Aestheticism and Modernism - Essay Example

Aestheticism and Modernism Introduction The modernist period lies from 1900-1950; a time of great progress in art, architecture, music, and literature. Modernism, the genre that was associated with this period, featured radical aesthetics, technical experimentation, self-conscious reflexiveness and skepticism of the real world. (Bertolt, 1964, 139) Modernism was a direct response to such events like the Russian Revolution, the industrial revolution, technological change, World War 1 and the depression. Industrialization brought about the machines and buildings of cast iron, offering a radically different urban life. Darwin’s theory of natural selection and Freud’s view of subjective states that involved an unconscious mind full of primal impulses shocked the Victorians. And as the names of Darwin and Freud suggest, it was the intellectuals and upper class that became part of the modernist age. T.S. Eliot’s "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" and "The Journey of the Magi" Among these artists was T.S. Eliot. Eliot's concerns deeply showed the effect of WWI on the moral values of people and people's belief in God. Industrialization drastically increased production and consumption rates, with that so did pollution, creating a very ugly metropolis. In response to this industry, there was an increase in urbanization as more people wanted to move closer to work and money, hence the sense of crowdedness in Eliot's poems. Influxes of human population meant more pollution. The Depression played an important part in developing the persona of the modern man. This was a time of decline in a man's dignity and much humiliation from not being able to fend for his family. One of the prime concerns that characterized Modernist texts was the depiction of the cityscape as the habitat of the modern man. The Industrial revolution significantly transformed the urbanity of England, supplying the streets with cheap electricity and extending the city horizons to include skyscrapers and railroad bridges of cast iron. Eliot’s main concern revolved around the impact of such mechanization on urban life, mainly the increased pollution and an overall sense of sterility and spiritual poverty. (Eagleton, 1970, 94-101) T. S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" and "The Journey of the Magi" reveal some of the major concerns of their early 20th century Modernist context. Through continuous use of imagery, ambiguity, repetition, allusions and purposeful contortion of lines and sentences, Eliot demonstrates the importance of the inner self, innovation, religious questioning, an uninviting and bleak society and a flaunting of conventions, themes commonly associated with Modernism and the period after WWI. Prufrock, contrasting to the conventional expressive love song, is a dramatic monologue that concentrates the despondent character thrashing at the back of worthless communal masquerades in cities while Magi offers a negative examination of the journey of the Three Wise Men to the birth of Christ and details the alienation of one magus for whom it results in the death of his world. This pessimistic cynicism towards life is a marking trait of Eliot's poetry. The first segment of Prufrock introduces a penchant for chaos and Prufrock's paralysis in the desolation of modern living. The opening quote from Dante suggests Prufrock is confined in an earthly Hell. The simile of the "sky/like a patient etherealized on a table" destroys any romantic ambiance and creates a smothering, polluted image. Set in the slums of a metropolis, Prufrock describes the "muttering retreats", "cheap hotels" and "sawdust restaurants" in "half-deserted streets". This imagery of a torturously impersonal city, its seedy atmosphere and "tedious" routine, as well as a general sense of disorderliness and aimlessness, is emphasized by the application of enjambment and unpatterned rhyme. Yellow smoke and fog, resembling the pathetic movements of a cat, drifts towards drains, soot-filled chimneys and windowpanes. They are representations of the city's factory smoke, industrial waste, and poverty, so intimate to the wealthy women "talking of Michelangelo" yet so contradictory in lifestyle and stifling in effect. This depiction of a defeatist, depressed modern man who inhabits a squalid and spiritually deprived cityscape is aligned to Modernist ideas. Eliot uses imagery and repetition in Prufrock's body and conclusion to explore Prufrock's mask of social normality supplements the disintegrating and disjointed nature of Modernism and reveals the poem as an alternative to conventional wisdom. Through repeated rhetorical questionings of "Do, I dare?" Prufrock shows his insecurity, inadequacies, and fear of socializing. He swelters in agitation as he scrutinizes his physical imperfections. Although he has "known them all", he cannot embrace society, intimacy or decisiveness. The odd order in the phrase, "Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons", exhibit his chaotic sense of time. His ambiguous metaphoric observation, "I have measured out my life with coffee spoons" exposes the insignificance of life. Prufrock employs objective correlative by referring to himself as "a pair of ragged claws/ Scuttling across the floors of silent seas", abandoned and incomplete. He biblically refers to John the Baptist whose head was "brought in upon a platter" to illustrate the level of his eccentric cowardice, which challenges the tradition and social niceties signified by drawing room teas. Eliot uses ellipses behind the consecutive "I grow old" clauses to create the discontinuity in the lines and weary misery for Prufrock near the poem's end. The repetitive and sometimes inquiring "I" emphasizes Prufrock the individual and his lonely existence filled with self-imposed uncertainty. His closing comment that he does "not think they will sing to" him and "we drown" finally awakes the harsh reality of life. Prufrock's obsession with triviality, pretentious concern for image and inability to engender love is a reflection of Modernism which believed the decline of Christian values and urban decay created an anarchic world indifferent to individuals who in turn struggled helplessly. Similarly, "The Journey of the Magi" is a poem narrated by a reflective, middle-aged and depressed man and its introductory stanzas pick up Modernists' steady theme of agony, futility, and tediousness. The poem commences by wearily detailing the ardor of the magus's journey, taken at "the worst time of the year" in a lonely desert, suggested by the "galled, sore-footed, refractory" camels. The alliteration in "a cold coming" accentuates the harshness of the season, which is described as "sharp" and "the very dead of winter". The journey itself is full of "camel men cursing and grumbling", "night-fires going out", "lack of shelters" and idyllic dreams of the "summer palaces" and "silken girls" left behind. Beyond the desert, the magus encounters "hostile" cities, "unfriendly" towns and "dirty" villages. As the magus summarises, he had a "hard time" and subconsciously wondered if "this was all folly". The incessant exploitation of "and" and the juxtaposition of phrases without using conjunctions reinforces this Modernist negativity and disillusionment. Eliot echoes the Modernist ideas of uncertainty, alienation, and re-examination of religion in the concluding parts of Magi. The poem is deliberately unconventional as it alludes to Jesus' death with "three trees on the low sky" to denote his crucifixion as well as to Judas' betrayal for blood money. It radically contains no reference to gold, frankincense, and myrrh. The word "dawn", the lush environment and the "water-mill/ beating the darkness"symbolize the beginning of a golden epoch and religion but the magus only finds it "satisfactory". Jesus' nativity means the death of "the old dispensation" with which he is "no longer at ease" and the "hard and bitter agony" of conversion to Christianity. He struggles to understand the significance of his journey and reaches the Modernist state of resignation and disenchantment. As such the magus can only wait for death as a relief from "alien people" desperate to cling to an ineffectual belief. "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" and "The Journey of the Magi" demonstrate Modernist themes, which were spurred on by the trauma of World War I, the development of the metropolis and rapid industrialization. They incorporate the ideas of social collapse, gloom, a search for individual values, a breakdown of communications in the empty city and a re-evaluation of conventional social etiquette, beliefs, and poetic structure. However, their inclusion is often only obtainable from oblique Modernist allusions and paradoxes, making a full understanding of the poem difficult and dependent upon opinion. Analysis and Discussion on Modernism and Aestheticism in Literature Modernism is a term referring to the literature and art developed during the early part of the twentieth century beginning with World War I and lasting until World War II. It is defined by its rejection of classical literary conventions and traditions of the nineteenth century and by its opposition to morality. Scientific rationalization has largely grown in the 20th century. (Asher, 1995, 110-14) This inevitably attracted more people towards humanism and consequently, an abandonment of God. "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" describes a man's frustration towards existentialism in the 20th century. Though fictional, Prufrock undoubtedly reflects Eliot's views. The narrator unveils through a dramatic monologue the difficulties and dissatisfaction of life. Modern man has discarded traditional values of Christian and classical societies. As a result, they felt a sense of alienation, felt loss and despair, and felt that they had no basis for hope - an underlying theme of Eliot's ballad. The most frightening portrayal of the "you and I" in line 7 is ironically speaking to himself (as if looking into a mirror), and an indication of his solitude. Through a careful analysis of imagery, diction, and syntax in "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock", one may conclude that redefined collective values obstruct the wellbeing of individuals today. This ideology is demonstrated by alienation, moral conviction, and meaning of existence. Supplying his poem with images of alienation, Prufrocks' paralysis parallels that of modern society. Imagery involves any sensory detail or evocation in a work. In the second stanza, Eliot uses a simile: "Like a patient etherized upon a table." As this is a dramatic monologue, this image appears as if Prufrock left his body and is looking down on himself drugged on an operating table. Participating in a reflection of his life, he realizes he is alone. Feeling depressed about his life, he says that, "There will be time to prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet." This "face" is connotative in itself, suggesting that society is fake and dishonest. No one can be themselves - the image is everything. Without society's facade, relationships would be "impossible" (Line 104). Therefore society only works because of this guise and without it, everyone is separated. There is a constant repetition of "I". Eliot is arguably Prufrock. This parallelism accentuates the solitude in his life. There is no reference to family or friends. The mood is very gloomy and depressing. Battling age, he worries about his head growing slightly balder (Line 88). He says, "I grow old ... I grow old ..." (Line 125) and immediately questions what he should do. Feeling that his time has run out to find a partner, he has gone into a despondent temperament and indirectly suggests a persistent life of solitude. Even the mermaids, who are singing to each other, will not sing to Prufrock (Lines 125-126). The only refuge for Prufrock is in his daydreams, "Till human voices wake us and we drown" (Line 133). He is safe as long as he is away from reality. Additionally, the city is presented through an image of, "Half-deserted streets, restless nights in one-night cheap hotels, and sawdust restaurants with oyster shells," (Lines 10-13) This is the lovely setting that Prufrock lives out his meager life. These illustrations of alienation portray that the anxiety Prufrock has with his environment ultimately manifests Eliot's views of modern existence. Eliot despises society's phoniness and underscores the potential loneliness in everyone. Eliot's syntax is one that approximates the frustration and inability of contemporary humans to answer life's questions with moral certainty. (Richard and Gupta, 2004, 323-30) Throughout the poem, he asks endless philosophical questions. For example, "Do I dare disturb the universe?" (Lines 51-52) and, "How should I presume?" (Line 67) These questions suggest an uncertainty in life. Short interrogative sentences with meaningful insights question humanity's moral conviction, which is Prufrock's flaw. The underlying message in this poem is Prufrock's desire for love - a relationship with another human and a connection to society. This is part of Jung's theory of the collective unconscious that makes everyone human; unfortunately, he is unable to find any sense in the question and as a result, he is isolated from all that matters to him. There is a repetition of the line "That is not what I meant at all, that is not it, at all." (Lines 103-104 & 114-115) This expresses his failure to communicate what he wants. There is a lack of fulfilling any sense of moral duty. Eliot's way of putting together words reflects his feelings of relentlessness. This poem is comprised of many sentence fragments and uses punctuation for the benefit of expression. The implication is that Prufrock cannot create the sense or a coherent set of statements. The poem is not presented chronologically, but rather, it is a collage of ideas without organization. Eliot's overall structure implicitly expresses a catastrophic view of modern society to see its way out of the moral difficulties using rationalism. He hypothesizes the question of morality because he deems civilization has been distorted as a result of inadequate principles in life. The quandaries of the present life are acknowledged by Eliot's "love song." Clearly, a shift from classicism has been identified. So much for carpe diem, Eliot's identification of alienation, moral conviction, and meaning of existence satires what has become the norm. His heart decays by the moment. Even within his fantasies, he is tortured by the omnipresent problems, which plague him throughout his life. Images of alienation have disrupted any form of unity among society. The style and structure of Eliot's poem questions society's moral relativism. Society fails to comply with any moral conviction, which signifies the further movement away from God. Lastly, the universal ponders of the meaning to life is criticized. Individuals are nothing without a purpose; existence is hindered by cautious agony. Although Eliot's tone is melancholic, society is warned of contemporary light. About the time of World War, I came a man that would help change the thinking of many people. T.S. Eliot, along with many other poets and artists, headed a new revolution known as Modernism. According to Lukacs, (1989) modernism is a rebellion against the Victorian traditions of that time. Modernists believed that the industrialized nations with cash-based economies, primarily Protestant Christian, were not the "civilized" people. Instead, they saw them as greedy hypocrites who made freedom unattainable. (Lukacs, 1989, 597-611) Modernists also explored the fractured human relationships resulting from a break down in Christian values, especially after World War I. Eliot is all too aware of the formulated and artificial nature of human interactions and the sense of isolation one feels when acting as an observer. The formulated and trivial nature of human relationships is metaphorically described in "the eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase". The formulated phrase is a metaphor for the conversation Prufrock is having with the women. Eliot presents this conversation as trivial, tedious and meaningless because people are just following a formula or convention. There is no true understanding of the people in the convo. Again there is the fragmentation of the human body. The Life of Galileo by Bertolt Brecht The story of Galileo by Bertolt Brecht was, for the most part, a historically accurate telling of the life of Galileo. Brecht's story of Galileo's life is filled with him succumbing to the authorities no matter what his beliefs may be. This is similar to the lifestyle in Germany about the time Brecht had written this play. The story of Galileo takes place during the 17th century, a time period when everything, from beliefs to practices, was influenced by the church. The church had controlled the education system and taught their knowledge of the universe to the people. The church taught that the Earth was the center of the universe and the Sun and all other planets revolved around the Earth. The people believed religion over reason, anything the church would say would go. Going against the church meant going against God. The church during the 17th century was very similar to Nazi-Germany during the 20th century. For the both of them it was, follow the church/Nazi guidelines or be prosecuted. Galileo did not, he faced an inquisition. Brecht did not; he was exiled from his home country. His exile had an effect on himself and his writing of the play Galileo. He had only begun writing this play once he had been exiled. His choice to write the play Galileo could have been inspired by many things. One reason could have been that he was interested in science and the story of Galileo interested him. However, Galileo could be looked at as a metaphor for the lifestyle of Brecht during the mid 20th century. He believed in something contrary to the authoritative power and he was punished for it. Brecht was a communist amongst Nazis. Galileo was a scientist striving to reveal the truth, but this meant opposing the authoritative power which was the church at the time. Galileo was also punished, for he was forced to keep his mouth shut and have all his teachings locked away. Brecht may have had his literature and plays shut down and banned all over Germany as well as himself, but he kept at it. He moved all over the place writing, one of the best of his plays was Galileo. Even though Nazi Germany overpowered him at the time Brecht continued what he felt he had to. Pursuing what he believed in and speaking his mind got him in trouble in different places, especially Nazi Germany. However, if he would never have continued his work because of what he went through he would never have created Galileo, his most well-known play. Succumbing to the authorities is a similar situation in his version of Galileo. Much like Brecht, Galileo did not end up as a loser. "Two new sciences! This will be the foundation stone of a new physics. And we thought you had deserted." This is the voice of Andrea in scene thirteen after Galileo has given him the copy of the "Discorsi" that he had been secretly writing. Galileo did recant all theories he had said and given the church their way. For if Galileo did not do this he would have ended up as a dead man. It was not a cowardly move, but more of a sneaky one. By recanting his statements he was able to continue his life of science and pursue even more scientific theories as well as the one he had already made. Galileo was able to pass on his teachings and today he is remembered as a genius way ahead of his own time. In many instances throughout the course of this play, "The Life of Galileo", Brecht is found to use Galileo's struggles with the church and the public as one of the vital backbones of his message. It is quite apparent that Galileo is fighting a battle with the church throughout the play to further spread his findings to enlighten citizens about the scientific truth of the universe beyond fictitious traditional religious values. The church, which served the purpose of the governments in Italy at that time (around 1600's), consists of the popes and the Italian Renaissance. Drawn from the nobility, the Italian Renaissance is ruthless politicians whose central goal is the expansion of their political power. (Keith, 1978, 57) Development and change are issues which the church fears due to the fact that advancement undermines the strength of the church when changes are brought to religion. The church's opinion and attitude towards Galileo's discoveries are clearly outlined by Sagredo on Pg. 23 as he states: "Do you think the Popes will hear your truth and say 'Wonderful, I'm wrong.' Do you think he'll even listen to you? ...When I saw you just now, at the telescope, looking at your new stars - I saw you standing on burning logs. When I heard you say 'I believe in reason' - I smelt burnt flesh." (Brecht 23) What Brecht is telling us through the use of Galileo and his stubborn and persistent need to present his findings, is that even though one is presented with adversities, in Galileo's case, the church, one must continue to use reason to spread the truth. In any case, Galileo believes that religion does not necessarily have to be sacrificed in order to advance a society in terms of technology. At this point in the play, he believes that the use of reason can overcome any obstacle in the attempt to prevail the truth; in a sense, what Brecht is telling the readers through Galileo's stance against the church is that the ability to think, innovate, and propagate the truth are the key requirements that will enhance our society. In this case, Galileo has faced time and time again with adversaries that tell him to stop what he is doing and to follow the Church's orders. Through Galileo's quest for identity, Brecht is once again sending us a strong message; to think that even a character as strong and sure as Galileo can be altered and changed for the worst, really leaves the readers pondering on one thought; in the journey of prevailing the truth, there will always be an opposing structure that will pose an adversary. One must learn from Galileo's life that sacrifice in the way of progression of a society should be recognized and encouraged; Galileo might have failed to show the meaning of sacrifice, but he taught us to think, take risks and understand the true significance of science. In the play Life of Galileo, Brecht has indeed presented an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, of a certain magnitude and which elicits pity and fear. We view a character of arête who commits an intellectual error and, because of his hamartia, falls from happiness to misery. The end result of Galileo, as Northrop Frye notes of all tragedies, is that “the hero's act has thrown a switch in a larger machine than his own life, or even his own society.” 6 When Galileo challenged the church to accept his reasoning, he challenged the entire moral order of society as it existed in his time. In the end, with the survival of his Discorsi, Galileo not only succeeded in changing the world as it existed. The Age of Reason had begun. And a character such as the Little Monk would challenge Galileo with the argument that, without man as the center of the Universe, "There is no sense in our misery, hunger means no more than going without food, it is no longer a test of strength. . ."(Scene 8). The moral order structured by the church establishes “the peace of mind of the wretched and lowly” because with the moral order all men know their place in the cosmos a well as the rules which govern them: When the Inquisitor objects to Galileo's work, it is not on the basis of its validity, it is on the basis that Galileo's work challenges the moral order established by the church. The result, as feared by the Inquisitor, is that “It is an alarming unrest that has come over the world” (Scene 12). Many interesting paradoxes are found in the play Life of Galileo, but one paradox is especially brilliant and curious. While Brecht presents a tragedy in the classical sense, he is at the same time also presenting a modern existential tragedy. The essence of modern existential tragedy is also, in a manner of speaking, the ruling order found in the cosmos. The difference is that, in existential drama, the only ruling order man has with which to relate are the values that he, himself establishes. The ruling concept is that each man must do as he sees fit according to what he perceives as his own moral responsibility to others. Conclusion Modernism revolved heavily around the depiction of the modern man. The modern man was the failure, an anti-hero, who was alienated, lonely, and afraid with no certainties. This character generated from experiences during the Depression, a period of great uncertainty and loss, where work and money were scarce. Prufrock especially is heavily based in the persona of Prufrock. Preludes do dot focus on one persona as Prufrock does, instead, it is populated by individuals in the city, a man, and a prostitute. Emotional associations are keys since Eliot deploys the objective correlative technique throughout Prufrock. The "yellow fog that rubs its back upon the windows panes", although suggestive of the factory smoke from Eliot's hometown, St Louis, the associations with a cat is obvious. Eliot describes the fog almost as if it were an animal; personifying it and giving it some sort of feline beauty. The fog represents Prufrock's causes for the indecision; he describes it as a predatory animal, looking in on the room full of fashionable women "talking of Michelangelo". Unable to enter, it lingers pathetically on the outside of the house and we can imagine Prufrock avoiding yet desiring physical contact in much the same way. Eliot again uses an image of physical debasement to explore Prufrock's self-pitying state; the cat goes down from the high window panes to the "corners of the evening" to the "pools that stand in drain", lets soot from the high chimneys fall on its back, then leaps from the terrace to the ground. When the modern mind contemplates Galileo in terms of the social significance of his trials against oppression, he receives the same spiritual or moral message about man's relative position to the cosmos that the Greeks received when they viewed the relationship of Oedipus to the gods. The nature of man's “gods” has changed from pantheism to an internally established order, but it is a moral order still the same. Galileo (and modern man) can no more escape his self-defined moral cosmos than could Oedipus escape his god defined moral cosmos. This is the greatest paradox of all—God may be dead, but man's responsibility to himself and his fellow man has created a moral cosmos every bit as strong as was found in classical Greece. When the man does not honor his moral responsibility to his fellow man, then social havoc is wrought—as occurred in Nazi Germany. The mere existence of a modern play that effectively demonstrates classical and existential tragedy to the contemporary audience is proof that not only can we moderns know the tragic spirit, but that we can embrace it as well. References Asher, Kenneth. T. S. Eliot and Ideology. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1995. 110-14 Bertolt Brecht, Brecht on Theatre: The Development of an Aesthetic, ed., and trsl. John Willett. New York: Hill and Wang (1964), 139. Bertolt Brecht; Life of Galileo: Collected Plays. Volume 5. Ed. Ralph Manheim and John Willett New York: Pantheon Books (1972), 1-99. Eagleton, Terry. Exiles and Emigres: Studies in Modern Literature. New York: Schocken, 1970. 94-101 Lukacs, Georg "The Ideology of Modernism" in The Critical Tradition, David Richter, ed. (New York: St. Martin's, 1989) 597-611. Keith A. Dickson, Towards Utopia: A Study of Brecht. Oxford: Clarendon Press (1978), 57. Richard Danson Brown, Suman Gupta: 2004: Aestheticism and Modernism: Debating Twentieth-Century Literature 1900-1960 (Twentieth-Century Literature: Texts and Debates): Routledge. 323-30 Read More