Modernism

1
Modernism

• --the breaking away from established rules,
  traditions, and conventions fresh ways of
  looking at a humans position and function in the
  universe
• - avant-garde exploration, path-finding,
  innovation, invention, something new or advanced,
  revolutionary

2
Influence of Modernism

• Began in closing years of 19th c.
• Had a wide influence internationally during 20th
  c.
• Pertains to poetry, fiction, drama, painting,
  music, and architecture
• At its most active France 1890-1940s Germany
  1890s-1920s Russia 1920s (pre-revolution)
  England 1900, 1920-30s America 1915ish-interwar
  period

3
Overview of Modernism

• Attempted to move from the bonds of Realist
  literature
• Introduced concepts such as disjointed timelines
  beyond classic uses of in medias res and
  flashbacks
• Distinguished by emancipatory metanarrativea
  story about a story, encompassing and explaining
  other little stories within totalizing schemas

4
Overview of Modernism

• Transcends the limitation of the Realist novels
  concern for social and historical change
• View work as aesthetic object rather than
  representation of reality
• This is largely demonstrated through the use of
  stream of consciousness writinggiving the
  written equivalent of the characters thought
  processes (through interior monologues or his /
  her sensory reactions to external occurrences)

5
Overview of Modernism

• Also defined by its move away from
  Romanticismventuring into subject matter that is
  clearly mundane
• Features pessimism as a clear rejection of the
  optimism in Victorian literature
• A common motif is that of the alienated
  individual, though some works are marked by the
  absence of a central, heroic figure

6
Formal Characteristics

• Open form/free verse
• Discontinuous narrative
• Intertextuality/classic allusions
• Borrowings from other cultures and languages
• Unconventional use of metaphor
• Metanarrative
• Fragmentation
• Incoherence of character
• Multiple narrative points of view (parallax)

7
Thematic Characteristics

• Breakdown of social norms and cultural sureties
• Dislocation of meaning and sense from its normal
  context
• Valorization of the despairing individual in the
  face of an unimaginable future
• Disillusionment
• Rejection of history and the substitution of a
  mythical past, borrowed without chronology
• Product of the metropolis, of cities and
  urbanscapes
• Overwhelming technological changes of the 20th
  century
• Loss of sense of tradition

8
The Three Amigos

• Marx, Freud, and Darwin
• Unsettled human subject from center of the
  universe mentality
• Reveal dependence on laws and structures out of
  our control and sometimes completely unknown
• Ideological uncertainty (built on lost
  civilization, loss of tradition)
• Series of contradictions and paradoxes

9
Vs. Contemporary

• Contemporary or Postmodern is an era (written
  after 1960)
• Postmodernism follows most of the same ideas
  listed above
• There are some differences simple version
• 1.Modernist writers see fragmentation as tragic
  they also believe their works supply the needed
  coherence and unity civilization has lost
• 2. Both are products of their time periods