How Has T.S. Eliot Influenced Modern Poetry?

Twentieth century is a curious mixture of the traditional and the experimental, of the old and the new. It is complex and many sided.

There appear different schools and movements during the per

modern poetry is written. Among these schools and movements Impressionism, Imagism, Surrealism etc. The Impressionists sex convey the vague fleeting sensations and feelings by means of my images and metaphors. The Imagists aim at replacing vogues descriptions of the Romantic-Victorian poetry.

T.S. Eliot as a Modern Poet:

Modern poetry is marked by stark realism which is the product of revolt against Victorian tradition and the influence of science. Modern poets look at life without the spectacle of romance and paint it with its ugliness. Realism is also seen in poetic forms and style. They break away from the highly ornate and artificial style of the Victorian period and use the style appropriate to everyday speech. They use colloquial diction, speech, rhythms, free verse and prosaic words. "Imagism did modern poetry a tremendous service by pointing the way to a renovation of the vocabulary of poetry and the necessity of ridding poetic technique of vague and empty verbiage and dishonest and windy generalities. The revolt is best exemplified in the poetry of T.S. Eliot.

Modern poetry is characterized by a note of pessimism. The two wars and impending danger of a third (and perhaps the last) have cast a gloomy shadow on much of the poetry of the twentieth century. The modern age has been called "the age of anxiety." This note can be heard in the poetry of many major poets like Housman, Hardy, Huxley, and T. S. Eliot. Housman refers to the Supreme Power in this most blasphemous phrase: "Whatever brute or blackguard made the world.” Hardy in his greatest work The Dynasts also expresses his disbelief in God and his concept of determinism. T. S. Eliot was quite religious but his attitude towards life as we find it in such poems as The Waste Land and The Hollowmen is far from optimistic.

This pessimistic realisation of sad realities of life is partly responsible for the note of fellow-feeling and humanitarianism which is to be heard in the work of some modern poets. The twentiethcentury poets like Galsworthy, Gibson, and Masefield also voiced their indignation against social repression.

Modern poetry is marked by love of nature. Nature fascinates some poets because she offers such a wonderful contrast with the tumult and ugliness of an industrialised and over-sophisticated age. "In the face of modern industrialism," says A. C. Ward, "they (modern poets solace their souls by retiring to the country and celebrating the beauties of unspoiled Nature." Masefield in "SeaFever" expresses a strong desire to run away from the dreary life into

the lonely sea and the sky." Edmund Blunden points his finger lovingly at the little-noticed things of nature. Davies poetry has the feature of childlike curiosity in the natural objects everybody finds around himself.

Religion and mysticism also find a place in the work of some poets of the modern age. Coventry Patmore and Francis Thompson who wrote religious poetry towards the end of the preceding century, seem to have inspired a number of poets in this century. In the poetry of the Jesuit Gerard Manley Hopkins, too, we have something religious now and then. Ralph Hodgson's The Song of Honour is a notable poem pulsating with religious feelings. Even in the poetry of such poets as Yeats there are mystical strains.

T. S. Eliot has exercised a complex and continuing influence on modern English poetry. His memorable contribution lies in creating contemporary consciousness in modern poetry. He gave a new intellectual dignity, a new sincerity and a new spiritual depth to modern poetry. He gave a new direction to poetry, as Dryden had done after the Restoration and Wordsworth at the end of the 18th century. While his poetry has remained inimitable, he has shown a new direction in the speheres of versification and imagery. His successors - Louis MacNeice, Cecil Day Lewis, Stephen Spender, Auden and many others - owe him a special gratitude. According to G.S. Frazer, "as a craftsman who has provided them with new, sharp tools, and as a teacher from whom they have learned how to use tools and how to use them."