My best guess would be personification. The writer gave the season a human like trait, which is hearing, when stated that it did not "listen" to the peasants.
Answer:
The word that best replaces the underlined word "modern" is D. contemporary.
Explanation:
The definition of the adjective "modern" would be something or someone related to present or recent times as opposed to the remote past. Similarly, one of the definitions for the adjective "contemporary" is something or someone belonging to or occurring in the present. It is, thus, safe to say the two adjectives are synonyms and one can replace the other.
Besides that, T. S. Elliot's poem The Waste (1022) Land is known as a contemporary yet loose version of the Arthurian literature myth of The Holy Grail, which first appeared around 1190.
Correct! good work fellow student