Describe in brief the main trends of modern English poetry.

Ans.

Every age is an age of transition. Our age is remarkable for the variety. speed and direction of its transformations. Generally speaking, there have been, in the first half of this century, three main movements which arose in the following order-

1. A continuation of the romantic naturalism of the nineteenth century in a mild lyrical form (1900-1914).

2. An anti-romantic movement of wit, satire and introspection (1914-1934).

3. A movement of simplicity, dream and vision leading to a new Romanticism (1934 onwards).

The first of these movements is represented by the so called Georgian poets such as Rupert Brooke and John Masefield. The second movement is represented by such major poets as T. S. Eliot, A. E. Housman, Siegfried Sassoon and some of the War poets (particularly Wilfred Owen). The undisputed leader of the third movement is W. B. Yeats, who is considered by many critics to be the greatest poet of this century. But we do not generally associate the name of any major poet with any particular movement of this century just as we do the names of Coleridge and Wordsworth with the Romantic movement of the early 19th century.

1. A violent reaction against traditional modes of poetry- In the 20th century, particularly in the years following the First World War, there has been a violent reaction against the poetry of Tennyson, the most representative poet of the Victorian age Modern age looks with contempt on Victorian tradition and modern poetry is more or less the poetry of revolt. All modern poets, however, have not reacted against all tradition. Most of them, while searching for new subject-matter and ne modes of expression, have looked back with admiration to the great Elizabethans and the 17th-century poets.

2. New experiments in expression- The spirit of revolt has manifested itself in many ways. This revolt is the result of a natural desire for something new and also something more in keeping with the problems of the present. In the field of poetry the revolt has been directed both against old and familiar subject-matter and against older forms of expression. Modern poetry takes any subject under the sun for its domain and it tends towards more freedom in its expression. A new verse-form has come into much vogue, namely Vers Libre or Free verse. It is a loose, rhymeless and irregular arrangement of poetic lines of various and vastly different line-lengths. It generally reads somewhat like prose. The range of diction in modern poetry has extended to include slang and colloquial words on a much larger scale than ever before.

3. Extension of the Subject-matter- The extension in the field and the scope of the subject-matter is even more striking. Modern poets have discovered elements of poetry in tramcars, in railway trains, in aeroplanes; in the factory and the stock-exchange Modern poetry teaches us to seek beauty in places where we never expected to find it. This naturally leads sometimes to superficiality and sentimentalism.

4. A new attitude to Nature- Modern poetry is distinct from its predecessors in its attitude to nature. In spite of the manifold attacks of science and intellectualism on the beauty and mystery of Nature, the modern poet has not ceased to love Nature. The attitude of the modern poet to Nature is, however, different from that of Shelley or Wordsworth, for instance. He does. not look to Nature, as Wordsworth does, for moral guidance or spiritual inspiration, nor does he take her, like Shelley, as an outward manifestation of a mysterious supreme power. The modern poet approaches Nature as a lover and simply seeks joy and peace in her contact. Very often he invests Nature with own moods.

5. Poetry of patriotism and adventure- The great rise of the spirit of nationalism has given birth to poetry of patriotism, of love of homeland and of sea-life. The First World War, in the first flush of patriotic upsurge, gave impetus to a host of poets who sang of the glories of the motherland. There have been singers of the English countryside and its beauties and there have been, singers of the glories and the greatness of the Empire. The War Poets have sung of the great fortitude and heroism of the soldier on the war front. Sea-life has been ably represented in the poetry of Masefield and Kipling.

6. The effect of Psychology- The fantastic developments in psychology have led to a realistic approach to the child-mind. Walter de la Mare has explored in his poetry as well as his stories the wonderland of a child’s vision. Modern spirit is opposed to mysticism and fantasy, but there have been notable exception in Francis Thompson and W. B. Yeats.

7. War Poetry: the poetry of disillusionment- The modern age is also the age of disillusionment. The War shook the very foundations of age old established values and beliefs, both social and human and led to a mood of bitter disillusionment and pessimism in the immediate post-war period. Eliot’s The Waste Land (1922) is a very powerful expression of this mood of disillusionment. The War Poets fall into two broad categories: those who sing of the glories of a soldier’s life and those who speak of the war horrors. Rupert Brooke is a representative poet of the first category and Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon are the leading poets in the second category. These later War Poets have vastly influenced the attitude of modern poets.

8. The “socialist” poets- In the thirties of this century, there appeared a generation of poets whom we may describe as “socialist” poets. These poets reflected through their poetry their awareness of the growing inequality among the classes of society and of the gross injustice and exploitation resulting from this inequality. They penetrated the realm of poverty and human misery and exposed the hypocrisy of the modern social systems which claim to have achieved a substantial measure of human progress through science and industrialism. The most notable of these poets are W H. Auden, Stephen Spender and Louis MacNeice. These poets, however, are not “socialist” in any orthodox sense. They only stress the spirit of social justice in many of their poems, instead of expounding or supporting any brand of social philosophy.

Conclusion- Thus we find that modern poetry is extremely rich and various. It is fully aware of its duties and responsibilities. The modern age does not seem to favour poetry as an art form. It seems to attach more importance to the novel or the short story or the essay. But poetry continues to be written on a large scale and it is appreciated and studied by the most enlightened among readers and critics.