Index
A Brief Introduction
Modernism is defined in Merriam-Webster's Dictionary as "a self-conscious break with the past and a search for new forms of expression."
People may quibble about when that break took place but we will not join in. When Yeats started writing publishable poetry he probably was not what we now would call a modernist writer, with a deep-seated revulsion of what had become of civilization and a tendency to approach the shattered world through shards of poetry mimicking its brokenness. But he certainly evolved into an important modernist voice who bravely broke away from traditions and experimented. So Yeats will be our starting-point.
Others often choose for American-become-Englishman T.S.Eliot. as a starting-point, calling him a forerunner. He has grown into the image of the Modernist Poet, that is true enough. But he was also 'picked up' by Ezra Pound who was also writing modernist poetry at the time. Pound is the third great 'early poet'we will discuss, before we move on to other poets of the twenties and thirties.
What connects the 'great three' is their use of myth and allusion in writing. Harking back to earlier times asnd turning their backs on the more recent past, these poets created myhtical works of their own, much as Joyce had done in his novels, through using fragments and allusions to classical myths, Renaissance Poetry and Metaphysical poetry in their own works. It is certainly important to acknowledge the importance of Freud's ideas being published around the turn of the 20th century.
The fragmentation of many of these poems may make them 'difficult' for your learners at school. So the approach favoured here is not the complete understanding of every little detail ( that is what we have poetry critics for) but the images we get, the thoughts we have upon reading these works. How do they work, what do we get from them, what are workable poems / fragments / passages to deal with in class and see what comes up?