Reflections of Past and Present in Modernism's Arts

I will try to make what I’m about to say connect to our reading scope of Modernism and art in the second portion of this blog, but I would first like to explore a connection or parallel linking Eliot’s past in both literature and relationships to enhance my understanding of his prose. (I only regret not being able to make this connection for last week’s blog.)

Intrigued by T.S. Eliot’s futile love for Emily Hale and his portrayal of her in both “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” and “La Figlia che Piange,” I could not help but attempt to recall lines from Shakespeare, which seemed to convey a similar concept when considering Eliot’s poetic language and untouchable sea images. In the The Winter’s Tale, Florizel is speaking to Perdita when he states, "When you do dance, I wish you/A wave o' th' sea, that you might ever do/Nothing but that; move still; still so,/And own no other function" (lines 140-3). These lines, certainly more youthful, romantic, and optimistic than Eliot’s conveyance in “Prufrock,” capture an image of a love that neither Shakespeare’s Florizel or Eliot’s Prufrock can obtain. Yet, the two are able to memorialize a moment that will encapsulate the women they love. "Eliot froze Emily Hale into art so that he could possess her in memory as one might possess a statue of poignant beauty" (Gordon 82). In this statement, Gordon makes sense out of Eliot's wave imagery (and with the help of Shakespeare's wave imagery, I am able to make sense of this). “I have seen them riding seaward on the waves” (126) refers to the intangible images of mermaids that Prufrock can never touch. Perhaps, these images convey the several images of Hale that Eliot kept safely locked in his memory. Both male characters "lock" their female love interests into nature's art with wave imagery; something that one can remember forever through his mind's eye but cannot obtain physically. I do realize that Eliot’s language is dismal compared to that of Shakespeare, but I believe the language lends itself to the stark contrast of emotion that the reader should feel when reading either piece. With Shakespeare’s imagery, we are to convey an infinite sense of beauty that is both hopeful and light-hearted as we receive a poetic portrait of an optimistic love—as Florizel “wish[es]” Perdita “A wave o’ the sea…” . Eliot’s imagery and language, however, lend themselves to a disjointed snapshot taken in the dark—as Prufrock has “seen them riding seaward on the waves” and the “wind blow[ing] the water white and black” (126-8). Through this contrast, I am able to connect “…the difference between the present and the past…” through Eliot’s language and images (Kermode 39).

A second and final link that I found interesting is the parallel of Shakespeare’s pastoral imagery set next to Eliot’s garden imagery (I won’t elaborate on this as I did above.). The female character in Shakespeare's tale is adorned in flowers just as Eliot places Hale with flowers. Lyndall Gordon stated that Hale, "...became the source for a series of garden encounters in Eliot's poetry, moments of romantic attraction to a woman" (81). We see a similar floral setting surrounding Perdita in The Winter’s Tale. It is interesting that Eliot possibly revisits a similar setting that portrays a love set in the artist’s nature and further sets them in his fragmented reality and language. Eliot’s artistic structure seemed not only to resonate a historical past but also seemed to coincide with other art forms taking place around the same time, such as Cubism.

The artist’s reality seemed to create the nature of his/her art. This statement has two perspectives as taken from our readings. The first angle drawn from Glen MacLeod’s, “The Visual Art,” is the notion of the past influencing the present but out of the present comes something entirely new. Picasso, inspired by his post-impressionistic predecessor Cezanne, created a new geometric form that would “invent a new kind of pictorial space,” which would not only inspire other painters but writers as well. “The cubist techniques of fragmentation, multiple perspectives, and juxtaposition are part of the standard modernist repertoire, from Eliot’s The Waste Land to Steven’s The Man with the Blue Guitar.” This said, however, there is a difference between the post-impressionist painters and poets in relation to criticism as we’ve been reading. Stated in Jane Goldman’s article, “Bell…implies that sentiment, allegory, political or social comment (all paradoxically, literary qualities), are of no interest to the artist either: form and design per se, without specific meaning, have priority” (132). Seemingly, emotion and impulse serve as a potential ruin to the order of artistic creation. Would it be correct to say that Bell’s critical essay, “The Artistic Problem” was to his art world what Eliot’s “Tradition and the Individual Talent” was to the literary world?

Oddly enough, and maybe I should not admit this, but I could never see an image or create a meaning through the artistic vein of Cubism until I had something to compare it with—until I had a knowledge of its past. I can now see houses on the hill in Picasso’s “Houses on the Hill.” Similarly, with Modernist poetry, I could not see a deeper image or create a full meaning when reading Eliot’s poetry—until I had a knowledge of its/his past. This relationship—the sense of past influencing the present seems complimentary to understanding. Also, seeing the evolution of these mediums when placed side by side (Picasso next to Cezanne or Shakespeare next to Eliot) provides a visual understanding and a knowledgeable comprehension that would cease to take place if one existed without the other. This is not to say that the piece is incapable of solely existing; I just don’t think it can exist as wholly.

I believe this concept of wholeness or “unity” can be applied when looking at the relationship of Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell, as both served as an inspiration to one another within their respective mediums. The sisters collaborated on their works; Bell would illustrate for Woolf, and Woolf would attempt to create meaning that could parallel Bell’s paintings. Woolf explained that she was “…going to write an account of [her] emotions towards one of [Bell’s] pictures…. Bell, too, drew considerable inspiration from her sister” (Goldman 149). They understood one another as artists, women, and sisters. They certainly had an understanding of one another’s pasts and existed together within their modernist present. All of their parts created their artistic whole.

Modernism’s visual art presented a fragmented view of its social awareness and political society (whether it intended to display social or political awareness or not) that was infused with new linear and spatial concepts that transpired from its predecessors. It evoked literary response in prose and poetry. It pieced together parts of its society to gather a whole conveying a new nature of perspective for both its viewers and artists.