modernism literature presentation

Canaday Center

What is modernism.

Many Modernists wrote in free verse and they included many countries and cultures in their poems. Some wrote using numerous points-of-view or even used a “stream-of-consciousness” style. These writing styles further demonstrate the way the scattered state of society affected the work of writes at that time.

Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman are thought to be the mother and father of the movement because they had the most direct influence on early Modernists. Some time after their deaths, the Imagist poets began to gain importance. The University of Toledo’s Canaday Center has a rich collection of poetry and critical work from that era.

Imagist poets generally wrote shorter poems and they chose their words carefully so that their work would be rich and direct. The movement started in London, where a group of poets met and discussed changes that were happening in poetry. Ezra Pound soon met these individuals, and he eventually introduced them to H.D. and Richard Aldington in 1911. In 1912, Pound submitted their work to Poetry magazine. After H.D.’s name, he signed the word "Imagiste" and that was when Imagism was publicly launched. Two months later, Poetry published an essay which discusses three points that the London group agreed upon. They felt that the following rules should apply when writing poetry: 

• Direct treatment of the "thing," whether subjective or objective.
• To use absolutely no word that does not contribute to the presentation.
• As regarding rhythm: to compose in the sequence of the musical phrase, not in sequence of a metronome.

In the following month’s issue, Pound’s two-line poem “In a Station at the Metro” was published. In addition to the previously published works of Aldington and H.D., it exemplifies the tenets of Imagism in that it is direct, written with precise words, and has a musical tone which does not depend on a specific rhythm:

In a Station at the Metro

The apparition of these faces in the crowd;

Petals on a wet, black bough.

World War I broke out soon after the height of Imagism. Some poets, like Aldington, were called to serve the country, and this made the spread of Imagism difficult—as did paper shortages as a result of the war. Eventually, war poets like Wilfred Owen grew in popularity as people shifted their attention to the state of the world. 

After the war ended, a sense of disillusionment grew, and poems like T. S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land” showed the way poetry had shifted. This infamous poem contains various narratives and voices that change quickly from one topic to another. This style of poetry differed greatly from the slow and focused poetry of the Imagists. Visit this link to read the poem in its entirety.

Within a few years, many Modernist writers moved overseas. There was an exciting expatriate scene in Paris which included Pound, James Joyce, Gertrude Stein,and Mina Loy. These writers held and attended literary salons. Poets such as E.E. Cummings, Hart Crane, and William Carlos Williams also attended these salons at times.

Not all Modernist poets followed the writers who were making revolutionary changes to the world of poetics. Marianne Moore, for example, wrote some form poetry, and Robert Frost once said that writing free verse was "like playing tennis without a net." Additionally, writers who had gained popularity toward the end of the Modernist era were inspired by less experimental poets such as Thomas Hardy and W.B. Yeats.  

By the 1950s, a new generation of Postmodern poets came to the forefront. Adding “post” in front of the word "Modern" showed that this new period was different than the one before it, yet was influenced by it. The Modernist ideas of Imagism and the work of William Carlos Williams, for example, continue to have a great influence on writers today.

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Modernism in Literature

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Modernism and Post Modernism in Literature

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Modernism & Modernist Literature

Aug 03, 2012

1.99k likes | 5.85k Views

Modernism & Modernist Literature. ASL ~ Literature in English. Modernism ~ Introduction. A trend of thought that affirms the power of human beings to create, improve, and reshape their environment With the aid of scientific knowledge, technology and practical experimentation

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• disjointed fragments
• darkness virginia woolf
• thematic characteristics ofmodernist literature
• cultural narrative schema
• larger factors
• discontinuous narrative

Presentation Transcript

Modernism & Modernist Literature ASL ~ Literature in English

Modernism ~ Introduction • A trend of thought that affirms the power of human beings to create, improve, and reshape their environment • With the aid of scientific knowledge, technology and practical experimentation • Progressive and optimistic • Political, cultural and artistic movements rooted in the changes in Western society • At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century

Modernism ~ Introduction • A series of reforming cultural movements in art and architecture, music, literature and the applied arts emerged in the three decades before 1914 • Encouraged the re-examination of every aspect of existence (e.g. commerce / philosophy) • Goal: finding which was "holding back" progress, + replacing it with new, progressive and better ways of reaching the same end • New realities of the industrial and mechanized age: permanent and imminent • World view: the new = the good, the true and the beautiful

Modernism ~ Introduction • Rebelled against nineteenth century academic and historicist traditions • “Traditional" forms of art, architecture, literature, religious faith, social organization and daily life: outdated

Thinkers of the Time • The most disruptive thinkers: • Charles Darwin (Biology) • Karl Marx (Political Science) • Sigmund Freud (Psychology) • Darwin: • Theory of evolution by natural selection • “Survival of the fittest” • Notion: Human beings were driven by the same impulses as "lower animals" • Undermining • Religious certainty of the general public • Sense of human uniqueness of the intelligentsia • Ennobling spirituality

Thinkers of the Time • Karl Marx: • Problems with the economic order were not transient, the result of specific wrong doers or temporary conditions • Fundamentally contradictions within the "capitalist" system • Sigmund Freud: • Human mind: a basic and fundamental structure • Subjective experience: based on the interplay of the parts of the mind • All subjective reality: based on the play of basic drives and instincts, through which the outside world was perceived • A break with the past: external and absolute reality could impress itself on an individual

Thoughts of the Time • Impressionism: • A school of painting • Focus: work done outdoors • Human beings do not see objects, but instead see light itself • Symbolism: • Language as expressly symbolic in its nature • Portrayal of patriotism • Poetry and writing should follow connections that the sheer sound and texture of the words create • Representative writer: The poet Stéphane Mallarmé

The literary form of Modernism and especially High modernism Different from Modern literature: history of the modern novel and modern poetry as one At its height from 1900 to 1940 Authors: Poems: T. S. Eliot The Waste Land Robert Frost W.B. Yeats Ezra Pound Short stories and Novels: James Joyce William Faulkner Ernest Hemingway The Old Man and the Sea Franz Kafka Joseph Conrad The Heart of Darkness Virginia Woolf F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby D.H. Lawrence Katherine Mansfield Modernist Literature

Modernist Literature ~ Overview • Move from the bonds of Realist literature • Introduce concepts such as disjointed timelines • Distinguished by emancipatory metanarrative • A comprehensive explanation of historical experience or knowledge • An explanation for everything that happens in a society • Move away from Romanticism • Venture into subject matter that is traditionally mundane (Example: ..\Handouts\The Love Song of J_Alfred Prufrock.doc by T.S. Eliot)

Stylistic Features of Modernist Literature • Marked pessimism: a clear rejection of the optimism apparent in Victorian literature • Common motif in Modernist fiction: an alienated individual (a dysfunctional individual) trying in vain to make sense of a predominantly urban and fragmented society • Absence of a central, heroic figure • Collapsing narrative and narrator into a collection of disjointed fragments and overlapping voices

Stylistic Features of Modernist Literature • Concern for larger factors such as social or historical change • Demonstrated in "stream of consciousness" writing • Examples: • Virginia Woolf: Mrs Dalloway • James Joyce: Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man + Ulysses • A reaction to the emergence of city life as a central force in society

Formal Characteristics of Modernist Literature • Open Form • Discontinuous narrative • Juxtaposition • Two unlike things are put next to one another • A quality of being unexpected • To compare/contrast the two, to show similarities or differences • Example: A teacup and its saucer are expected • Classical allusions • A figure of speech • Making a reference to or representation of, a place, event, literary work, myth, or work of art, • Directly or by implication • Left to the reader or hearer to make the connection

Formal Characteristics of Modernist Literature • Borrowings from other cultures and languages • Unconventional use of metaphor • Fragmentation • Multiple narrative points of view (parallax)

Formal Characteristics of Modernist Literature • Free Verse • Vers libre • Styles of poetry that are not written using strict meter or rhyme • Still recognizable as 'poetry' by virtue of complex patterns of one sort or another that readers will peive to be part of a coherent whole • Intertextuality • Coined by poststructuralist Julia Kristeva in 1966 • Shaping texts' meanings by other texts • Author’s borrowing and transformation of a prior text • Reader’s referencing of one text in reading another

Formal Characteristics of Modernist Literature • Metanarrative • Sometimes master- or grand narrative • A global or totalizing cultural narrative schema • Ordering and explaining knowledge and experience • The prefix “meta” = "beyond" [about] • A narrative = a story • A story about a story • Encompassing and explaining other 'little stories' within totalizing schemas

Thematic Characteristics ofModernist Literature • 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 unmanageable future • Rejection of history and the substitution of a mythical past, borrowed without chronology

Thematic Characteristics ofModernist Literature • Product of the metropolis, of cities and urbanscapes • Overwhelming technological changes of the 20th Century • Disillusionment • A feeling arising from the discovery • Something is not what it was anticipated to be • More severe and traumatic than common disappointment • Especially when a belief central to one's identity is shown to be false

Thematic Characteristics ofModernist Literature • Stream of consciousness • A literary technique • Portraying an individual's point of view • By giving the written equivalent of the character's thought processes: • Either in a loose internal interior monologue • Or in connection to his or her sensory reactions to external ocurrences • A special form of interior monologue • Characterized by: • Associative (and at times dissociative) leaps in syntax and punctuation • Making the prose difficult to follow • Tracing a character's fragmentary thoughts and sensory feelings • Distinguished from dramatic monologue: • The speaker is addressing an audience or a third person • Used chiefly in poetry or drama

Thematic Characteristics ofModernist Literature • Stream of consciousness (Continued) • A fictional device: Speaker’s thought processes depicted as overheard in the mind (or addressed to oneself) • Examples: • Ovid: Metamorphoses (Ancient Rome) • Sir Thomas Browne: The Garden of Cyrus (1658) • Rapid, unconnected association of objects • Geometrical shapes • Numerology • Gyula Krúdy: The Adventures of Sindbad • Tolstoy: Anna Karenina (1877)

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