A survey of modernist poetry — A Closer Reading

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Authors: Riding, Laura, 1901-1991, Graves, Robert, 1895-1985 Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2025 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: Modernism (Literature); Poetry, Modern -- 20th century -- History and criticism; Free verse Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

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Words 64,646

Reading time 282 min

Text sections 19

For A survey of modernist poetry — A Closer Reading, the stored edition analysis reports 64,646 words, 4 hr 42 min estimated reading time, and 19 detected text sections.

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Source: Project Gutenberg record #76401

Graves and Riding's 1927 collaboration examines modernist poetry through close reading of punctuation, form, and the tension between genuine innovation and affected novelty, using E. E. Cummings and historical poets as case studies.

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osy glory above me, a great religious feeling overcame me; I seemed in the presence of God. There was a ringing in my ears. I felt warm and cold at once. But after a time the wind made me feel sleepy, so I turned in.” Now it would be possible to call either of these poems impressionist in the colloquial sense, for they would record objectively or subjectively the poet’s impressions with a view to reproducing them in the reader. In reality, however, they would convey only a vague and somewhat insincere atmosphere, as would a formalized version of Cummings’ early poem _Sunset_. For an actual experience of this sunset one would have to go to some such poem as Cummings’. In it would be found a complicated recipe for a sunset experience, as if for a pudding, not merely a description of what the pudding looked like or how it tasted. For such a method turns the reader into a poet.

This _Sunset_ poem of Mr. Cummings, then, is not, strictly speaking, Mr. Cummings’ poem, but the poem of anybody who will be at pains to write it. What at first sight strikes the plain reader as external peculiarities that hindered him from approaching the meaning of the poem--its oddness of form--now appear to be the poet’s means of avoiding that conventional form which generally does stand between the reader and the poem. Indeed, if we look upon form as something distinct from the subject-matter of a poem, in this sense true impressionist poems are usually without form; or rather they are capable of having a new form with every reader. The poet blends the subject of the poem with the feelings that the subject arouses into one expression. This unity makes the poem a living whole; it is impressionistic, but not because the subject and the feelings it arouses become indefinite in the combination. They make a blend, not a blur.

Looking on impressionism as one of the earliest manifestations of the general modernist tendency to overcome the distinction between subject-matter and form, we realize that Valéry draws the same old-fashioned line between _music_ and _idea_ that Poe did; that he subscribes, in fact, to the historically most familiar conception of poetry. He is a classicist in the musical associations he gives his poems, all intricately designed to create the indefinite feelings that he desires to arouse in the reader. Although in his choice of the images through which he conveys poetic ideas he is a modernist, the images apparently intended, that is, to arouse _definite_ feelings, these feelings are really more like the physical sensation a thing gives than the idea of itself it gives. To these definite feelings provoked by the images, or, we might say, the thought, of a poem of Valéry’s, the indefinite feelings provoked by the _sounds_ of the words form a musical background. In fact, paradoxically, it is in this musical background that the ideas are suggested rather than in the logical thought of the images. Valéry deliberately suppresses Reason in poetry; but he allows the musical background to make the logical connections between the images. And this is what we mean by calling him a classicist in form and a modernist in the thought-content of his poems. He handles the modernist problem of achieving a unity between form and subject-matter by letting form suggest the subject of the poem and thought-content do all that form is ordinarily supposed to do. The only reason for calling this method impressionistic is that it does not and could not succeed in arriving at an ingenious balance between the two sets of feelings, definite and indefinite, which are supposed to combine to give the poetry meaning; all it results in is the vague blur that impressionism has come to stand for in its most derogatory sense.

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Graves and Riding open their survey by confronting the plain reader's complaint that modernist poetry is deliberately obscure. Rather than dismissing this charge, they propose a test: if careful examination reveals that poems by E. E. Cummings and others yield the experiences expected of poetry, the reader must adjust his critical attitude. The authors insist that common intelligence is the mind in its least active state, and that poetry demands a more vigorous imaginative effort than the plain reader has been willing to apply.

The book's method is forensic: it scrutinizes punctuation, spelling, and lineation as evidence of poetic intention. Chapter III, for instance, pairs Shakespeare with Cummings to argue that original punctuation is not eccentricity but a means of controlling rhythm and meaning. The authors distinguish between genuine modernism—faith in the immediate, fresh invention—and false modernism that merely imitates the time-spirit.

The Plain Reader as Defendant and Judge

The first chapter sets up a courtroom drama in which the plain reader is both complainant and potential juror. Graves and Riding grant that traditional poetry seems to present no difficulty, but they immediately complicate this assumption by noting that even Shakespeare can be misunderstood. Their strategy is to take the reader's frustration seriously: they quote Cummings's apparent insult to common sense—"Keep out. This is a private performance"—and then ask whether the poet actually means to exclude the public.

The authors do not side entirely with the poet. They concede that if a poem resists all reasonable efforts, it may be merely a joke at the reader's expense. But they shift the burden of proof: the reader must admit that poetry requires a more active mind than the lazy reading encouraged by anthologies. This opening gambit establishes the book's tone—combative yet fair, demanding yet patient—and its central question: what rights does the plain reader have, and what responsibilities?

Punctuation as Poetic Argument

Chapter III performs a detailed comparison of Shakespeare's original spelling and punctuation with modernized editions, then applies the same scrutiny to Cummings. Graves and Riding argue that Cummings's typographical experiments are not arbitrary: they direct the reader's pace, emphasize certain words, and create visual analogues for sound. The authors treat punctuation as a form of notation, akin to musical notation, that the reader must learn to interpret.

They extend this argument to the history of criticism, noting that Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, Tennyson, and Browning were each called affected in their day. The charge of affectation, they suggest, often masks a resistance to unfamiliar technique. By linking Cummings to Shakespeare, they imply that what seems like a break with tradition may actually be a return to the poet's prerogative to control the reading experience through every available means.

Genuine versus False Modernism

In later chapters, Graves and Riding refine their central distinction: genuine modernism is "faith in the immediate, the new doings of poems," while false modernism is "faith in history"—a mere adoption of avant-garde poses. They warn that a middle population, the intelligent plain-man point of view, often mistakes historical progressiveness for poetic merit. This middle view, they argue, reduces poetry to an instrument of civilization rather than an end in itself.

The authors cite Francis Thompson's defense of Coleridge to show how the charge of affectation has been recycled. But they push further: Thompson's own affected style, they note, made him eager to claim that being called affected proves genuineness. Graves and Riding resist this easy reversal. They insist on examining each case individually, asking whether the poet's innovations serve the poem's internal logic or merely advertise originality. This skeptical, case-by-case approach gives the book its argumentative edge.

Readers should approach this book as a collaborative polemic, not a neutral survey. Graves and Riding write in a single voice, but the preface notes that the last chapter is a revision of an essay by one author. The book rewards those who read it with the same active attention it demands of poetry: pause at every quotation, consider the typography, and test the authors' claims against your own experience of the poems they discuss.

Reading Graves and Riding’s A Survey of Modernist Poetry, I kept pausing over their patient attention to punctuation—how a comma can change a heartbeat. It recalled, strangely, that older book on my shelf, The Arte of English Poesie — Reading Companion, where Elizabethan rules felt equally alive, equally tender. Both books, centuries apart, whisper the same quiet truth: form is just feeling, measured slowly.