The final time period is the Modern or Contemporary Era, which to some began right after Queen Victoria died in 1901, right before the start of the First World War, but Most view the beginning of Modernism as the start of World War I. A major characteristic of the Modern Era is revolution and chaos. Key players of the Modern Era are W.B. Yeats, T.S. Eliot, Virginia Woolf, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Earnest Hemingway. Love in the Modern Era was expressed through history and mythology much like Tennyson, or through the chaos of real life. William Butler Yeats was an Irish poet and was born in Dublin in 1865. He was very interested in The Occult and social issues, as well as Irish mythology. Yeats had a “Gyre Ideology”, which revolved around
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S. Eliot, the final poet, was born in 1888 and was an American Poet that believed a poem was organic and the poet no longer had control over it once it was finished. He also believed that life was chaotic and poetry should reflect that chaos. Eliot expressed love through modern life and how nothing was perfect about life. In one of Eliot’s most famous poems “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”, the speaker wrestles with the fear of rejection and making up excuses for avoiding pursuing what he really wants, which is to be with the one he loves or the one he will love. Throughout the poem, Prufrock watches all these women he wants to talk to and to be with, but he is so self-conscious and intimidated that instead he watches and loves from afar. “And indeed there will be time / To wonder, ‘Do I dare?’ and, ‘Do I dare?’ / Time to turn back and descend the stair” (Eliot 2525). He gets so close to talking to someone and loving someone, but he backs out at the last minute because he believes there will be enough time to act on his desires. At the end of the poem, however, Prufrock realizes that he has run out of time and accepts that he will never have anyone to truly love, and no one will ever love him. Eliot uses the imperfectness of people and of life itself to express the idea of love and show how imperfect love itself is, and how powerful love is. The idea of love has a hold over Prufrock and he spends all his time worrying about what people will think of him so he
S. Eliot, the final poet, was born in 1888 and was an American Poet that believed a poem was organic and the poet no longer had control over it once it was finished. He also believed that life was chaotic and poetry should reflect that chaos. Eliot expressed love through modern life and how nothing was perfect about life. In one of Eliot’s most famous poems “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”, the speaker wrestles with the fear of rejection and making up excuses for avoiding pursuing what he really wants, which is to be with the one he loves or the one he will love. Throughout the poem, Prufrock watches all these women he wants to talk to and to be with, but he is so self-conscious and intimidated that instead he watches and loves from afar. “And indeed there will be time / To wonder, ‘Do I dare?’ and, ‘Do I dare?’ / Time to turn back and descend the stair” (Eliot 2525). He gets so close to talking to someone and loving someone, but he backs out at the last minute because he believes there will be enough time to act on his desires. At the end of the poem, however, Prufrock realizes that he has run out of time and accepts that he will never have anyone to truly love, and no one will ever love him. Eliot uses the imperfectness of people and of life itself to express the idea of love and show how imperfect love itself is, and how powerful love is. The idea of love has a hold over Prufrock and he spends all his time worrying about what people will think of him so he