Rhetorical Analysis Of Ezra Pound s His Philosophy And...

Ezra Pound was one of the most famous and influential figures in the Modernist literature movement. â€Å"Make it new† was his philosophy and the rallying cry for Modernist literature. Whilst the Modernists tried to capture the new by a â€Å"persistent experimentalism, it rejected the traditional (Victorian and Edwardian) framework of narrative, description, and rational exposition in poetry and prose† . Modernist literature not only rejected the old in terms of form, but also in subject matter- Modernism began to focus more on the self, on the internal dialogue. Whilst Post-Modernism is much harder to define, one thing that is prolific in Postmodern literature is the re-working and imitation of the past in the form of parody and pastiche. What I find interesting is that whilst Modernist were driven by the desire to create something new, they were mostly benighted traditionalists that were reacting to the change around them. The Postmodernists however, were not lamen ting change but using literature in a way that hoped to stimulate it. I am going to look at this with a specific focus on The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot and The Crying Lot of 49 by Thomas Pynchon. Of course neither Modernist Literature nor Postmodernist literature existed in a vacuum. They were both parts of wider movements as a whole- The Modernist movement and the Postmodernist movement. The Modernist period occurred during a time of great change- rapid industrialisation and new media which â€Å"disrupted the class