1.
Due to World War I,
Industrialization, Urbanization and scientific developments, Europe
has become a spiritual desert in the early 20th century
2.
Freud’s theories of the human
sub-consciousness had freed people from being responsible for their behaviour
3.
Consequently, traditions and
values that held the human society were threatened
4.
People were experiencing
anxiety about their life on earth and life after death
5.
Marxist socialism had become
the hope of the early 20th century
6.
Modern poetry explores this
traumatic situation from the point of view of the individual
7.
Poets started composing free
verse that produced graphic visual images
8.
The emphasis on the auditory
qualities – rhyme and rhythm – became less important
9.
This is because reading poetry
has become a private experience in the modern society
10. It is no longer read aloud by bards to an aristocratic gathering or
illiterate public
Disabled – Wilfred Owen
1.
Fighting in the trenches during
World War I, Owen had experienced war first hand
2.
“Disabled” is a stream of
consciousness in the mind of a young disabled soldier
3.
The reflection has been
triggered when at a function he took part that day in which “women’s eyes/
Passed from him to the strong men that were whole”
4.
For the world, the young man who
lost his limbs seems to have lost his masculinity as well
5.
However, for the young man he
is still very much a man
6.
In the 1st stanza
the man is listening to the voices of the children at play in the park nearby
7.
The joyous sounds are
“saddening like a hymn” to him for he cann’t be a part of that world
8.
In the 2nd stanza, the
voiced trigger flashbacks
9.
The soldier recalls that during
that time of the year he used to go dancing
10. But now without arms and legs, he would never hold a woman or go
dancing
11. These days whenever women touched him they behaved as if had “some
queer disease”
12. The flashback continues in the 3rd stanza: in the
pervious year, an artist was “silly” for his young face
13. In contrast, today his back is bent and he is pale due to the loss
of blood
14. He had poured his blood “down a shell-hole till the veins ran dry”
in a far away place
15. In the 4th, 5th, and 6th stanzas,
the narrator recalls the reasons why he had joined the army
a.
He was drunk after winning a
football match in which he was the hero
b.
Someone had told that he would
look good in a kilt
c.
He wanted to impress “his Meg”
d.
He was attracted by “jewelled
hilts”, “smart salutes”, “leave” and “pay arrears”
16. Though he was underage he was recruited and dispatched “with drums
and cheers”
17. The soldier at this point “scarcely thought of” his enemies, the
Germans
18. The last stanza is an anti-climax - Only a few people were there to
welcome him home
19. Now that he is disabled only a priest visits him with fruits to
thank him
20. He would live the rest of his life in an institution following rules
and depending on the “pity” others may “dole out”
Themes
·
Horrors of war
·
Fate of the disabled soldiers –
physical and mental suffering
Techniques
·
Sad reflective tone
·
Lack of uniformity in the
stanzas – troubled mind of the soldier
·
Images of approaching darkness
– his fear for his future which is going to be dark
·
Visual images – party, battle
scene, football match
·
Symbols – jewelled hilts –
ceremonious military life advertised for the outside world
Mending Wall – Robert Frost
1.
Frost is an American poet who
wrote about rural life and human relationships
2.
The poet criticises some
people’s habit of following some traditions that are obsolete
3.
Nature does not like man-made
divisions and does its best to disturb them
4.
Man is waging war against
nature and his fellow men to keep the
walls standing
5.
The poet does not see the need
for a wall between his orchard and his neighbour’s pine forest
6.
There were no cattle to
trespass and even if there were cattle, the trees were too big
7.
However, his neighbour clung to
the old saying “Good fences make good neighbours”
8.
Hence, the poet sees his
neighbour as an “old-stone savage” armed with rocks
9.
He is still living in the stone
age; his mind has not progressed to think rationally
10. Wall- building is both a literal and figurative activity
11. Literally, real-life walls limit freedom of movement for both people
and wild-life
12. However, they also protect life and property and maintain peace in a
community
13. Figuratively – walls are traditions that mark the limits of
individual freedom
14. However, these limits helps to keep order in society
15. However, the poet is not a rebel – though he thinks them
unnecessary, he maintains them
Themes
·
Traditions vs. Progress
·
Natural vs. Man-made
·
Communication – the neighbour
mends the wall in silence. The wall hinders communication
Techniques
·
Use of the speaking voice:
Maintains the natural rhythm of spoken language – “something there is that
doesn’t love a wall”
·
Ironic humour – “My apple trees
will never get across/ And eat the cones under his pines”; he wanted to say
“Elves” had disturbed the wall
·
Flights of fancy – imagines a
spell might keep the stones of the wall in place; imagines he and his neighbour
were playing an “out-door game”
·
Several layers of meaning – literal
wall and the figurative wall
Preludes – T S Eliot
·
In 1917
he published ‘Preludes’
·
In
each prelude Eliot reveals an aspect of everyday living in a city.
·
Eliot
looked at human despair and feelings of rejection and failure.
·
Perhaps
the overall theme is the misery of poverty.
Prelude I
·
A
hidden observer describes dusk on a winter’s evening in a poor part of a city.
·
The
tiredness of the workers is suggested by the word ‘burnt-out’
·
The
only other event noted by the observer is the turning on of the streetlights or
lamps.
Prelude II
·
In the
morning scene on a street as workers dash for a quick coffee on the way to
their job.
·
The
observer says that morning time causes ‘masquerades’ to start up again
Prelude III
·
The
observer is inside, observing the appearance and atmosphere of a room and its
occupant.
·
The
person’s soul is made up of a thousand dirty pictures—perhaps of clients
·
The
fact that her hands are soiled may be a reference to some dirty deeds that
happened in the night.
Prelude IV
·
The
observer is outside, observing a passing crowd on the street.
Themes
·
Suffering
·
The Nature Of Life In The City
·
Women And Men
·
Pretence - The respectable life people live by day hides a sordid night-life
·
Moral
degradation
Techniques
·
Imagery -the sparrows, the restless female
sleeper at night, withered leaves, a cab-horse, a gusty shower, evening
newspapers, paper hair curlers, and the smells of beer
·
Metaphor A day is burnt cigarette. A soul is
compared to an evening sky. Images in a woman’s mind flicker on her ceiling like
flames.
·
Personification: street has a conscience. Morning has a
consciousness. Light creeps. An evening settles down. A shower wraps.
·
Simile The worlds revolve like old women hunting
for fuel.
·
Contrast Day is contrasted to night, men to women,
the outdoor street to the interior of a room, light is contrasted to darkness.
·
Tone Detached at times, like the opening. The
tone is scornful or sarcastic at times
·
Paradox The ‘certain certainties’ contradict the
‘masquerades’
Mirrors – Sylvia Plath
1.
First person narrator – a
monologue
2.
The personified mirror is
speaking to the reader
3.
“the eye of a little god” - the
mirror is a metaphor for an all-knowing god
4.
The lake in the last stanza
provides the same qualities as the mirror
5.
In addition, it also has depth
6.
The youthful beauty once
reflected by the mirror has drowned in the lake of time
7.
Unlike Narcissus the woman
cannot fall in love with the image she sees reflected on water
8.
So, she turns to the lying
silhouette outlined by the light of candles and the moon, instead
9.
Her aged image reflected on
water is compared to “a terrible fish” rising from the depth
Themes - Aging
Techniques
·
Stream of consciousness
·
Broken lines and incomplete
sentences – the disturbed state of the narrator’s mind
·
Images of a mirror, lake, fearful fish rising from the
depth of the lake
·
Personification of the mirror
My Dreams, My Works, Must Wait, Till After Hell –
Gwendolyn Brooks
1.
The poet uses the metaphor of
food and drinks to illustrate restrictions placed on Black American women’s creativity
2.
She does not know when she
would be free to write – non can tell me when I may dine again
3.
She hopes when that day comes
she would still be interested in literature
Techniques
·
A sonnet
·
Honey, bread – literary
creativity
·
Store my bread/ In little jars
and cabinets of my will – restrictions placed on the creative activities of
Back American women
·
Use of African American
Vernacular (AAV) in the rhyming: read/lid, hurt/heart
Feast – Edna St. Vincent
Millay
1.
An insatiable need for
literature that overrides the need for food and drinks
2.
Once one become addicted to
literature, the thirst and hunger for good literature becomes greater than the
need for food and drinks
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