Thursday, April 4, 2013

I have to interpret a work of art during modernism. Was this written during the modernism era?

Yes, T.S. Eliot's, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," is definitely a work of modernism.  Eliot himself is often mentioned in handbooks, etc., as an example of modernism.  This avant-garde movement, as far as poetry is concerned, is known for moving away from the rational presentation of ideas, and toward "collages of fragmentary images and complex allusions," according to The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms.  


You will find fragmentary images and complex allusions in abundance in "Prufrock."  The speaker starts thoughts and doesn't finish them, speaks of a retreating crab, uses extended animal metaphor/imagery, alludes to Dante and Michelangelo.


Modernism is, at least somewhat, defined by Eliot's poetry, and "Prufrock" is a good example.

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