Rewrite a romantic poem in a way that incorporates modernist qualities, English homework help
Subject
Humanities
Question Description
Part 1: Choose a Romantic Poem
Romantic literature champions the beauty of the world and the inherent goodness of human beings, and Romantic verse is highly structured and deeply traditional. Modernism frequently defines itself as a reaction against and a rejection of romanticism. Modernist poets viewed Romantic poetry as a remnant of the nineteenth century. Modernists did not think that writing as the Romantics did in the 1800s could effectively capture their twentieth-century world or their experiences in that world.
Begin this assignment by choosing a Romantic poem from the nineteenth century that you intend to rewrite in a way that incorporates typically modernist qualities. You can find numerous examples of nineteenth-century Romantic poetry on pages 83–112 of your Journeys anthology. For example, William Wordsworth’s “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud,” which appears on pages 90–91 of your anthology, is a well-known Romantic poem. Note: You may not use this poem in your answer.
Part 2: Briefly Explain the Romantic Poem You Chose
In a single paragraph, describe the Romantic poem that you selected. Focus on the language, style, literary elements, and themes of the work. This step of the process is important because these are the aspects of the work that your modernist rewrite of it will change. Here, as an example, is a brief explanation of Wordsworth’s “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”:
Most of Wordsworth’s poem describes how a “crowd” of daffodils near a lake looked as they fluttered in the breeze. This poem uses formal language, has a fixed rhyme scheme, and employs an even meter. The speaker is very closely linked to the poet, and neither the voice nor the perspective in the piece ever shifts. The work contains a number of similes—one compares the speaker to a lonely cloud, another compares the daffodils to stars—and the flowers are personified to make the descriptions of them more vivid. Thematically speaking, the poem is about how, even long after having seen the flowers, the speaker feels comforted and happy whenever he thinks of their beauty.