1. Choose a Romantic poem from the nineteenth century that you intend to rewrite in a way that incorporates typically modernist qualities. Copy the text of the poem here.
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2. In a single paragraph, describe the Romantic poem that you selected. Focus on the language, style, literary elements, and themes of the work.
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3. Rewrite the Romantic poem you selected. Focus particularly on making your rewrite read like a modernist poem in terms of its language, style, literary elements, and themes. Be sure to incorporate into your rewrite at least three of the six qualities of modernist poetry listed below.
Remember that modernist poems
- Capture the cynicism and disappointment many people felt toward outdated nineteenth-century ideas
- Focus on the complexities of modern life
- Highlight the alienation of the individual in the modern world
- Break with past literary traditions and styles
- Employ references to diverse cultures, belief systems, and histories
- Use experimental language and techniques, such as drawing a distinct line between the poet and the speaker and writing from multiple perspectives and in different voices
Here is an example of a modernist rewrite of the first stanza of Wordsworth's "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud":
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Wordsworth's First Stanza
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
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First Stanza of a Modernist Rewrite of Wordsworth
I stood coldly alone, like a World War I flying ace
Who cruises over the shells of bombed-out towns.
As the black fog cleared, I saw a building,
Ten thousand crumblecracking bricks;
Beside a forsaken hospital, over a glass-strewn street,
Sagging depressed during Tefnut's shower.
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4. In a response of at least two paragraphs, provide an explanation of the steps you took to rewrite the Romantic poem you selected. Your explanation should point out at least three typically modernist qualities in your work with regards to things such as language, style, literary elements, and themes.
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