Salient Features of Modern Poetry

Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and farreaching changes to Western society in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Modernism was a revolt against the conservative values of realism.Arguably the most paradigmatic motive of modernism is the rejection of tradition and its reprise, incorporation, rewriting, recapitulation, revision and parody in new forms. Modernism rejected the lingering certainty of Enlightenment thinking and also rejected the existence of a compassionate, all-powerful Creator God in favor of the abstract, unconventional, largely uncertain ethic brought on by modernity, initiated around the turn of century by rapidly changing technology and further catalyzed by the horrific consequences of World War I on the cultural psyche of artists. In general, the term modernism encompasses the activities and output of those who felt the "traditional" forms of art, architecture, literature, religious faith, social organization and daily life were becoming outdated in the new economic, social, and political conditions of an emerging fully industrialized world. The poet Ezra Pound's 1934 injunction to "Make it new!" was paradigmatic of the movement's approach towards the obsolete. Another paradigmatic exhortation was articulated by philosopher and composer Theodor Adorno, who, in the 1940s, challenged conventional surface coherence and appearance of harmony typical of the rationality of Enlightenment thinking. A salient characteristic of modernism is self-consciousness. This selfconsciousness often led to experiments with form and work that draws attention to the processes and materials used (and to the further tendency of abstraction). The modernist movement, at the beginning of the 20th century, marked the first time that the term "avant-garde", with which the movement was labeled until the word "modernism" prevailed, was used for the arts (rather than in its original military and political context). Surrealism gained fame among the public as being the most extreme form of modernism, or "the avant-garde of modernism "The most important characteristic of modern world literature may be its struggle with the failure of traditional sources of moral authority. Modern literature has inherited skepticism not only of revelation and traditional religious standards but also of reason and community consensus as sources of meaning. The typical modern writer describes a state of disconnectedness in which the individual lacks real belonging, has no ultimate purpose, and is paralyzed or controlled rather than guided and fulfilled by external expectations. The globalization of modern literature, in expanding the number of competing authorities and exposing readers to a baffling array of alien perspectives, has reinforced the idea that no particular tradition can be accepted as definitive FORMAL CHARACTERISTICS Free verse Verse composed of variable, usually unrhymed lines having no fixed metrical pattern.

Discontinuous narrative Discontinuous narrative -- a narrative style in which the narrative moves back and forth through time. This particular style is usually associated with Modernist literature. Juxtaposition Juxtaposition is a literary device that is used as an important tool in Literature to bring a dramatic effect to certain situations and thereby make more of a mark for the work of art in its entirety. Intertextuality Intertextuality refers to the way in which texts gain meaning through their referencing or evocation of other texts. Intertextuality forms one of the crucial grounds for writing studies and writing practice. Texts do not appear in isolation, but in relation to other texts. We write in response to prior writing, and as writers we use the resources provided by prior writers. When we read we use knowledge and experience from texts we have read before to make sense of the new text, and as readers we notice the texts the writer invokes directly and indirectly. Our reading and writing are in dialogue with each other as we write in direct and indirect response to what we have read before, and we read in relation to the ideas we have articulated in our own writing. Classical allusions Allusion is a literary term, though the word also has come to encompass indirect references to any source, including allusions in film or the visual arts. In literature, allusions are used to link concepts that the reader already has knowledge of, with concepts discussed in the story Metanarrative A metanarrative (from metagrand narrative) is an abstract idea that is thought to be a comprehensive explanation of historical experience or knowledge. According to John Stephens it "is a global or totalizing cultural narrative schema which orders and explains knowledge and experience".[1] The prefix meta- means "beyond" and is here used to mean "about", and narrative is a story constructed in a sequential fashion. Therefore, a metanarrative is a story about a story, encompassing and explaining other "little stories" within totalizing schemes. Fragmentation It is a broad term for literary techniques that break up the text of narrative Thematic characteristics Breakdown of social norms and cultural sureties Dislocation of meaning and sense from its normal context Valorization of the despairing individual in the face of an unmanageable future

Disillusionment Stream of consciousness A term coined by William James in principles of psychology to denote the flow of inner experience. it refers to depict the continuous thoughts and feelings which pass through the mind Overwhelming technological changes of the 20th Century