T.S. Eliot and the Objective Correlative - 1026 Words

Kyle Mootry Charles DeShong American Lit. II 4/24/2013 T.S. Eliot is thoroughly viewed as one of the most significant poets of the twentieth century, and one of the most important writers of the modernist era. He hated traditional realism by responding against Romantic poetry. His collection of work was extremely experimental and he repeatedly deals with the views of symbolism and imagism in his poetry. America in the early part of the twentieth century was changing quickly and becoming more and more complex and the modernist authors and artists set out to prompt this in their works. Pound, Yeats, and Eliot, to name a couple, were all trying to ‘make it new’ and put a new spin on older genres of prose or art. Eliot used this idea of†¦show more content†¦Furthermore, he draws a parallel—or seems to—between the carpet on which Agamemnon walked and the grapes and wistaria (wisteria) mentioned in the poem. The carpet was purple; grapes and wisteria are usually purple. .......Since ancient times, purple has been the color of royalty –of kings capes, of emperors robes, and of other trappings surrounding a monarch, including carpets. Now then, notice this development: After the waiter brings in fruit, Ms. Rabinovitz â€Å"Tears at the grapes with murderous paws.† Is she another Clytemnestra, ready to strike out at the royal purple that is the symbol of kingly power? At this point in the poem, Sweeney leaves his chair (or shall we call it a throne?) and goes outside. There, he looks in through a window, his face framed by wisteria. .......Nightingales begin singing at a convent. What do nightingales have to do with this tale? Another name for a nightingale is philomel, a term derived from the name Philomela. In Greek mythology. Philomela was a princess of Athens. Her sister, Procne, was married to King Tereus of Thrace. Not satisfied with only one of the sisters, Tereus lusted after Philomela and one day raped her. To prevent her from revealing his crime, he cut out her tongue. However, Philomel embroidered a tapestry depicting his brutality and showed it to her sister. The two women then plotted against Tereus (like the two women in the poem who appear to be conspiring againstShow MoreRelatedModernism - Araby and the Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock Essay1382 Words   |  6 Pagesview of the world as fractured and chaotic, especially due to paralysis and alienation in modern society. This newly perceived reality is reflected through techniques of fragmentation in modernist works such as James Joyce’s sh ort story â€Å"Araby† and T.S. Eliot’s poem â€Å"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock†. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, fundamental and far-reaching changes in society often made individuals feel wary and estranged from their surrounding world. These changes included urbanizationRead More Universality and the Particular1615 Words   |  7 Pagesand the Particular â€Å"History,† Gilman writes, â€Å"is, or should be, the story of our racial life† (Gilman 216). Eliot is a bit less succinct, but perhaps he could be most pithily summed up as saying: â€Å"The business of the poet is not to find new emotions, but to use the ordinary ones and, in working them up into poetry, to express feelings which are not in actual emotions at all† (Eliot 1919, 23). It is not immediately evident what either author means by these statements, however, they both containRead MoreHamlet, Prince Of Denmark1869 Words   |  8 Pagesimportant one that is Objective Correlative, the theory given by an American painter Washington Allston in 1840 but revised and was popularised by the famous literary critic, T.S Eliot in 1919. Then and there he discussed the flaws in Hamlet and specifically the concept of objective correlative. In his essay Hamlet and His Problems, he discusses all the major points he found superfluous. KEY WORDS: Hamlet, William Shakespeare, Artistic failure, Revenge Tragedy, Objective correlative, Hamlet and His ProblemsRead MoreEssay Emotion in T.S. Eliots The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock1453 Words   |  6 PagesEmotion in T.S. Eliots The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock In his poem â€Å"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,† T.S. Eliot subtly conveys a wide variety of Prufrock’s emotions; he creates pathos for the speaker by employing the â€Å"objective correlative,† which Eliot defines as â€Å"a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events [that] shall be the formula of that particular emotion† (â€Å"Hamlet and His Problems†). The first stanza introduces Prufrock’s isolation, as epitomized metaphorically byRead MoreEven Among The Giants Of Literature, Such As Arnold, Wordsworth,1181 Words   |  5 Pages Even among the giants of literature, such as Arnold, Wordsworth, and Milton, Thomas Sterns Eliot stands tall. As the founder of the modernist movement and the voice of a disillusioned generation, there are few who can rival the impact Eliot had on the world of literature. How then, does one choose one work to define this man? Examining his personal beliefs and writings, there are a few threads which connect them all. These threads culminate in his 1925 poem, â€Å"The Hollow Men†, a poem which describesRead Moreâ€Å"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock† by T.S. Eliot is a widely studied and analyzed modernist1300 Words   |  6 Pagesâ€Å"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock† by T.S. Eliot is a widely studied and analyzed modernist poem. This poem is one that many high school students are subjected to, leading to an overall displeasure for â€Å"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.† However, those that revisit the poem are more inclined to enjoy and analyze the poem, finding an interest in the character of J. Alfred Prufrock. Charles C. Walcutt is one of the many individuals fueled to provide a deeper analysis of this text and in his contributionRead MoreImagery in Ode to the West Wind by P.B.Shelley1300 Words   |  6 Pageshuman power, natural mortality versus human mortality, natural freedom versus human freedom, and natural transformation versus human transformation in stanza 4. The poet’s purpose of describing such imagery is to show, what T.S Eliot calls, the ‘objective correlative’, or ‘objective equivalence’ of his emotions. It is through the powers of west wind that he is capable of describing the emotions in a more pictorial form. Finally,the poet describes the imagery of the fourth element, the fire. TheRead MoreModernist Elements in the Hollow Men7051 Words   |  29 PagesMen can only be the beginning of a deep and long reflection for thoughtful readers. T.S. Eliot, who always believed that in his end is his beginning, died and left his verse full of hidden messages to be understood, and codes to be deciphered. It is this complexity, which is at the heart of modernism as a literary movement, that makes of Eliot’s poetry very typically modernist. As Ezra Pound once famously stated, Eliot truly did â€Å"modernize himself†. Although his poetry was subject to important transformationsRead More Barkovs Hamlet: A Tragedy of Errors Essay6762 Words   |  28 PagesPerceiving them as a single image, we interpret the discrepancies in Hamlet as Shakespeares inaccuracies. Chapter II. Shakespeare, Hamlet, Ophelia, and Eliot: no lack of objective correlative According to Shakespeare, Hamlet guessed Ophelia was pregnant. So, there is no lack of objective correlative in the image of Hamlet as it was defined by T.S. Eliot in The Sacred Wood. Chapter III: King Hamlets son Shakespeare depicted Horatio as Hamlets half-brother, king Hamlets son. Having drowned Ophelia