  of experience.

The modern poet also becomes an intellectual, a very clever artist who is afraid of taking actions and failure.

The first art of the movement consists in a complete revolt against every kind of sentimentalism and verbal imprecision. Ex. Hulme contrasted romanticism with a precise classicism, advocating hardness and precision of imagery = Imagism

Imagism, though, was not enough, because poetry was limited. Eliot never adjusted to the justness of his images, for him they also had to function as symbols. An image does not only convey the quality of the thing it denotes  but its meaning could also change depending on references to its earlier use in literature, religion or mythology and the pattern of suggestions set up by the poem as it unfolds. (Symbolism)