Leslie Haines

Shored Against the Ruins: Edifying Romantic and Modernist Thought Leslie Haines

This thesis explores the continuing aesthetic, philosophical, and social influences of Romantic and Modernist poetics. I trace the influence of Romanticism and Modernism as one that allows for a medium of expression that more clearly interprets both the act of reading and writing. These artistic periods and styles mutually serve to establish and validate enlightened ways of thinking that are currently lacking in the present day. I look to the poetry, philosophy, and prophecy of artists from both eras as they fuse and diffuse demonstrating the unique points of connection and disconnection for each of the poets whose texts are analyzed. The poets included in this inquiry into modes of thought that are explored and revealed during these two periods are: Schlegel, Blake, Coleridge, Hulme, Eliot, and H. D. I use this unique, and perhaps unexpected blend, to demonstrate how it is both the likenesses and differences in each of these poets' aesthetics that render them equally reflective of enlightened thought. The idea that the individual is and remains whole, while also reaching for unity with a greater more infinite whole affects all these writers.