Modernism:
What does 'The Wasteland' mean?
1) how has it been interpreted? (cite examples)
2)what are some of the key features
3) In what way has it been influential
Post-Modernism
1) What common qualities do 'the beats' share? Why 'beats'?
2) How is beat poetry linked to rap?
3) How was Bob Dylan's 'Masters of War' involved in controversy during the Bush administration?
4) On what grounds was 'Howl' accused of being obscene - grounds for the defense?
5) What kind of protest song/rap other media have come out in the last decade? Is there a spirit of protest anymore?
According to Marcus (2006), Bob Dylan’s song ‘Masters Of War’ was ranked by Mojo Magazine as number one on the list of the top 100 greatest protest songs. It is a very moving song, with very little subtlety. The lyrics in the song are very direct and Dylan makes it clear the point that he is trying to make, “"You that build the death planes, you that build the big bombs”… “Not even Jesus would forgive what you do”… “I hope that you die.”
ReplyDeleteBy 1964, Bob Dylan had stopped singing his most famous protest song, even though it was a sure crowd pleaser. He brought it back in the 1980’s because of its popularity. However, never did the song gain such recognition than when he performed it at the 1991 Grammy Awards when Bob Dylan received a lifetime achievement award. He performed the song right in the midst of the Iraqi-American Gulf War.
According to Marcus (2006), the performance of the song at the Grammy’s, launched a second life for the song. Bob Dylan again performed the song in 2002 when George W. Bush announced his intentions to launch a second war on Iraq. He performed the song on November 11 at Madison Square Garden.
When the second Iraqi war was underway, another version of the song ‘Masters Of War’ was released by Scott Amendola and Carla Bozulich of Berkeley in 2003. This version of the song which was posted to the internet was an instant hit.
Then, in 2004, as Bush and John Jerry were battling out for presidency, Dylan performed his song again. This caused 3 students on November 3 to stage a sit-in in a school library. One of the students said “Bush will directly affect our generation's future, and we were upset we didn't have a voice in that." TV crews arrived at the incident, causing a lot of controversy.
According to Cahill (n.d.), students from the school (Boulder, Colo.), created a band calling themselves the Tali-banned, and performed a song at their school talent contest, changing the lyrics of Dylan’s song to, "George Bush, I hope that you die/And your death will come soon."
The singer of the band Allyse Wojtanek, later said that she felt that they were misunderstood. Some thought that she and her band were communists, but she insisted that their message was peaceful.
I believe that the song ‘Masters Of War’ is an amazing song, written with a lot of thought. It is timeless and does in my opinion still reflect what happened between America and Iraq.
References:
Cahill, G. (n.d.). Of piercings and protest songs. Retrieved from
http://www.alternet.org/story/20506/of_piercings_and_protest_songs
Marcus, G. (2006). Stories of a bad song. Retrieved from
http://www.threepennyreview.com/samples/marcus_w06.html
Good post. Simplicity and moral outrage were the hallmarks of protest songs. there are some amazing spooky later performances...
DeleteHi Zane, I agree with what you have said. Following on.
Delete3) How was Bob Dylan's 'Masters of War' involved in controversy during the Bush administration?
During 1962/1963 Bob Dylan wrote the hit song “Masters of War” which was released on the album “The Freewheelin Bob Dylan” in the spring of 1963 (Masters of War). This song was made as some sort of protest as there was a war during 1960’s. This song became popular because of the melody and it is very memorable. It was played in a small band and it became a hit. It went viral and was a repeated track throughout elections and political events. This song gave a meaning which related to new ideas.
The Cold War has a combination of political and military views. This war was called the “cold war” because there was not actually any direct battle and conflict between these parties. However, there were wars in the Middle East and other countries that had support of both the east and west blocs (Cold war).
Bob Dylan’s “Masters of War” had a large audience in the 20th century especially during the election of George W Bush. In 2002, Bush announced a second war for Iraq. He used this as an advantage to win the election. Furthermore, I believe Bob Dylan saw a relationship and how some people may be affected by his song, because it speaks about decisions by higher power that society may suffer from. This song was actually held responsible for making young youths wanting George Bush dead.
Reference List:
Retrieved from http://www.threepennyreview.com/samples/marcus_w06.html
Cold War (n.d.) Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_War
Masters of war (n.d.) Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masters_of_War
Hi Zane and Christine. Two solid interpretations of Dylan's 'Master of War' here.
DeleteIt's amazing the power and influence songs (and music in general) can have on people. I found it quite a striking point Christine that you mentioned many youths wanted 'George Bush Dead' steeming from the message and power of this song.
If a song has that sort of power, where people breed hatred, justified or not, shows that our culture and society still has a very strong link with rhythmic poetry and symbolism in the musical genre.
I wonder what it will be like in a hundred years from now. Will we still be seeing strong and passionate protest against future governments and their military actions through songs like Dylan's?
One can only speculate at such things, but going on the trend of history, it looks like passion and emotions that these songs stir will keep trending for generations to come.
(Question 3)
ReplyDeleteJohn *Kerry
ReplyDelete4. ‘Howl’ is a text which was written in 1955 in San Francisco by a man called Allen Ginsberg. ‘Howl’ was first published in 1956 after a successful performance of the poem at the Six Gallery in North Beach. According to Sederberg (n.d.), because of the content of the poem, the man who published it, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, was arrested and charged with obscenity charges.
ReplyDeleteWhen Ferlinghetti’s case went to trial, many other poets, critics and academics testified and were outspoken about the social value of the poem and the importance of keeping it available for the public to see. The trial ended up going in Ferlinghetti’s favour. When the obscenity charges were dropped and the poem rereleased, it cause other texts which were originally classified as obscene to be rereleased including ‘Tropic of Cancer’ by Henry Miller, and ‘Lady Chatterly’s Lover’ by D. H. Lawrence.
‘Howl’ seems to represent how Ginsberg saw America at the times when he wrote it. As negative as it may seem at times when reading it, it is still unmistakeably very honest. The first section of the poem has been described as “a sometimes hysterical lament about the political and cultural conservatism that has destroyed the best minds of the poet's generation”.
“I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by
madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn
looking for an angry fix”
The second part of the poem is described as a poetic tirade against Moloch who is the symbol of human avarice which according to The Free Dictionary (n.d.) means “extreme greed for riches”. Ginsberg had strong feelings against conforming to what society forced upon people. People often speculated as to whether or not Ginsberg was on drugs himself. The third part of the poem ‘Howl’ is dedicated to a friend of Ginsberg who was in a mental institution.
Although the poem is very artistic and has something to teach us, one can understand why at the time it was thought to be obscene with lines such as “The asshole is holy!” The whole poem is a protest against conformity, censorship and inhibition.
According to an article by WordPress (2012), ‘Howl’ perhaps needed to be extremely vulgar in order for it to have the impact that it had on society. Some give no merit to the work of Ginsberg and believe that he could be thrown into the category of Alice Cooper and Marilyn Manson who wish to shock their audiences with obscenity. However, this can be seen as dismissing Ginsberg’s work, as some believe that there are some important issues and messages throughout the text ‘Howl’, which can be seen as “obscenity with purpose.”
References:
Ginsberg, A. (1956). Howl and Other Poems. San Francisco: City Lights Books
Sederberg, J. (n.d.). The howl obscenity trial. Retrieved from
http://foundsf.org/index.php?title=The_Howl_Obscenity_Trial
The Free Dictionary. (n.d.). Avarice. Retrieved from
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/avarice
Mild musings from a mediocre man. (2012). The importance of obscenity in Allen Ginsberg’s poem ‘Howl’. Retrieved from
http://el34ax7.wordpress.com/2012/12/05/the-importance-of-obscenity-in-allen-ginsbergs-poem-howl/
Again, solid comment. Avoid such sentences as: 'Although the poem is very artistic and has something to teach us' this is vague and almost meaningless.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDelete5) I feel as though the ‘spirit of protest’ was most alive in the 60’s through 90’s, but does not exist in the same way in the present. From the 2000s onward I feel a large proportion of the population has become politically apathetic. This is evident statistically as 18-24 year olds are the LEAST likely to vote. I know personally that many of my peers are politically unaware, and do not care to engage in politics.
While protest songs do still exist, and some do chart well, the charts are usually led by generic pop. Rap and hip hop is usually more politically-charged than this type of dance-floor pop music (which is dominated by white people), but even in those genres (rap/hip hop), it is usually the more generic songs that achieve mainstream success.
A noteworthy protest song, in my opinion is “Listen to us” by NZ hip hop group Homebrew. The music video is particularly striking as it includes political footage, featuring John Key, Helen Clark, Robert Muldoon and others. It addresses the social differences between the working poor/the unemployed and those in power.
Lyrics include:
Where I come from, minimum wage is what we run on,
no wonder why we spendin' our pay getting drunk off some cheap shit,
standing in line, waiting for some free shit to eat with,
resorting to crime for some Weetbix, the same old story
that you heard a million times before, I bet a party doesn't even cross
your mind no more, fucking Prime Minister ain't even got the time to talk,
cuttin' off the dole, tryna justify why we're poor, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AjgWyxJAGQ
One very recent protest-type song of the modern pop-genre is Lily Allen’s “Hard Out Here (for a bitch).”
The title is a play on Three 6 Mafia’s “Hard out here for a pimp”, and the song is in many ways a reaction to Robin Thicke’s 2013 hit “Blurred Lines.” With lines such as “Don’t you want to have somebody who objectifies you/have you thought about your butt/who’s gonna tear it in two?”
It addresses the unequal status of women and the incorrect idea that feminism no longer matters:
“We’ve never had it so good, uh huh, we’re out of the woods,
And if you can’t detect the sarcasm you’ve misunderstood.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0CazRHB0so
Another song which addresses the Bush presidency, and in many ways is similar to Bob Dylan’s Masters of War is Eminem’s MOSH https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ox0Q4YIdnGI
References:
http://medialiteracycolloquium.wordpress.com/2010/11/04/demographics-of-voting/
http://artists.letssingit.com/home-brew-lyrics-listen-to-us-feat-esther-stephens-matt-crawley-and-tourettes-swk756r#axzz32JqnkA22
http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/lilyallen/hardouthere.html
I definitely agree with the fact that beat poetry and rap are both mediums through which people express themselves through speech with intense vocabulary, also with a sense of rhythmic similarities between the two. The only huge difference between the two is rap is considered music, while beat poetry is literature. However, all poetry has a rhythm it is supposed to be read in, so you could put it to music if you wanted. Wordplay, rhyme scheme, and rhythm are definitely large aspects of poetry as well as rap and hip-hop. The Beats were a non-conformist group of writers, such as Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs, and so on, while rappers are a non-conformist group of music artists, like Eminem, Tupac, and Lil' Wayne. Bob Holman explained "a spoken rap, or hip-hop, is a form of poetry, in my opinion, and since it is spoken, it is spoken word poetry."
DeleteTwo great comments. thanks for the info re NZ Protest rap. Back in the 60s and 70s society was a lot more homogenous, with none of he youth sub-cultures evident now. that meant that a figure like Dylan had a huge impact as everybody was listening to the same stuff.
DeleteI agree with you Sodam, Rap has definitely become one of the largest industries all around the world. We see many artists like Eminem who have made a carrier out of rap. People express themselves through the lyrics from the song. I believe it is true what you have said about the comparison of rap is music, while beat poetry is literature.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI think it is hard to interpret this work just one way because its’ contents are so complex. During reading his work, actually I could not understand what he wants to tell me. The logics were strange and hard, so I had to find information of this literature.
ReplyDeleteThe word “wasteland” means an unpopulated wilderness that is valueless for cultivation. The Waste Land is the quintessential modernist poem in English. (Verdonk, 1993). This poem has five parts to describe the scene of the wasteland. The problem of the relevance comes at higher levels of coherence, between the poem’s five parts, and between the main passages with in those parts. (Verdonk, 1993).
In the first stanza, the author tells us that “April is the cruellest month, breeding –Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing”. This line is familiar with me because I could feel sympathy. In April, I had to do my assignments and prepare exams even the weather is so nice outside. In the author’s opinion, April symbolizes the stage of limbo, neither living nor dead. And only in this stanza, it has at the least happiness, and beauty. In "The burial of the dead", the writer wrote his good memories when he was young. "Winter kept us warm"; "Earth in forgetful snow"; "summer surprised us"(Eliot, 1922), the writer was using seasons to reveal the happy memories in the past.
But the rest of this poem, it is hard to find other positive factors.
In line 39, Eliot wrote "I could not speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither living nor dead, and I knew nothing.". This sentence explained the misery from the writer, "the silence” was the only thing he could feel.
In the last stanza, the author use “unreal city” to describe the real wasteland after the war “under the brown fog of a winter dawn, -A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many, - I had not thought death had undone so many.”. This is the voice of the wife of soldier. This image is that of the horrible. The war makes people suffer emotionally, like “that corpse you planted last year in your garden, -Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year? ” this is the madness because of the cruel war, and this is the hatred for the enemies and the war. (Fatima, n.d)
The Waste Land creates and develops the successful experience inspiring the expression techniques and enhancing the artistic infection of poetry in art. This master-piece significantly impacts the American modern poetry as well as the different genres of modernism. The Waste land as a work of post- symbolism for seeking the spiritual home expresses the deepest world strongly and greatly. The Waste Land still remains one of the influential works of literature, giving authors authorization to reference whoever they like, use differing languages along with English and be as ambiguous as they liked.
Reference List
AudioEnglish.net, WASTELAND. Retrieved May 24, 2014, from: http://www.audioenglish.net/dictionary/wasteland.htm
Eliot,T.S.(1922). The Waste Land. London: Faber&Faber
Verdonk, Peter, (1993). Twentieth-century poetry: from text to context. New York, America: Routledge.
Fatima. (n.d). Interpretations: Part I The Burial of the Dead. Retrieved May 24 2014, from: http://www.tqnyc.org/2004/NYC040522//Poetryindexbyjosefina/wastelandindex.htm
2) Post-Modernism, How is beat poetry linked to rap?
ReplyDeleteBeat poetry is a form of writing style that was evolved from mid-1950s and 1960s in New York City and on the west coast. According to research (A Brief Guide to the Beat Poets)
the beats were also intertwined with poets of the San Francisco Renaissance movement, such as Kenneth Rexroth and Robert Duncan. Beats poetry combines a free-form type of writing that shows individualism and protests the loss of faith. This type of poetry was used verbally, the themes were sexual freedom which includes women and Native Americans and liberation for the black. In 1960s we see Bob Dylan producing songs relating to this, also the Beatles who are very currently famous. This poetry helped them to express the awareness of ecology and the way humans harm the planet through their songs. Moreover, they helped with women and gay right activities.
In comparison, Rap begun around late 1970s and early 1980s. This type of writing is with vocals and is considered to have rhymes. It is basically a songs. Rap music was first developed from street fights, this is why rap lyrics are related to drugs, alcohol, freedom and sex. People who raps normally live outside of society rules. There are many famous rappers today which includes Eminem. There carrier has been very successful in this industry.
Reference List:
A Brief Guide to the Beat Poets. (2014). Retrieved from http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/text/brief-guide-beat-poets
What Is Beat Poetry (2014). wisegeek. Retrieved from http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-beat-poetry.htm
4) On what grounds was 'Howl' accused of being obscene - grounds for the defense?
ReplyDeleteHowl is a poem written by Alan Ginsberg in 1955. It is his most famous poem.
Kenneth Rexroth encouraged Ginsberg to unleash his creativity and write straight from his heart with no restrictions. This ‘free’ style of writing allowed Ginsberg to create, what became, a very controversial poem of his era.
Some of the main themes depicted in Howl were that of sexuality and homosexuality. It also included obscene language. The two lines below depict to what extremes the poem went:
‘’who let themselves be fucked in the ass by saintly
motorcyclists, and screamed with joy,
who blew and were blown by those human seraphim,
the sailors, caresses of Atlantic and Caribbean
love’’
(Ginsberg, 1956)
On Ginsberg’s birthday (June 3rd 1957) a bookseller was arrested for selling Ginsberg’s book to an undercover police officer. Also in 1957, 520 copies of the book containing the poem ‘Howl’ were seized while they were being imported to London.
City Lights Publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti faced charges of obscenity for his part in publishing the book. During the trial literary experts, poets and academics, claimed that it was not obscene, and that it was an important text for society. The judge’s verdict ruled that it was not obscene, and Ferlinghetti and City Lights Publishers was exonerated.
Although the poem ‘Howl’ contained many controversial ideas and themes, it was a very important text that has far-reaching influences into later eras of literature and creativity. The obscenity trial helped propel America forward into a more free thinking and free spirit style of culture. We can see direct links from the Beat Generation to the later individualistic Hippy movement of the 60’s, where the themes of individuality, sexual exploration, civil rights support and the right to protest were exercised.
References:
The Howl Obscenity Trial. Retrieved 11th, June 2014 from http://foundsf.org/index.php?title=The_Howl_Obscenity_Trial
Howl. Retrieved 11th, June 2014 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howl
4. (reference) Ginsberg, A. (1956). Howl and Other Poems. San Francisco: City Lights Books
ReplyDelete3.) In what way has it (The Waste Land) been influential?
ReplyDeleteThe Wasteland by T.S Elliot is one of the greatest pieces of poetry ever written. Furthermore, Elliot is considered to be held in a class of his own when it comes to his works.
‘’Eliot's method must be carefully distinguished from the methods of his modernist predecessors. If we attempt to make The Waste Land conform to Imagism or Impressionism, we miss its strategy and miss its accomplishment’’ (Menand, L. 1987)
As evident by Menand, we see that Eliot was ‘one of a kind’.
Thanks to the vast amount of study, research, and debate surrounding ‘The Waste Land’, there have been many that have followed in Eliot’s footsteps in the Post-Modernistic movement.
Two poets who were mostly influenced by Eliot were the Irish poets Máirtín Ó Direáin and Seán Ó Ríordáin. Other notable writers who were influenced by Eliot were; Virginia Woolf, Ezra Pound, Hart Crane, Allen Tate, Ted Hughes, Geoffrey Hill, Seamus Heaney, and Russell Kirk (Wikipedia, 2014).
The Waste Land is considered by academics to be one of the most influential poetic works from the 18th century.
‘’The Waste Land holds the unique distinction because in 1922 it changed the state of poetry.‘’(Creighton, 2010)
This state of change, according to Creighton, was the step away from the more traditional, symbolic, and rhythmic verse, to reflecting on the current state of the world and responding critically upon it. These critical reflections in ‘The Waste Land’ are evident in Eliot’s reflection on war, fascism, and imperialism (Creighton, 2010).
Many of the aforementioned poets above have produced works which follow a similar line to that of ‘The Wasteland’, where they reflect critically on the current state of society with a ‘no holes barred’ approach.
References:
T.S. Eliot. (2014). Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._S._Eliot#Influence
Creighton, A. (2010) The Waste Land. Retrieved June 12, 2014 from http://www.stabroeknews.com/2010/features/01/03/the-waste-land-the-most-acclaimed-piece-of-modern-verse-in-english/
Menand, L. (1987). Discovering Modernism: T.S. Eliot and His Context. Oxford University Press.
What does the Wasteland mean?
ReplyDeleteFirstly without even reading the text we can assume it will be a deep and gloomy style poem. Reading about the text online we discover that it is indeed that and then furthermore reading the actual text we realize that it is, what it is. The Wasteland has various themes that come to mind when simply reading the title and after reading the text I also found that the text included many of these themes. Death, Rebirth, the Seasons and Love are just some of the many themes included in this text. If we delve into the time that the text was written we become aware that Eliot was rather ill during the time of writing which could maybe explain the dark storyline? But furthermore in the sense of the text the Wasteland can mean many things. It could be used to describe society at the time, it could be used to describe how Eliot felt about himself and his life during the time the text was being written. But when writing this text Eliot was referring to the decline of western culture and the beauty that this culture once possessed, back in the day. This is the overall concept behind the text, which also explains the title. The Wasteland. I believe this was Eliot’s way of saying that what we have become is merely a wasteland of what we once were. That our culture and society once rich, now lies in shambles, a lost piece of art work almost. And thinking furthermore into the future, isn’t this true? Another thing I noticed during reading this text is with how much difficulty I had reading and understanding the text. During the modernist movement in the literature world, Eliot and many other writers of the time felt that society and the people in it were headed toward a not so intelligent future. Therefore Eliot and other writers of this time drew their texts to be thus more difficult to read as though to challenge the reader. Subtly saying if you cannot read this book then you are not worthy and you have much learning to do! Another reason the text was quite a difficult one to understand as the narrative changed quite rapidly, without warning to different people and different points of view. This was done in a way though so the poem is able to reflect from many different views as overall the poem in aiming to portray quite a large picture. The large picture being that our culture is slowly declining into one that is unrecognizable, one that is full of smartphones and no longer face-to-face communication. I know that during the time and the publication of this poem, Eliot would not have known about the technologies that would be developed in the future, but it was essentially what he was meaning. He was clearly a clever man that realized the world was moving in one direction and he wanted to fight against that and show restraint and show the beauty in arts and what we could have if we were not such a vain society.