by Francesco Bernardini

1
by Francesco Bernardini
Modernism
2
Definition

• A literary and artistic movement that developed
  in Europe during the first three decades of XX
  century.
• Its name describes the period in which it
  developed, that is the end of the Modern age

3
Cultural Background

• Modernism development between the end of the XIX
  century and the beginning of the XX century
• In that period all traditional beliefs were put
  into doubt by scientific discoveries (evolution
  theory, theory of relativity)
• In society the general atmosphere was one that
  recorded a sense of confusion and absence of
  points of reference and authorities

4
Objective

• The main objective of Modernism was to create a
  new way of expression in which the absence of
  points of reference, and the idea of a changing
  the world was expressed and traditional beliefs
  were turned upside down
• It also created a new connection between
  tradition and myths and contemporary literature
  by means of trans-codifiction

5
Main Features

• Modernist works are the most complex works in the
  history of literature
• Modernism became an elitarian movement since its
  artistic production was so difficult and couldnt
  be understood by ordinary people since it
  required ahigh level of culture
• Modernist artists used particular devices to
  better convey feelings, emotions and ideas it
  also made reference to a new conception of time

6
Literary Devices

• Shift of the point of view
• Dramatic monologue
• Speaking voice
• Interior monologue
• Stream of consciousness
• Intertextuality

7
Conceptual Devices

• Anthropology
• The Objective correlative
• Anti-hero
• The Mythical method
• Transcodification
• Importance of mankind

8
Representative Writers
Poetry Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888-1965) USA -
UK Ezra Pound (1885-1972) USA - UK
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)
IRL Novel James Joyce (1882-1941) IRL
Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) UK Franz
Kafka (1883-1924) CS
9
Representative Works

• James Joyce Ulysses 1922, Finnegans Wake
  1939, Dubliners, 1914
• Virginia Woolf Mrs Dalloway,1925, To the
  Lighthouse, 1927
• T.S.Eliot The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,
  1915, The Wasteland 1922, The Four Quartets,
  1936-1942