Preludes and Modernism

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Modernism is a terminology given by historians to literature movement around late nineteenth century. It is a movement in the arts which purpose is to produce art different traditional forms. Its literature aim is to criticize problems of their world. They use specific characteristics implicitly and explicitly; implicitly to send messages to each other or to educated people in authority or explicitly to influence public opinions. “We are talking about two chronologies. One is the sequence of texts; the other is the sequence of intellectual movements. Such as feminism or such as Marxism which change the way we read texts.” (Armstrong). One of the most influential modernist writers is Thomas Stearns Eliot. His one of many poems Preludes is a direct and indirect criticism to his society. I will discuss in the following paragraphs how structuralism, Marxism, feminism approaches are found in the poem and how historical background of the poem can add more understanding of modernism.

First, in the Preludes written by T.S. Eliot, structuralism can be easily identified as a main characteristic of modernism. First, verses have different length. “Six o’clock” (Eliot 9) consists of only two words, it is incomplete sentence structure and the rest of the verses consist between three and eight words. Second, parts are not equally divided whether equally in stanzas number or equally in verses number. For example, the first part is made of two stanzas, the second part made of two stanzas, the third part made of one stanzas and the fourth part made of three stanzas. The stanzas number one is formed by twelve verses, the second stanzas is constructed of one verse, the third and the fourth are formed of five verses. The fifth stanzas is of fifth te...

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...s, 1996”. Ebscohost.com. ELL Reference Center.15 December 2011

Graham Martin. “Poetry” Literature in the Modern World. The Open University, 2005

Hanlon, Tina. “Preludes”. ebscohost.com.

EBSCO information services. 14 December 2011

Olney, James and Harold Bloom. “Four quartets: “folded in a single party”.” ebscohost.com. 20050304. EBSCO information services. 15 December 2011

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