Alienation and Loss of Meaning

Writers were seeking a way to express the loss of meaning and attachment experienced by so many in the early modern era. This was because of the loss of traditional values and experiences that they were finding difficult to deal with outside of those values. The use of the objective correlative became more important, and with it the idea that the reader needed to be brought into the speaker's experience instead of merely having it described. In this way, the nightmarish scenes of trench warfare could be transmitted to the reader without entirely losing their impact. An example of this can be seen in the Wilfred Owen poem "Dulce Et Decorum Est." In this piece the speaker never says, "it was painful, and exhausting, and frightening." Instead the poem shows the gas-torn lungs, the weary trudging on bloody feet, and the death and dismemberment of healthy youth (Stallworthy 1974). This direct transmission of experience gives the speaker, and thus the reader, hope that another may share his or her experiences.