Modernism in Literature The literary movement that spanned from the late 19th century until roughly is referred to as modernism. When talking about the movement there must be an understanding of the difference between modernism and the more common word “modern”. The word modern refers to what is new, recent, and blogger.comted Reading Time: 8 mins Modernism is the social and literal ideal that developped during the period after World War One. Alienation, Negativism, Ambiguioty, and glorifications of the past are all characteristics of Modernism. Great examples of modernist literature are The Metamorphosis, Notes From the Underground, and "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" · Modernistic literature is the expression of the modern era (). It tends to revolve around themes of individuality, the randomness of life, mistrust of government and religion and the disbelief in absolute truth. Literature scholars classify the years from to about as the Modernist period. During this period, society at every level underwent profound changes
Modernism In Literature, Essay Sample
The literary movement that spanned from the late 19th century until roughly is referred modernism in literature essay as modernism. The word modern refers to what is new, recent, and updated. Although modernism does deal with the futuristic and the new, it also covers vastly more topics and themes. Modernism reaches into rebellion, struggle and harsh realities.
From there it stretches into abstraction and a break from idealistic vision. Modernism is only modern in the sense that it comes from the desire of those involved to break away from the old, traditional ways of thinking and expression and to come into their current situations with a new view of reality and art. Most notably, World War I caused a drastic change of mind to all involved.
This historical event gave momentum to the modernist movement by putting realities in front of people that were vastly different from the serene and beautiful ideals described in romantic or Victorian literature. It was difficult to associate these works of art with the way the world had become; therefore, it was necessary to create a new way of expression, modernism in literature essay. Modernist authors did not want to be confined by the traditional boundaries of literature, so they experimented in terms of style and content.
The world changed and literature followed. There five modernism in literature essay themes displayed in modernist literature. Modernism in literature essay first is a representation of inner reality. Modernist authors placed a greater emphasis on the psychological experience of the individual than on the outer realities. This caused much more focus to be placed on individual interpretation of circumstances and events.
Modernist authors did not write clear-cut, chronological stories as their predecessors had, modernism in literature essay. Instead, their work followed no set order or boundary, mimicking the rapidly changing thoughts we would see if we could look into the mind of another person.
Modernists had the desire to express their own individual thoughts as well as to encourage others to think for themselves and define their own experiences. To this end, modernist literature is marked by a blurred distinction between the internal and the external.
The second major theme in modernism is the rejection of norms. This includes structures such as the family structure, government, religion, gender roles, socioeconomic hierarchies, and perception of different races. Modernist literature rejects the old in favor of the new, embracing a newfound freedom of thought and expression.
This shows itself largely in the content of modernist literature, which is unlimited and unrestricted. Previously, literature was confined to topics of natural beauty and drama. Modernist literature spoke of every aspect of reality, putting the spotlight on the ordinary and simple rather than on the extraordinary, modernism in literature essay. Coinciding closely with the second theme is the theme of the grotesque.
To be grotesque means to be unpleasant or displeasing. In modernist literature, authors would take something familiar or traditional and warp it into something disturbing. By manipulating that thing, they were in a sense showing another side to a familiar story. This falls neatly in line with rejecting of the norms, as many modernist authors would use subject matter and content that had been spoken of in classical literature and turn it into modernism in literature essay very different and unnatural.
The idea was to make the reader uncomfortable with what is commonplace and to question the true goodness of what was considered ultimately good. The fourth theme is that of technology. In an effort to leap away from the past and into the future, many modernist authors were fond of writing about technology.
Technology represents a new way of doing things in education, transportation, communication, commerce, and the daily activities of life. Much of the subject matter of modernist literature includes technology either as modernism in literature essay main element of the story or as a background observation.
It is sometimes used to show improvement, but more often used to modernism in literature essay the increasing isolation of society and the cold, mechanical nature of the world. The last theme is the theme of structure and geometry. It is partially related to technology, in that it emphasizes functionality over decoration. This theme is displayed in the authors streamlining of description and embellishment, favoring instead shortened, functional definitions.
Along the same line with the themes of modernism are the styles used in modernist literature. Although there are many styles used in modernist literature, there are four many styles of writing that we will discuss. Firstly, modernism in literature essay, the style of imagism was highly present.
Imagism involves using precise, clear, and sharp language in writing, rather than over-embellishment and exaggeration.
Imagism called for a return to the directness of presentation and economy of language, as well as a willingness to experiment with non-traditional views. A distinct feature of imagism is its attempt to isolate a single image and reveal its essence. This focus on concisely describing a singularity, rather than a vast topic, is a definite stylistic change from the previous romantic and Victorian literary works.
Secondly, modernist literature uses very symbolic language and content. This is noticeable in the amount of metaphors used by modernist writers. In general, nothing is skin-deep in modernist writing. There is a deeper, symbolic meaning behind most characters, places, names, and other elements of the story. This was a very anti-idealist style of writing as it attempted to show life in its gritty particulars and humble realities. Symbolism takes the literature away from realism, modernism in literature essay, abstracting the ugly truth from any and all situations, modernism in literature essay.
Those who wrote with this style believed that there were some absolute truths that could not be written about directly, choosing instead to represent these things through metaphorical and suggestive writing. They endowed images and objects with symbolic meaning in order to point the reader in the direction of the truth without saying it straight-out.
Symbolism brought with modernism in literature essay a freer flow in the writing of poetry, modernism in literature essay. Modernist authors did not want to hinder themselves or their message by being confined to consistency of stanzas, rhyming, or any other traditionally accepted norms in poetry. They chose instead to follow whatever form and flow that would best suit their particular pieces of literature, without paying any attention to specific rules or consistency.
Third on the list of styles used is vorticism. This was a style of writing that attempted to relate art to industrialization and machinery. It opposes sentimentality and modernism in literature essay the mechanical and futuristic. Lastly, there is the style of expressionism. Expressionism was the tendency of modernist authors to present the world from a subjective perspective, distorting the view in order to evoke an emotional response.
Although similar to symbolism, expressionism is different in that the author wished more to lead the reader to the specific personal emotions, moods, and ideas of the author instead of general feeling and emotion. This style was brought about largely by the perceived dehumanization effect of industrialization and the growth of cities. These are the styles and themes of modernism used by those who are considered the major writers of the modernist movement.
This literary movement was mostly displayed in British literature. The most notable authors who wrote in the UK are T. Eliot, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Ezra Pound, and Gertrude Stein.
Eliot was a poet who lived from He was born in St. Louis, Missouri, USA, but moved to England in Eliot had a distinguished career in literature, and even received the Nobel Prize in literature in James Joyce was born in and died in Born in Ireland, Joyce moved to continental Europe after university and stayed abroad for most of his life. The last major author of the modernist movement was Virginia Woolf, who lived from She was born in London, and lived in England her whole life.
Woolf is considered one of the major writers of the modernist movement because of modernism in literature essay content and style of her work. She wrote many essays and stories with feminist undertones, and had strong opinions on the liberation and education of women. She was a member of the Bloomsbury Group, an intellectual society of writers in England. Among the lesser known modernist writers is Ezra Pound, who lived from He was born in the US, but spent most of his life living abroad in different parts of Europe.
He was a friend to T, modernism in literature essay. Eliot, and even helped him to translate and publish some works in England.
Another lesser known writer is the author Gertrude Stein. Born in Pennsylvania, USA, inStein was raised in the US. She moved to Paris in the early s, where she stayed until her death in She was primarily a novelist and a poet. It is divided into 5 titled sections which all share a link to the common themes of death, disillusionment, barrenness, and modernism in literature essay displayed throughout the poem.
Eliot portrays a vivid picture of a very hopeless post-war life, with the evidence of death and desperation everywhere. He describes the horrible circumstances that man finds himself in, and is unable to escape from. This all comes from the post World War I mentality and shock that existed in the time the poem was written.
The mood of the poem is very gloomy, shown by the various gloomy scenes depicted as well as the constant search for answers by the persona. As well, the persona speaks with a very resigned tone, as if surrendering to the realities and problems of the world.
Although the poem has consistent themes, it is set in many different places of which there is no connection or consistency throughout the different sections. The settings vary from a fancy room, to a bridge in London, to the banks of the Thames River, even to an unnamed desert place. Each setting serves the purpose of the section in which it is written, and paints a very good picture for the reader of the circumstances Eliot is writing about. The first section, Burial of the Dead, talks of high hopes of the rebirth of the world after the war, but overshadows this with the futility of the new life and the hopelessness of the efforts.
The second section, A Game of Chess, speaks about the perversion of humanity and the degrading social and moral values of society. It starts out by describing a beautiful scene, but as soon as the characters are introduced we encounter sadness of all types.
Modernism: WTF? An introduction to Modernism in art and literature
, time: 11:32Modernism in “A passage to India” - blogger.com
· Modernistic literature is the expression of the modern era (). It tends to revolve around themes of individuality, the randomness of life, mistrust of government and religion and the disbelief in absolute truth. Literature scholars classify the years from to about as the Modernist period. During this period, society at every level underwent profound changes Modernism is the social and literal ideal that developped during the period after World War One. Alienation, Negativism, Ambiguioty, and glorifications of the past are all characteristics of Modernism. Great examples of modernist literature are The Metamorphosis, Notes From the Underground, and "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" · Text preview of this essay: This page of the essay has words. Download the full version above. The term ‘modernism’ is notoriously difficult to define due to the term encompasses of a variety of artistic and philosophical movement which include symbolism, futurism, imagism, vorticism data and others. Modernism is a progression of life of a group of people from an antique or old fashioned /5(3)
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