We will take a look at the principal poetry of Eliot and Stevens, 20th Century modernists who tended to use a lot of big words to present big ideas. As to Eliot, we will read “Gerontion,” “The Waste Land,” “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” and “Ash Wednesday.” As to Stevens, we will review several of his best known poems from Harmonium, as well as some later work. A principal question facing the reader of these two poets now is: what is the ongoing value of their work? They present as narrow-minded, racist, misogynistic, anti-Semitic individuals (at times anyway) who use far too many words (and obscure words at that) to present ideas that now may seem dated or even trite. What of value survives? This will lead us to a brief discussion of Modernism - what was/is it? Why does it matter, if it does? The approach taken in class will be a close reading of the poems - there is no better way to get at these poets than closely reading the text.