The Valiant Past vs. the Banal Present in Modernist Poetry Anonymous College

The modernism movement has paved way for the present and future of writing in a lot of ways. After World War I had ended, life had changed drastically in contrast to before it had begun. After society had been exposed to the horrific realities of war, as well as technological advances and industrial expansion, there had been a radical change socially and culturally which in turn inevitably altered the way of writing in regards to form, structure and content. Modernism involves experimentation, innovation, an emphasis on inner streams of consciousness and rejection of chronological form. It is a reaction to the events of the time and a new way for artists to express without confining to the conventional. Modernists would write on ordinary, everyday life to display significant contrasts to the past. After reading and analyzing several modernist writers it is certainly apparent of the different perspectives in regards to the past and present. Specifically, both T.S. Eliot and William Butler Yeats, portrayed through their writing, yearn for the heroic past and traditions while juxtaposing it with the banal present. Their pessimistic view on the modern world as a spiritual and social rupture and their longing for the past is...