T.S.Eliot介绍及作品分析(1)

Modernism
rose out of skepticism and disillusion of capitalism. Especially the Second World War marked the last stage of the disintegration of the British Empire. Britain suffered heavy losses in the war: thousands of people were killed; the economy was ruined; and almost all its former colonies were lost. People were in economic, cultural, and belief crisises.
His Aesthetic Views
• 1. A poem should be an organic thing in itself, a made object. Once it is finished, the poet will no longer have control of it. It should be judged, analyzed by itself without the interference of the poet’s personal influence and intentional elements and other elements.
As a result, the works created by the modernist writers are often labeled as anti-novel, anti-poetry and antidrama.
Among American writers, the bestknown Modernists are T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner and so on.
• 1915: “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”《普鲁弗 洛克的情歌》 • 1922: The Wasteland《荒原》 • 1935-1942: Four Quartets《四个四重奏》 • 1935: Murder in the Cathedral 《大教堂谋杀案》 • 1939: Family Reunion 《合家团聚》 • 1949: The Cocktail Party《鸡尾酒会》
The Waste Land （荒原）
•his masterpiece, published in 1922.
• It revealed the spiritual crisis of postwar Europe. It reads like the manifesto of the “lost generation” and established Eliot’s position as the leader not only of American poetry, but of a whole generation of writers later to be identified as “Waste Land Painters " like Hemingway and Faulkner.
The background to Modernism 1.The social background
The influences of the two World Wars on English literature: Pre-war ---over-supplied energy; over-confident; ---over-greedy;over-enthusiastic; ---imperialist ideas; ---colony-dismembered in the world. Post-war ---The sense of being lost, adrift, weightless, aimless. It's all so absurd, without meaning.
• The following year, he married Vivienne Haigh-Wood and began working in London, first as a teacher, and later for Lloyd's Bank. • It was in London that Eliot came under the influence of his contemporary Ezra Pound, who recognized his poetic genius at once, and assisted in the publication of his work in a number of magazines. • In 1927 he became a British citizen . • After a notoriously unhappy first marriage, Eliot separated from his first wife in 1933, and was remarried, to Valerie Fletcher, in 1956. • In 1948 he received the Nobel Prize for Literature. • In 1965 he died in London.
Characteristics of Modernism in Literature
1)
One characteristic of English Modernism is "the dehumanization of art"; 2)The modernist writers are mainly concerned with the inner being of an individual; 3)Modernism is, in many aspects, a reaction against realism
• 2. Modern life is chaotic, futile, fragmentary, so poetry should reflect this fragmentary nature of life and this kind nature of life should be projected, not analyzed.
• 4. The poet should draw upon tradition: use the past to serve the resent and future( the past, prese nt, future interrelate), borrow from authors remote in time, alien in language, diverse in interest, use the past to underscore what is missing from the present.

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2. Ideological background





Ideologically, the rise of the irrational philosophy and new science greatly incited modern writers to make new explorations on human natures and human relationships. A. Einstein's(1879—1955) theory of relativity provided entirely new ideas for the concepts of time and space. B. Freud's (1856-1939) analytical psychology drastically altered our conception of human nature. C. Nietzsche (1844-1900) With three simple words: "God is dead," Nietzsche sent his readers into despair. D. Based on the major ideas of his predecessors, Henry Bergson柏格森(1859-1941) established his irrational philosophy which put the emphasis on creation, intuition, irrationality and unconsciousness.
3. objective correlative:
A set of objects, a situation, a chain of events, formula in which the poet expresses his emotion and in which the fusion of intellect, feeling, and experience should be achieved.
• • • • • •
1. Life 2.His Aesthetic View 3.Major Works 4.His Techniques 5.Position 6.Analasis of the Text
• He was born in Missouri on September 26, 1888. He lived in St. Louis during the first eighteen years of his life and attended Harvard University. • In 1910, he left the United States for the Sorbonne, having earned both undergraduate and masters degrees and having contributed several poems to the Harvard Advocate. • After a year in Paris, he returned to Harvard to pursue a doctorate in philosophy, but returned to Europe and settled in England in 1914.
T.S. Eliot
（ 1888-1965）
Thomas Stearns Eliot
A poet, dramatist, literary critic, and modernist.
Modernism
Modernism is a cultural movement that generally includes the progressive art and architecture, design, literature, music, dance, painting and other visual arts which emerged in the beginning of the 20th century , particularly in the years following World War I. It was a movement of artists and designers th who rebelled against late19 century academic and historical tradition, and embraced the new economic, social and political aspects of the emerging modern world.