Contexts on Module B – T.S Eliot (Detailed)

Resource Description

TS Eliot Mod B
The Love Song of Alfred Prufrock – 1910 PUBLISHED
Written as a college student after he visited Boston and Paris
Preludes – 1910-1911
Isolation through assimilation
Rhapsody on a Windy Night – 1911
Absolute isolation similar themes of isolation and the partition of self
The Hollow Men – 1925
References to Dante, Conrad and Shakespeare
Journey of the Magi – 1927
Modernism
Radical shift in aesthetic and cultural sensibilities post WW1 (1914-1918)
‘rejecting 19th century optimism, [modernists] presented a profoundly pessimistic picture of a culture in disarray’ TS Eliot
First half of 20th century
In reaction to WW1, death of Edward VII and with it the Edwardian Era in 1910, controversial post-impressionist art exhibition of Manet, Cezanne, Van Gough and Toulouse
Rejects Romanticism and its sensitivity, idealism, idea of the perfect hero, idealisation of youth and artifice
Reveals a loss of faith, disillusionment with society, rejection of tradition, the fragmentation of society
Experimental
Interested in mind and psychological ideas
Symbolism
Highly metaphorical manner that gives everyday objects symbolic meaning
Imagism
Reins power of the image and only the image to communicate feeling and thought
Ezra Pound