"make it new"

This Modernist concept suggests that writers look to the past for help in the search for meaning. Although "make it new" might suggest originality or creativeness, it primarily means that the old can be resurrected in order to show the present age what has been lost. If meaning is difficult to find here and now, perhaps the past can show us the way. The use of allusions is one way to "make it new" because the reader then has to look up the past to understand the present.