Modernism and Modernist Literature

7/23/2019 Modernism and Modernist Literature

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Modernism &Modernist Literature

ASL ~ Literature in English


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Modernism ~ Introduction

A trend of thought that affirms the power of humanbeings to create, improve, and reshape theirenvironment

With the aid of scientific knowledge, technology andpractical experimentation

rogressive and optimistic olitical, cultural and artistic movements rooted in

the changes in Western society At the end of the !"thand beginning of the #$th

century


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A series of reforming cultural movements in artand architecture, music, literature and the appliedarts emerged in the three decades before !"!%

Encouraged the re&examination of every aspect ofexistence 'e(g( commerce ) philosophy*

+oal finding which was -holding back- progress, .replacing it with new, progressive and better waysof reaching the same end

/ew realities of the industrial and mechani0edage permanent and imminent World view the new 1 the good, the true and the

beautiful


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2ebelled against nineteenth century

academic and historicist traditions

34raditional- forms of art, architecture,

literature, religious faith, social organi0ation

and daily life outdated


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Thinkers of the Time

4he most disruptive thinkers 5harles 6arwin '7iology* 8arl 9arx 'olitical Science* Sigmund :reud 'sychology*

6arwin 4heory of evolution by natural selection 3Survival of the fittest; /otion ueness of the intelligentsia Ennobling spirituality


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Thinkers of the Time

8arl 9arx roblems with the economic order were not transient, the

result of specific wrong doers or temporary conditions :undamentally contradictions within the -capitalist- system

Sigmund :reud


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Thoughts of the Time

@mpressionism A school of painting :ocus work done outdoors


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Modernist Literature

4he literary form of 9odernismand especially


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Modernist Literature ~Overview 9ove from the bonds of 2ealist literature

@ntroduce concepts such as dis?ointed timelines

6istinguished by emancipatory metanarrative

A comprehensive explanation of historical experience orknowledge

An explanation for everything that happens in a society

9ove away from 2omanticism

Denture into sub?ect matter that is traditionallymundane 'Example

((


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Stylistic Features ofModernist Literature 9arked pessimism a clear re?ection of the

optimism apparent in Dictorian literature 5ommon motif in 9odernist fiction an

alienated individual 'a dysfunctionalindividual* trying in vain to make sense of apredominantly urban and fragmented society

Absence of a central, heroic figure 5ollapsing narrative and narrator into a

collection of dis?ointed fragments andoverlapping voices


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Stylistic Features ofModernist Literature 5oncern for larger factors such as social or

historical change 6emonstrated in -stream of consciousness-

writing Examples

Dirginia Woolf Mrs Dalloway Cames Coyce Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

. lysses

A reaction to the emergence of city life as acentral force in society


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Formal Characteristics ofModernist Literature Gpen :orm 6iscontinuous narrative Cuxtaposition

4wo unlike things are put next to one another

A >uality of being unexpected 4o compare)contrast the two, to show similarities or differences Example A teacup and its saucer are expected

5lassical allusions A figure of speech 9aking a reference to or representation of, a place, event, literary

work, myth, or work of art, 6irectly or by implication Left to the reader or hearer to make the connection


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Formal Characteristics ofModernist Literature 7orrowings from other cultures and

languages

=nconventional use of metaphor

:ragmentation

9ultiple narrative points of view 'parallax*


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Formal Characteristics ofModernist Literature :ree Derse

!ers libre Styles of poetry that are not written using strict meter or

rhyme Still recogni0able as HpoetryH by virtue of complex patterns

of one sort or another that readers will peive to be part of acoherent whole

@ntertextuality

5oined by poststructuralist Culia 8risteva in !"II Shaping textsH meanings by other texts AuthorJs borrowing and transformation of a prior text 2eaderJs referencing of one text in reading another


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Formal Characteristics ofModernist Literature

9etanarrative Sometimes master-or grand narrative

A global or totali0ing cultural narrative schema

Grdering and explaining knowledge and experience 4he prefix 3meta; 1 -beyond- Kabout

A narrative 1 a story

A story abouta story

Encompassing and explaining other Hlittle storiesH withintotali0ing schemas


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Thematic Characteristics ofModernist Literature 7reakdown of social norms and cultural

sureties

6islocation of meaning and sense from its

normal context

Dalori0ation of the despairing individual in the

face of an unmanageable future

2e?ection of history and the substitution of amythical past, borrowed without chronology


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Thematic Characteristics ofModernist Literature roduct of the metropolis, of cities and urbanscapes

Gverwhelming technological changes of the #$th

5entury

6isillusionment A feeling arising from the discovery

Something is not what it was anticipated to be

9ore severe and traumatic than common disappointment

Especially when a belief central to oneHs identity is shownto be false


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Thematic Characteristics ofModernist Literature Stream of consciousness

A literary techni>ue ortraying an individualHs point of view 7y giving the written e>uivalent of the characterHs thought processes

Either in a loose internal interior monologue

Gr in connection to his or her sensory reactions to externalocurrences A special form of interior monologue 5haracteri0ed by

Associative 'and at times dissociative* leaps in syntax andpunctuation

9aking the prose difficult to follow 4racing a characterHs fragmentary thoughts and sensory feelings

6istinguished from dramatic monologue 4he speaker is addressing an audience or a third person =sed chiefly in poetry or drama


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Modernism and Modernist Literature