Modernism

Modernism is an omnibus term for a number of tendencies in the arts which were prominent in the first half of the 20th c.; In English literature it is particularly associated with the writings of T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, W. B. Yeats, F. M. Ford and Joseph Conrad.

Broadly, Modernism reflects the impact upon literature of the psychology of Freud and the anthropology of Sir J. Frazer, as expressed in The Golden Bough (1890-1915). A sense of cultural relativism is pervasive in much modernist writing, as is an awareness of the irrational and the workings of the unconscious mind.

Technically it was marked by a persistent experimentalism. It rejected the traditional framework of narrative, description, and rational exposition in poetry and prose, in favour of stream-of-consciousness presentation of personality, a dependence on the poetic image as the essential vehicle of aesthetic communication, and upon myth as a characteristic structural principle.

Modernist literature is a literature of discontinuity, both historically, being based upon a sharp rejection of the procedures and values of the immediate past, to which it adopts an adversary stance; and aesthetically. Although so diverse in its manifestation, it was recognized as representing "an abrupt break with all tradition ... The aim of five centuries of European effort is openly abandoned. (H. Read)" Modernist works (for instance, the poetry of Eliot and Pound) may have to the unfamiliar reader a tendency to dissolve into chaos of sharp atomistic impressions, and some critics (e.g. Ortega Y Gasset) have deplored their drift towards what he describes as "dehumanization", away from the "human, all too human elements predominant in romantic and naturalistic production."

The modernist movement in literature around the turn of the century created an incredible change in the way writers viewed their art.   This new group of writers were affected by the new perception held of the world and our place in it, and they tried to communicate their fears and opinions through unique new writing styles.  Ezra Pound, one of the foremost figures of this period, told his contemporaries to-- "Make it new."  In order to create new literary forms, the old ones had to be destroyed.  Many of the writers chose to radically change their writing to fit a new era.  These writers were influenced by World War I, rampant materialism, and depression. As Virginia Woolf said:  "On or about December 1910 human character changed.  All human relations shifted --- those between masters and servants, husbands and wives, parents and children.  And when human relations shift there is at the same time a change in religion, conduct, politics, and literature."

Stream of Consciousness

Stream of Consciousness was a literary technique in which a character's thoughts are presented in the confusing, jumbled, and inconsequential manner of real life without any clarification by the author.   It's best known writers are Marcel Proust, Virginia Woolf, and James Joyce.

VIRGINIA WOOLF:  Virginia Woolf was part of the Bloomsbury Group, a group of philosophers, writers, and artists who met in the Bloomsbury section of London.  This group included many different types of people such as John Maynard Keynes, Lytton Stachey, and E.M. Forster.  Virginia Woolf experimented with Stream of Consciousness in her book such as Mrs. Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927), and The Waves (1931), all of which concern the feelings brought on by common experiences.  She was a brilliant critic, some of which was published in The Common Reader (1925).  She was mentally unstable, and in 1942, she drowned herself.

MARCEL PROUST:  Marcel Proust was a French novelist who wrote  Remembrance of Things Past (1905), which is probably one of the greatest novels of the 20th century.  He wrote it after retiring from Parisian society and living alone from 1907-1919.  It explores time, consciousness, and memory, and it was extremely influential in changing the way novels are written.

JAMES JOYCE:  James Joyce developed the Stream of Consciousness style of writing by allowing his readers to live in the minds of the characters.  Born in Ireland in 1882, he continued to write about Ireland for the rest of his life, even though he had left.  He wrote Ulysses (1922), an immensely influential book, using the framework of the Homer myth to create his own private language.  He took this a step further in Finnegans Wake (1939), where he explored dream consciousness.  He also wrote Dubliners (1914), and the autobiographical A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) before dying in 1941.
 

FABIAN SOCIETY

The Fabian Society was an English society supporting socialism.  Although the Fabians supported change, they were against violent revolution.  They helped form the Labour Representation Committee which eventually became the Labour Party.  They were lead by George Bernard Shaw, Sydney and Beatrice Webb, and H.G. Wells.

H.G. WELLS:  Herbert George Wells was a British writer and social reformer.  After writing early science fiction like The Time Machine (1895), and The War of the Worlds (1898), he began writing novels about the lower middle class.  As a social writer, he wrote  Kipps (1905), The History of Mr. Polly (1910), and A Modern Utopia (1905).  As a teacher, he popularized knowledge with Outline of History (1920) and The Science of LIfe (1931).

GEORGE BERNARD SHAW:   George Bernard Shaw was a witty dramatist, critic, and propagandist who included his ideas in his plays.  He was born in Dublin, but went to London in 1876 to become a music and theatre critic.  He started writing social comedies in the 1890s.  He is famous for Major Barbara (1905),  Caesar and CleopatraI (1906), Androcles and the Lion (1912), and Pygmalion (1913) which was later adapted into My Fair Lady.  After WWI, he regained his popularity with Back to Methusaleh (1921) and St. Joan (1923).  He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1925.

SYDNEY AND BEATRICE WEBB:  They were two English social reformers and economists.  Beatrice wrote Life and Labour of the People of London, and they wrote History of Trade Unionism.  In 1913, they created a left-wing journal called The New Statesman.

--------------------MORE WRITERS--------------------------------

THOMAS MANN:  Thomas Mann exemplified the changing times by showing how the world effected peoples' inner most thoughts.  A German novelist, he wrote The Magic Mountain (1924), Buddenbrooks (1901), and Death in Venice (1912) before leaving to for America.  After settling in the U.S., he finished Joseph and His Brothers (1933-1943).  He won the 1929 Nobel Prize for Literature.

E.M. FORSTER: An English novelist, Edwin Morgan Forster's work concerned the differences between truth and falsehood, culture and emotion, and private and public life.  He wrote Where Angels Fear to Tread (1905),  The Longest Journey (1907), A Room with a View (1908),  Howard's End  (1910),  A Passage to India (1924),  Aspects of the Novel (1927), and Maurice (1971).

FRANZ KAFKA: Franz Kafka was a German writer born to controlling and dominating Jewish parents.  He writings reflect his sense of seclusion, and his inhibitions and shortcomings.  His writing is often surreal and nightmarish with characters involved in impossible situations.  His works include The Hunger Artist, The Trial, The Castle, Amerika, and Metamorphosis.

T.S. ELIOT: T.S. Eliot was a major twentieth century poet.  An American living in England, he used modern styles to present classical and traditional ideas.  He wrote Prufock and Other Observations (1917), Ash Wednesday (1930), and Four Quartets (1944).  His most famous poem, The Waste Land (1922), portrayed the chaos of modern life.  His 1939 book, Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, was later turned into the broadway musical Cats.  He was awarded the Noble Prize for Literature in 1948.  After becoming a British subject, he wrote many plays and poetical dramas before his death in London in 1965.

W.B. YEATS:  William Butler Yeats was an Irish poet and dramatist.  He led the Celtic Renaissance and cofounded Dublin's Irish Literary Theatre (later the Abbey Theatre).  Using nationalism as his driving theme, he wrote heavily on Irish legend in his early poetry such as The Wanderings of Oisin (1889).  Later his work matured as in The Wild Swans at Coole (1917),  Michael Robartes and the Dancer (1922), The Tower  (1928), and Last Poems (1940).  He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923.

GERTRUDE STEIN: Perhaps best known for her friendships with Picasso, Hemingway, Matisse and Gide, Gertude Stein was also an important American author who experimented with the syntax of writing.  She lived in Paris from 1903 on, where she wrote  The Making of Americans (1925) and The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas  (1933).

ANDREW GIDE: Andre Gide was a French writer and moralist.  As a leader of French literature, he constantly examined his own emotions and conflicts in order to write about them.  He received the Noble Prize for Literature in 1947 after writing The Immoralists (1902), The Counterfeiters (1925), and four volumes of Journals (1880-1949).

ELMER RICE:  Elmer Rice played on social themes in his dramas.  His American plays include The Adding Machine (1923), Street Scene  (1929),  and Dream Girl (1945).  He won got a Pulitzer prize for Street Scene.

OSWALD SPENGER:  Oswald Spenger was a German philosopher who wrote The Decline of the West (1922) which showed history in a circular manner.

ITALO SVEVO:  Italo Svevo was a Italian writer who became known through his admirer James Joyce.  His greatest work is The Confessions of Zeno (1923), a psychological novel.

RILKE:  Rilke was a German lyric poet who wrote about God, death and other mystical themes.  He was a founder of modern literature through such works as Book of Hours (1905), New Poems (1907-08), Sonnets to Orpheus (1922), and  Duino Elegies (1923).

----------------------Younger Writers-------------------

These writers tried to express the feelings created after World War I.  Often representative of a younger generation, they were greatly influenced by the earlier modernist writers.

F. SCOTT FITZGERALD:  He was an American novelist and short story writer who spoke for the post WWI generation.  Many of these people became disillusioned with society, and he attempted to write about the superficiality and ruthfulness of society.  His first novel, This Side of Paradise, was published in 1920.  He continued to write novels such as Flappers and Philosophers (1920), The Beautiful and Damned (1922), Tales of the Jazz Age (1922), and his most famous--The Great Gatsby (1924).  After his wife suffered a breakdown, he wrote Tender is the Night (1924) which had little luck in the marketplace.  His own emotional state of depression was reflected in The Crack-Up (1936).  He went to Hollywood in 1937 to write for the film industry before dying in 1940.

ERNEST HEMINGWAY:  Ernest Hemingway used a simplistic, stripped down style in his writing to convey the importance of man vs. man or man vs. nature.  The first of his stories collection, In Our Time, was published in 1925, but he remained unknown until The Sun Also Rises was published.  He went on to write A Farewell to Arms (1929), To Have and Have Not (1937), For Whom The Bell Tolls (1940), and The Old Man and the Sea (1952).  He suffered from severe anxiety and depression and killed himself in 1961.

E.E. CUMMINGS:  Edward Estlin Cummings used an unconventional writing form and style in his poetry to represent the changing atmosphere of the modernist era.  His first book, The Enormous Room, was published in 1922.  His work was often seen as silly and unmeaningful, and he had a hard time publishing due to the content of his work.  However, he went on to write Tulips and Chimneys (1923) and twelve volumes of verse that were collected in Complete Poems (1968).  He also wrote several plays including him (1927) and Tom (1935).

LANGSTON HUGHES:  Langston Hughes was known as "the poet laureate of Harlem."  After leaving Columbia University in New York City, he worked at odd jobs before his first book of poetry, The Weary Blues, was published in 1926.  He wrote many novels and poems about the life of black people in America during the modernist era including The Dream Keeper, Not Without Laughter, The Ways of White Folks, and Mulatto.  He went on to write more volumes of poetry and short stories before dying in 1967.