Begin your rewrite. To do so, imagine yourself as a poet in the early twentieth century, and imagine your rewrite as an attempt to update the outdated elements of the nineteenth-century work you selected. 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Capture the cynicism and disappointment many people felt toward outdated nineteenth-century ideas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
Your rewrite must incorporate at least three of the six listed characteristics of modernism. Here is an example of a modernist rewrite of the first stanza of Wordsworth’s “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”: