Modernism: Formed or Fleeting?

The word “modern” has been  part of the English vernacular since at least the early sixteenth century, and its Latin version, modernus, has been with us since the sixth. Interestingly, its Latin root is modo, which can be translated to “just now,” such as when St. Augustine famously wrote, Da mihi castitatem et continentiam, sed noli modo —“Give me chastity and continence, but not yet!” Modo can also mean “in a certain manner”; this definition is largely the way that most Romance languages continue to use “modo” today.

This dual definition of “modern”—something that is current and something that is done in a certain manner—touches on a problem that is at the heart of the literary and artistic movement of the early twentieth century known as “Modernism”: Is Modernism something that was meant to represent the “just now” or is it something that re-expressed certain ideas and themes “in a certain manner”? Consider the following excerpt from T.S. Eliot’s “Gerontion” (1920), a poem which exemplifies many of the formal and stylistic features typical of Modernist poetry and which was supposed to serve as the prelude to Eliot’s landmark Modernist work The Waste Land:

In depraved May, dogwood and chestnut, flowering judas,
To be eaten, to be divided, to be drunk
Among whispers; by Mr. Silvero
With caressing hands, at Limoges
Who walked all night in the next room;

By Hakagawa, bowing among the Titians;
By Madame de Tornquist, in the dark room
Shifting the candles; Fräulein von Kulp
Who turned in the hall, one hand on the door.
      Vacant shuttles
Weave the wind. I have no ghosts,
An old man in a draughty house
Under a windy knob.

After such knowledge, what forgiveness? Think now
History has many cunning passages, contrived corridors
And issues, deceives with whispering ambitions,
Guides us by vanities. Think now
She gives when our attention is distracted
And what she gives, gives with such supple confusions
That the giving famishes the craving.

When I first read “Gerontion,” I wondered, what is particularly “modern” about Modernist poetry? Many Modernist poets like Pound, Woolf, Joyce and Auden write about the same themes—world wars, cities, the mundanities of everyday life—and their poems share similar narrative features: internal monologues, stream of consciousness, and polyvocality. Literary historians often ascribe these writer’s novelty in form to a desire to break from the artistic conventions of the past. But the Modernists were hardly the first to write poetry about war, nature, and existential struggle. Instead, their novelty came from the second definition of “modo”: the manner in which these thoughts are arranged and structured on paper. 

Modernist literature was novel in form, not concept. There was a philosophical disagreement between early Modernist writers and their successors, who also called themselves Modernists, after what first began as an attempt to reimagine the form of writing turned into a self-conscious desire to break from the past completely and do something radically new. The two meanings of modo seemed to be at odds. 

In his 1917 essay “Reflections on Vers Libre,” T.S. Eliot wrote about how those who hastily considered themselves Modernists confused “novelty of . . . choice and manipulation of material” with the “novelty of the form.” The latter was a mark of literary Modernism that demanded artistic precision, the former only an illusion that contributed to a gradual simplification and obscurantism in art. Eliot’s essay specifically targets one of the prominent new Modernist poetic forms: free verse. According to Eliot, “free” verse is a misnomer since, as he says, “there is no freedom in art.” Eliot described his friend Ezra Pound’s vers libre as an achievement “only possible for a poet who has worked tirelessly with rigid forms and different systems of metric,” just like how jazz musicians must learn the rudiments of music theory before breaking the rules.

Further, Eliot criticized vers libre as a school with a “group of theorists” who would either “revolutionize or demoralize” art. Eliot’s emphasis on the word theory reveals his concern for the future of literature: the obsession with novelty of choice provokes the artist to radically break from his own past rather than to use it as a tool for his own inspiration to create a novel form. Modernist artists had to distinguish between being modern in the manner of expression or being modern in their place in time, therefore always disassociating themselves from the past. One is formed, the other fleeting: 

“The novelty meets with neglect; neglect provokes attack; and attack demands a theory. In an ideal state of society one might imagine the good New growing naturally out of the good Old, without the need for polemic and theory; this would be a society with a living tradition.”

As Eliot notes, it is not necessarily the case that being “current” (novelty of choice) and doing something in a certain manner (novelty of form) are incompatible. Novelty is a necessary element in art, but the type of novelty dictates the course of future development. Artists are always toeing a line between creation and revolution. The early Modernist poets understood that creating the good New comes naturally from understanding and studying the good Old. But what is the good Old, and where can we find it? 

We can find it in the beginning. Figuratively, we can look to our origins, to our past. But in a literal sense, all we have to do is return to the beginning of this piece. Let’s look again at the verses from “Gerontion.”

The speaker of the poem is a disgruntled old man who delivers a monologue about the Great War and his place in history. The speaker vacillates between past and present as he also struggles to understand whether the past was good or bad, and whether the disillusionment of the present day is a consequence of the past or a consequence of his decision not to participate in the war. He has no past, “no ghosts” to haunt him, yet he is haunted by the ghosts of others. In a “depraved” spring month, flowering trees are blighted by personified figures of the nations that fought in the war: the Italian Mr. Silvero, Japanese Hakagawa, French Madame de Tornquist, and German Fräulein von Kulp. The figures move around a room, sharing a collective Western history which Eliot characterizes geographically (Limoges), culturally (Titian’s paintings) and religiously (the contrast between depravity in these verses and the wider Christian themes of the poem).

The poem turns into a critique of history—of the Old—for her “cunning passages” that guide us by vanities. This vanity is a paradox: our desire to be significant or “current” along history’s trajectory requires us also to acknowledge our place in history. The speaker is aware of his place in time, and he notes, for example, how history “gives when our attention is distracted,” which is another way of saying that history manifests itself when we least expect it. Then comes an important line: “the giving famishes the craving”—our knowledge of history famishes our craving for it.

“Gerontion” is a Modernist poem because it reminds us that our awareness of our place in time should not compel us to view history condescendingly. Being modern is not living in the “just now.” We need the good and bad Old to achieve novelty “in a certain manner.” By engaging with the past, we partake in an act of re-creation, fulfilling both forms of modo. This would be a modern society with a living tradition.

Nayeli Riano is a Penn alumna (C’17) and graduate from the University of St Andrews.