Millenarian Moderns: A Study of Utopian Desire

Abstract

This dissertation examines the influence of millenarian and utopian thought in Modernist poetry. Drawing on an interdisciplinary framework of literary studies, history, anthropology, and political science, I argue that the violence of the early twentieth century necessitated a movement towards millenarian thought in order to express a positive image of future. By focusing on the poems and essays of W. B. Yeats, T. S. Eliot, and W. H. Auden, Modernism is shown to express a millenarian conception of the future in response to the socio-cultural pressures of modernity. These poets create a historical period ranging from 1885-1973 which permits a chronological approach and allows my argument to trace the shifts and developments how the period and its poets represent the future. Modernism’s turn towards experimental forms and an increased exploration of subjectivity reflect an attempt to construct a radical, utopian idea of the world to come.