Modernism(s) (1890) 1910-1930s (WWII)

On or about December 1910 human nature changed. All human relations shifted, and when human relations change there is at the same time a change in religion, conduct, politics, and literature. Virginia Woolf Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown, 1924 Modernism(s) A movement across all the arts Reaction against traditional Victorian values Society rushing towards its destruction and meaninglessness Roots: The Thinkers Karl Marx social class created, not inherent; Sigmund Freud - boiled down human individuality to an animalistic sex drive; Charles Darwin - evidence that the Bible might not be literally true; Friedrich Nietzsche - even the most deeply-held ethical principles were simply constructions; e.g. God is dead. An attempt to come to terms with where humanity stands after its cornerstones have been pulverized Sifting through the shards of the past looking for what was valuable and what could inspire the construction of a new society. Modernist Themes Technology The way humans see world changed drastically Flying machines Photographs / moving pictures Electric signals being transmitted via wires Telephone communication rapidly changing technology of the late nineteenth century and theories of late nineteenth-century thinkers

By the 1940s machines had made it possible to communicate or travelor destroywith much greater speed and efficiency Freud use of interior monologue to record the thoughts of the narrator, revealing things even the narrator was not aware of Unreal City urban life becomes an experience the anonymity of the city, its darkness, its mechanization, its vast power, all inspired the modernists; it attracted and repelled them in equal measure Master trope (image)

Alienation the sensation of being alien, or of not belonging, to ones own milieu; also separation master theme

The Presence of the Past All certainties of the past smashed; contemporary world no direction, no centre or certainty Past certainties, although oppressive and constructed on specious values, were kind of foundation for the world. World War I totally destroyed all certainties

Modernism: Style Narration: accurately portray the world not as it is but as humans actually experience it Stream-of-consciousness technique (interior monologue) inner reality, no linear plot, little description of environment human personality as a stream of states of minds fragmentation

Allusion 2

a brief reference to a person, place, thing, idea, or language that is not actually present.

Modernist theories about the omnipresence of the past make allusions difficult to avoid in modernist literature.

Joyce, Eliot included allusion as perhaps the central formal device in their writing

perspectivism no single version of truth multiplicity of points of view

Plots: fluidity and circularity of time Fragmentation Two Basic Divisions Formal modernists experiment with language and form (e.g. Joyce, Eliot)

Modernists who experiment with content E.g. Lawrence, addressing modern issues such as sexuality and interior life of characters/people