The study of Modern images, Metaphors in this ten Short poems

Hello friends !!

   This is about academic writing task. The task is given by Dr. Dilip Barad sir. So the task is we have to go through the reading of ten short poems and to find out modern images and metaphors. How modern features are reflected in these poems.

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1. Embankment : by T. E. Hulme

Once, in finesse of fiddles found I ecstasy,

In a flash of gold heels on the hard pavement.

Now see I

That warmth’s the very stuff of poesy.

Oh, God, make small

The old star-eaten blanket of the sky,

That I may fold it round me and in comfort lie.

       First of all the title itself gives us an image that the poem is about one place named as Embankment. (near Thames river) The Thames Embankment is a work of 19th-century civil engineering that reclaimed marshy land next to the River Thames in central London.

Oh, God, make small

The old star-eaten blanket of the sky,

That I may fold it round me and in comfort lie.

 

 So particular this line we can connect with the surrealism. Because he or she dreams of having their own home. Present speaker is facing the problem of homelessness. This poem connects with Oscar Wilde’s famous line, we can all look at the stars, but some of us are in the gutter. 

2. Darkness by Joseph Campbell

   

        I stop to watch a star shine

        in the boghole -

        A star no longer, but a silver

         ribbon of light.

        I look at it and pass on.

In the title we find that the modern characteristic is the use of negative words. One of the most important themes of Modern literature is Nothingness.  This theme we can relate to here. Joseph Campbell strict modern poet, his poem against the Victorian themes. The present poem's title itself suggest the contradiction between darkness and shiny star. speaker might be tell about the illusions in the life.

  3. Image by Edward storer

Forsaken lovers,

Burning to a chaste white moon,

Upon strange pyres of loneliness and drought.

The  image of  forsaken lovers that means the lover who separated but their sexual desire yet not fulfilled.

       The image of white moon cycle represents the fertile power of women and was considered the cycle of the 'good mother' as she was fertile in sync with the natural cycles of the earth (the full moon is considered as earth's most fertile time.)

      So the lovers are suffering from the theme of alienation in modernist literature. It is about sexual perversion.

4. In a station of the Metro" - Ezra Pound

    

   The apparition of these faces in the Crowd;

 Petals on a wet, black bough.

           In this particular poem poets use two images. Like the first one is the metro station and the crowd that we find from the title. Second one is about petals in black boughs. Here the poet used metaphors ' these faces' are like ' Petals on a wet, Black bough'.

The word  'crowd' shows here contrast.  There is a crowd but no one who is interested in talking with other people doesn't have time for that. Life became a machine like Metro.  Life became lifeless. Also we can say that poets try to show disinterestedness as characteristics of modern literature. He was talking about the wet and dark atmosphere  at the station and also the lives of people. As we know that petals don't stabl long life. We are also like that mortal in this darkness.

5. The Pool - Hilda Doolittle

 

 Are you alive?

 I touch you

 You quiver trembling like a sea-fish

Cover you with my net

What are you- banded one?

             The poem starts with the question, Are you alive ? Here the poet raised a question may be because the people don't have time for themselves, they worked like machines. So that question was raised by her.

      So the image of the pool is important here because the pool doesn't have a flow of water so life has also become flawless in this modern time.

However, another reading is also possible and perfectly persuasive. It was suggested by an IL reader in response to a previous piece of ours, and sees the rock-pool encounter in light of Hilda Doolittle’s pregnancy. When analysed this way, ‘The Pool’ might be interpreted as dramatising an encounter between Doolittle and her as-yet unborn child.

6. Insouciance -  by Richard Aldington

IN and out of the dreary trenches,

Trudging cheerily under the stars,

    I make for myself little poems

   

Delicate as a flock of doves.

They fly away like white-winged doves.The

To understand the poem we have to know about the background of the poet.  Aldington joined the British Army in 1916, during the Great War, and was commissioned as a second lieutenant into the Royal Sussex Regiment during 1917 and was wounded on the Western Front. Aldington never completely recovered from his war experiences.

    So the first image is creating by first two lines. It seems like a war ground. The word 'star' suggests that he was under the protection of stars. And then the reference of doves comes. Dove is the symbol of peace. So speakers want a peaceful life. So 5he poem creates a war image, using a theme of war. This poem explores expressionism.

7. Morning at the Window - by T. S. Eliot

They are rattling breakfast plates in basement kitchens,

And along the trampled edges of the street

I am aware of the damp souls of housemaids         

Sprouting despondently at area gates.         

 The brown waves of fog toss up to me                 

Twisted faces from the bottom of the street,         

And tear from a passer-by with muddy skirts          An aimless smile that

hovers in the air    And vanishes along the level of the roofs.

                      The whole poem has negative words. The word 'Rattling' means vibrating, shaking plates and 'Damp' means in low spirits from loss of hope or courage. The fog and twisted faces gives negative glimpse and an aimless smile suggests artificiality of Modern civilization. This poem gives images and symbols of the dead spirit in people. In this poem we find that the Characteristics of modern poetry,that is the use of negative words. And also we see that the various images create by the poet. The poem tells a story of poor people.

8. The Red Wheelbarrow -  by William Carlos Williams

so much depends upon

a red wheel

barrow

glazed with rain water

beside the white chicken.

   

   The wheelbarrow is an enduring and universal tool, used by people for thousands of years. 

    By extension, the wheelbarrow here might be taken to represent the value of the working class. The people actually performing said manual labor, such as farmers, miners, construction workers, etc. Might be the water and the wheelbarrow is the most important part for farmers. This poem showed everyday life.The colours 'red' and 'white' are used in a dual way. It makes the poem difficult in understanding. This poem might be  against modern inventions. Poetry is important to craftsmanship.

9. Anecdote of the jar -  by Wallace Stevens

I placed a jar in Tennessee,   

And round it was, upon a hill.   

It made the slovenly wilderness   

Surround that hill.

The wilderness rose up to it,

And sprawled around, no longer wild.   

The jar was round upon the ground   

And tall and of a port in air.

It took dominion everywhere.   

The jar was gray and bare.

It did not give of bird or bush,   

Like nothing else in Tennessee.

        The poem is very hard to understand the exact concept of the poem.  It's very hard to connect the dots between the images like the jar, the wild area, the place Tennessee, hills and ground. The language is complex in structure. How to read the image of the jar that became difficult for me.

10. I - by E. E. Cumming

"A leaf  falls with loneliness"

This is the one line interesting poem. He writes that the fragmentation of the words "illustrates visually the separation that is the primary cause of loneliness". 

       The image of a single leaf falling down. That suggests the loneliness This poem reflects the modern time people were living in one country together like leafs live on a tree. Poem suggests the theme of Isolation. That is the characteristics of modern poetry.

So that's how I am able to read images and metaphors from this poem related to the twentieth century. Your perspective and view regarding this poem must be different ,if you want to add something  then write in the comment section.

Thank you !!