Is God Dead in Modern Poetry?

The 20th-century ushered in a sense of hopelessness through the proliferation of the industrial age and mankind becoming the creator of their world. The world became more and more mechanized and not only in the work place. Lifestyles, ideas, and even religions became mechanical. This ties in with the alleged "death of God" in modern times as well as modern poetry. Humans became like gods creating their world; as a result, they became increasingly disconnected with the natural, godly, world that surrounded them. This disconnection made them lonely with their surroundings. Wallance Stevens and T.S. Eliot tackle these feelings in their poetry. At first, both poets suggest that life is simply a hopeless and empty exercise, as well as one that can bring no true fulfillment. Human creators seem unable to create fulfillment. But when one looks closer,

At first, readers of their poetry see worlds in which God has been replaced by human creators. Is this world view totally secular? Both Eliot and Stevens seem to show secular worlds due to their ideas and the content of their poems. Much of the poems focus on the materialistic, especially items that are man-made. Furthermore, rather than creating something great, human creations are destructive to nature. Stevens's poem Anecdote of the Jar builds on this notion by showing how destructive humans are to the surrounding nature. More so, something man-made can "claim dominion" over everything and ultimately destroy it. Much like T.S. Eliot's The Fire Sermon in The Waste Land, the natural beauty of the world is destroyed by the littering of humans. Civilization, although upheld in all respects to be civil and the best way of life, destroys the natural surroundings.

How...

... middle of paper ...

... achieve some meaningful emotion outside of the void existing in the alleged death of God. The poems themselves are evidence that the poets believed they could affect thoughts and emotions. These are intangible qualities that go beyond materialism. Although they might have felt lonely, disconnected or discouraged - like the woman singing her song by the sea - they still created art that would be received by an audience. This goes against the prompt's idea that humans only create the monotonous and unfulfilling. While it may be true of the materialistic items humans create, it is not necessarily true of the art, etc. that humans create.

Although it is easy to think that Eliot and Stevens only believed in the dull, monotonous, empty modern life and that they saw the alleged death of God, their poetry does not simply live up to this emptiness.