Modern English Poetry : A Study of its Language and Style

By : Amar Nath Prasad

Page No: 39-44

Abstract
Modern poetry in English literature is rich in theme and technique, feeling and form. In theme, it presents the realistic picture of the hollowness, fabrication and hypocrisy of the modern man suffering from so many types of inner psychological problems. It very realistically deals with the fret and fever, the trials and tribulations, the cares and anxieties of modern materialistic mind. The modern man today seldom gets time to stand and stare the beauty of nature and “the ceremony of innocence.” Apart from several other things, modern poetry is a presentation of the dichotomy between the past and the present, the rough and the sublime, man and nature. So far as its language is concerned, it is manipulated, invented and based on new structure. It has what T.S. Eliot means by his famous phrases. It is the fine mirror of “unified sensibility”, that is, feeling and thinking together. Virginia Wolf says that man is seldom present in his actions. This is why it is very difficult to understand a man’s personality because only 10% of men’s personality is visible 90% invisible. In other words, man’s mind is just like an iceberg. So in order to present the inner psychological upheavals going on in the mind of the protagonist, the poets or writers of modern time have to deliberately distort the set of rules of grammar and dictionary and replace the old traditional style with some new wordings and coinages, new expressions and new styles.

Author
Dr. Amar Nath Prasad: Professor and Head, Department of English, Jai Prakash University, Chhapra, Bihar – 841301.
 

DOI: https://doi.org/10.32381/POET.2025.38.01.6