Question

Modernist poetry is characterized by all of the following except

Answer 1

When looking at modernism, one who is used to reading poetry that follows a timeline (or stream of consciousness), that contains literal meanings (or obvious denotations), and an overall sense of completeness will be quite frustrated.  Modernism, thereby modernist poetry, does little, if any, of that.  In fact, when one reads modernist poetry, one must read “into” a poem and discover meanings that might not be too obvious and allow for disjointedness that will leave one who is used to superficial (or passive) readings confused.   Thus, when one reads modernist poetry, one must certainly read it actively as opposed to passively.  As such, the correct response to this question is “B” in that modernist poetry is characterized by all of the following except a tendency to encourage passive reading.