T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land and the Modernist Movement

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Recommended: Impact of World War 1 and 2 on literature

Sight. It is the simple, yet extremely intricate skill performed by humans everyday. The uniqueness of an eye can be described as different combinations of colors that draw people in for deep conversations and contact with one another. As light shines its beams onto an eye, different colors sparkle, making beautiful shades shine through. Brown, green, blue and hazel are merely a few of the colors that can make up one’s eye. Without eyes, human beings would not be able to visualize the wonderful aspects of nature. Eyes also produce tears of joy and sorrow in response to emotions. The precise observation of this human organ is an example of what a Modernist writer may have expressed in their work. Modernists were a group of people involved in the Modernist/Imagist literary movement throughout Europe and America. They were defined by their detailed description of images in hopes of sharing thoughts to the reader. Influenced by World War I, this literary movement focused on the importance of the common man and some authors described the deep wounds in which were left following the traumatic war. In his poem, “The Waste Land,” T.S. Eliot reflects the principles of the Modernist Movement through his precise descriptions and use of images to emphasize the realities of current life.

To begin, the Modernist Literary Movement (also known as the Imagist Movement) swept across Europe and America in hopes of discovering a new writing style for Western culture. Beginning in the 1890s and lasting until about 1945, this movement incorporated a variety of new and old ideas such as surrealism, symbolism, imagism, and more (“Modernism” par. 1-3). Despite its many aspects, however, the main goal of this movement was to reject old customs...

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“Imagism.” Gale Student Resources in Context. Detroit: Gale, 2012. Student Resources in Context. Web. 8 November 2015.

“Imagist Movement.” Questia.com. Questia. Web. 9 November 2015.

Matterson, Stephen. “1890-1840s Modernism.” PBS. PBS, Mar. 2007. Web. 9 November 2015.

“Modernism.” Faculty.unlv.edu. Unlv.edu. Web. 9 November 2015.

Shelby, Nick. T.S. Eliot: The Waste Land. New York: Columbia UP, 2001. Print.

“Thomas Stearns Eliot.” Encyclopedia of World Biography. 2004. Encylopedia.com. 13 November 2015.

“T.S. Eliot (Anglo-American Poet).” Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia Britannica. Web. 13 November 2015.

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