Summary
We began the class discussing the movement from realism into modernism, and Ezra Pound's contribution to modernism with imagism. Reality becomes something very different than what it has always been. People's understanding of the world became fragmented, and realism was no longer possible because nothing was as it seemed any longer. We defined Modernism and Pound's subset, Imagism (see definitions below), and we spent most of the time picking out examples of modernism within the poetry of Pound and Frost. We discussed how Pound wanted to "make it new" and used old texts to transform them into something completely different, ie. the retelling of the Odyssey in his Cantos. Robert Forst focused poetry around New England but originally from California. The Mending Wall in short keeps from having boundries crossed yet when it comes time to "mend" the wall, the neighbors come together. However the speaker does not seem to like the wall, but Frost manages to keep order in a four line unrhymed iambic pentameter.
Word Count: 166
Passages
In a Station of the Metro
The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.
We discussed how this poem is indicative of the imagism movement through the photo-like capturing of the moment. It is also not wordy, and emphasizes the brief moment - almost an apparitional glimpse. We discussed the option of the speaker being inside a train passing the station as the smeared faces represents the anonymity of people as well as the speed of an instant of time. We also thought this poem was like a haiku, but without the form contraints.
"The Mending Wall"
"And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each."
Through out the poem it talks about many things being a nuisance. In class we discuessed an unrhymed iambic pentameter; Mr.Croxall pointed out those four particular lines. Everything comes together in those four lines.
Key Terms
Modernism: a new way of encountering the world in literature. It was marked by experimental, new forms including primetivism, ambiguity, stream of consciousness, city/urbanization, and a rejection of tradition.
Imagism: a movement in literature began by Ezra Pound. It was characterized by the direct treatment of the topic, whether subjective or objective, the elimination of unnecessary words, musical phrasing (but no strict meters or forms, and no free verse), and the capture of an instant of time and the emphasis of speed.
inmedias res: in the middle