English Studies Forum

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Mixed Messages in Six Modernist Moments

M. ElizDavid Young. Six Modernist Moments in Poetry. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press; 2006. 175 pp. Cloth, $29.95.

By Paul Campbell, University of Alberta

            In any text dealing with literary modernism, one expects to encounter several poets of immense stature; T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound are two names that leap instantly to mind. However, in David Young’s Six Modernist Moments in Poetry, these central figures are relegated to the footnotes. Instead, we are presented with close readings of six poems from six different authors: Rainer Maria Rilke’s “The Bowl of Roses,” W.B. Yeats’s “Among School Children,” Wallace Stevens’s “Sunday Morning,” William Carlos Williams’s “January Morning,” Marianne Moore’s “An Octopus,” and Eugenio Montale’s “Mediterranean.” There is undoubtedly a risk in counting down six important moments in modernism without making time for two giants, but in this case, Young’s gamble is a risk worth taking for readers who care about modernism and, especially, about poetry.

            The obvious pains I took in separating modernism from poetry in the lines above are indicative of Young’s focus throughout the text. Of course it is a book about modernism, and the poems it deals with are all pieces from that period. However, the work never subjugates the poems in question to the broader concerns about modernism which underlie it. Young announces early on that “the modernist narrative is really many narratives at once” (ix), and that “modernist poetic practice as I understand and value it can best be demonstrated through close attention to six exemplary poems” (ix), which could well serve as the foundational premises for a work dedicated primarily to exploring tenets of modernism. However, before these two basic premises are mentioned, Young begins the book by recounting a highly relevant moment from his youth, where he pulls Stevens’s Auroras of Autumn off a shelf:

It was a momentous occasion. The sun stood still, and the world began to rearrange itself. I could scarcely make heads or tails of what Stevens was saying, but I knew by my excited response to his language, his playful titles, and the mysteries of subject and speaker that I was in the presence of something important and that I was going to need some time to figure it all out. (ix)

It is telling that Young begins with a modernist moment of his own, rather than the thesis and sub-arguments he provides shortly thereafter. Although Young’s general claims about modernism are what unite the disparate works he chooses to examine, it is the poems themselves that receive by far the most attention.

Aside from the brief introduction and conclusion, “modernism itself” as the topic for this text takes a back seat to the specific poems being presented. The consistent format Young employs suggests this as well, as each poem he explores is presented in its entirety (but without any notes) before he undertakes any analysis. The poem itself takes first place, as does the journey the reader undergoes in reading and perhaps re-reading it before turning to Young’s detailed account. These accounts follow the poems closely, quoting liberally, making sparse use of others’ criticism and even less use of explicit theory. Young allows us to make our own way through the poetry, and then proceeds to enthusiastically guide us through his own extensive experience. The poems’ significance to modernism and their importance as exemplary moments is certainly discussed, but these relatively brief discussions always emerge from detailed readings of the poems in a way that makes them seem almost superfluous. Similarly, as each poem is presented and discussed, reference to those discussed previously emerge, but these too seem additional rather than in any way central. Each of the six main sections of the book could appear on its own in a collection about a given author with very little modification.

Wider critical considerations aside, however, Young does an excellent job providing readings of the poems that are thorough, sophisticated, and yet still accessible to the non-specialist. Although there are many similarities between Young’s approach and the approach of the New Critics (who ushered in a new way of interpreting literature to deal with the new ways the modernists had of composing it), he wisely chooses not to confine himself solely to the words on the page. Young’s method of laying out these poems is logical and consistent. He places them in their temporal and geographical contexts, suggests influences, discusses the situation of their authors, provides an overview, and walks through each important line and section of the work, telling us “what is happening” at that point in the text, and also commenting on its larger thematic and metaphorical significance. He moves freely between each of these elements, wisely allowing the flavor of his experience with the poems to guide the order of his accounts. It is easy to see that Young has done a great deal of teaching; the approach he takes to the texts is very well suited to instructing inexperienced readers of modern poetry, and I will not be reluctant to use chapters of this book in my own classrooms.

Overall then, I am well pleased with what this book does, though unimpressed by parts of what it sets out to do. Young is obviously an excellent reader strongly concerned with instructing students of literature and lovers of poetry. He too a student and lover of modern poetry, and his readings are an encounter between, or a blurring of, reason and emotion. This sensitive approach leads to involving and satisfying journeys through the poetry, though at the cost of sometimes forgetting the overarching modernist themes of the text as a whole. These themes certainly emerge, but they do little to guide the work and remain secondary concerns throughout. If you are searching for a text which describes modernist poetry and which could serve as a useful model for understanding the theory behind it, your search will not lead you here. If, however, you are a lover of poetry prepared to immerse yourself in several poems under the tutelage of an experienced guide, you have come to the right place.