General features of Modernism Modernist features of Dulce et decorum est

pro patria mori

Daily realities: the new poetry also assumes
new realities as: the telephone, wireless
telegraphy, planes and machines, motherless
daughters of men.
The war, the realities of the war: the trenches,
death by gas, the inhuman conditions
Language as a roaring god.
Poets are let alone with the language, and the
language only saves them.
1


Experimental, not enough to express reality,
common/daily language, involves the reader,
fracture, obscure
Literary devices are shocking Imitate the surrounding realities
(onomatopoeia) , unfamiliar words to obtain
the stylistic effect, discomfort
Form: rhyme, rhythm & stanza length are
broken, they have internal rhythm
Loose, irregular stanza length
Unusual themes Taken from reality, non-idyllic, using
intertextuality (Horace), irony, shocking,
mocking the traditional beliefs


1
Op., cit., pp. 225.