The Relevant Politics of Modernism

Obviously we can't talk about all of time, at least not just now, so let's look at an example. Let's talk about T. S. Eliot and ​William Butler Yeats. If you're not into modernism, hang tight, because it's an adventure, and you'll probably be mad at the end. I hope. Let's talk about Eliot first. 
T. S. Eliot was an American modernist poet and was in an objective way very relevant to the shape of modernist poetry. If you've heard of a modernist, it was probably him. This is just a historical fact, so we'll move on. He thought he was super smart because he could fake a transatlantic accent and make references to Greek literature or whatever. Don't get me wrong, I can get into some Greek literature, but I'm not walking around acting like I'm smarter than people who don't have an opinion on what translation you should get (I mean, I have thoughts, see my article on Sappho, but I know I'm the weird one). He was the worst. Not because of that, though. Because he was a fascist. Well, he said he was apolitical or something like that, but he was pretty tight with Ezra Pound, who was a slavering fascist with a fascist Italian radio show, which he continued quite happily under German occupation. It's enough for me, for reasons that it should be hoped is obvious. 
There's plenty to be said about his poetics, and I've included the first part of his poem The Waste Land on the right - it's so very long - and I want to compare it to Yeats' The Second Coming because of their surface similarities and ideological differences. 
Stylistically the poems are dissimilar, The Waste Land being longer and more rambling, containing numerous references and found dialogue, whereas The Second Coming is taut and deliberate. It's also important to note that The Waste Land makes reference to war, and has an air of tragedy. This poem was written in 1922, about the first world war. The Second Coming was written about the second world war, and is less personal. Yeats was an activist. These distinctions aren't qualitative, just relevant to the way we look at the poems beside each other. 
Let's talk about Yeats first. He was Irish, a bit of a rebel nationalist, but don't panic, in this context nationalism really only refers to wanting the English to stop, which was and probably remains valid. He wrote about Irish history and myth, and supported 'the struggle' as it's been understood by plenty of rights movements. The poem that comes to mind is his Easter, 1916, though it's hardly the only example. His rough beast that slouches toward Bethlahem isn't just the apocalypse, it's not even just war, it's fascism and all the injustices it represents. 
Yeats is definitely a poet for the present moment. I kind of want to live stream reading his complete works for charity or something, but who has the mana? If you need it, let me know in the comments, I guess. 
​Eliot's politics aren't always exactly glaring in his work. Certainly, the first time I studied The Waste Land I didn't think, fascist! J'accuse! If you do like Eliot, you'll certainly be forgiven, and as far as death of the author, I don't know. Acknowledge it and move on? He's dead anyway, he's not exactly benefiting from your interest. Maybe stop seeing Cats? That feels like a whole other rant. Maybe a few. 
Eliot's approach is atmospheric, intimate. He uses ostensibly overheard text, and references relatively mundane settings and subjects, though I suppose sledding with the archduke only seems mundane in contrast to Yeats' evocation of Bethlahem and all it represents. 
And the religious references are rife, in both poems. Eliot loves references, I mean loves them, and uses the Bible and Heart of Darkness and Greek literature in ways I feel I can only adequately describe as the way the dudes in Big Bang Theory shout random Doctor Who facts to try and prove they aren't fake nerd girls. We get it, Eliot. You went to Harvard AND Oxford. You lift. 
It's not that all the politics evident in The Waste Land are bad and toxic. It's at least obliquely anti-war, alluding here to things lost, and a soldier is surrounded in the fog by the ghosts of men with whom he fought. Sure, it characterizes the archduke's as a pleasant time and makes the lower classes seem a bit dumb and horny later on, but there's no particularly vile political statement here. There's maybe not much of a statement at all. 
I'm not saying every poem that's tangentially about war needs to be Yeats-level political. Of course you can write about how terrible it is to see crocuses come up when it feels like the world's already ended. But  if you speak that way of war, and then try to get Ezra Pound's treason charges dropped after he committed definite pro-fascist treason, you seem like kind of a hypocrite (this is a call out post for Earnest Hemingway, T. S. Eliot, and Robert Frost specifically). I don't mean to sound glib. There's a Pound rant coming at some point about his translations from Chinese, a language of which he had no knowledge. There's a lack of self awareness. 
I'm not trying to tell you what art to like. Goodness knows, I still love Frost, even though he's barely any better. I just think it's important to be aware of the political biases of any art we consume, at least when they're extreme or potentially damaging, and it's especially important to be aware of in modernist works, and, unfortunately, contemporary ones. 

The Waste Land

             I. The Burial of the Dead
 April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee
With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten,
And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.
Bin gar keine Russin, stamm’ aus Litauen, echt deutsch.
And when we were children, staying at the arch-duke’s,
My cousin’s, he took me out on a sled,
And I was frightened. He said, Marie,
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
In the mountains, there you feel free.
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.

  What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
                      Frisch weht der Wind
                      Der Heimat zu
                      Mein Irisch Kind,
                      Wo weilest du?
“You gave me hyacinths first a year ago;
“They called me the hyacinth girl.”
—Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden,
Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not
Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,
Looking into the heart of light, the silence.
Oed’ und leer das Meer.

Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante,
Had a bad cold, nevertheless
Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe,
With a wicked pack of cards. Here, said she,
Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor,
(Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!)
Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks,
The lady of situations.
Here is the man with three staves, and here the Wheel,
And here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card,
Which is blank, is something he carries on his back,
Which I am forbidden to see. I do not find
The Hanged Man. Fear death by water.
I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring.
Thank you. If you see dear Mrs. Equitone,
Tell her I bring the horoscope myself:
One must be so careful these days.

Unreal City,
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.
Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,
And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.
Flowed up the hill and down King William Street,
To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours
With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine.
There I saw one I knew, and stopped him, crying: “Stetson!
“You who were with me in the ships at Mylae!
“That corpse you planted last year in your garden,
“Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?
“Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed?
“Oh keep the Dog far hence, that’s friend to men,
“Or with his nails he’ll dig it up again!
“You! hypocrite lecteur!—mon semblable,—mon frère!”

by T. S. Eliot 

The Second Coming

Turning and turning in the widening gyre   
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere   
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst   
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.   
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out   
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert   
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,   
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,   
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it   
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.   
The darkness drops again; but now I know   
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,   
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,   
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

William Butler Yeats