CHARACTERISTICS OF

MODERNISM
 DEFINITION
a literary and cultural international  Loss of faith
movement  „Make it new”- Ezra Pound
is both international and
interdisciplinary
"traditional" forms of art,
architecture, literature, religious faith,
social organization and daily life
were becoming outdated in the new
world.
DEFINITION
The roots of Modernisation emerged in the middle of the 19th century, locally in
France in literature and art.
It was called avant-garde at first but then the concept remained for the description
of a more radical movement.
It was a revolt against the conservative values of realism.
 Realism Modernism
Emphasized nationalism& cultural absolutism Humanism over nationalism, argued for cultural
relativism

Placed humans over and outside of nature Humans were past and responsible for nature

Showed a single way of looking at the world: clear Multiple ways of looking at the world
cut dichotomies btw right and wrong, good and bad, blurred the dichotomies by presenting antiheroes and
hero and villain uncategorizable people

World is governed by God’s will, each person and Challenged the idea of God playing an active role
thing has specific use in the world, there was meaning and purpose behind
world events.
World is divided by civilised and savage
 INFLUENCES
● Industrial revolution & growth of cities
● Increased consumerism
● New technologies and inventions (auto, airplane, telephone, camera)
● Developments in science (Einstein), psychology (Freud), philosophy (Nietzche),
linguistics (Saussure), and anthropology (Frazer’s study of comparative religions)
● World War I
THEMES
● Modern life alienates the individual.
● Conviction that older forms of authority are decayed or useless, and that the
authority of the individual must be strengthened
● The belief that the artist is sensitive and even heroic.
● The experience of time and space are subjective, depend on one’s context and
perspective.
 CHARACTERISTICS
Rejection of realistic representation and traditional formal expectations
Questioning of traditional beliefs and social structures
New experiments with form and technique in both poetry and prose
A new kind of hero who is flawed and disillusioned yet honorable and courageous

In novel: exploration of the Freudian depths of the characters’ psyches through stream of
consciousness and interior monologue.
In poetry: mixed slang with elevated language, experiment with free verse, and often
works with difficult allusions and disconnected images.
STYLISTIC CHARACTERISTICS
1. Absence of a central, heroic figure
2. Narrative is in disjointed fragments and overlapping voices
3. Concern for larger factors such as social or historical change
4. A reaction to the emergence of city life as a central force in society
FORMAL CHARACTERISTICS

1. Discontinuous narrative
2. Juxtaposition
 Two unlike things are put next to one another
 A quality of being unexpected
3. Classical allusions
 Making a reference to or representation of, a place, event, literary work, myth, or work of
art
 Left to the reader or hearer to make the connection
• Free Verse
• Styles of poetry that are not written using strict meter or
rhym

• Intertextuality
• Shaping texts' meanings by other texts
• Author’s borrowing and transformation of a prior text
• Reader’s referencing of one text in reading another
 MODERNIST POETS, NOVELISTS
J, Joyce W. Faulkner
V. Woolf F. Scott Fitzgerald,
D.H. Lawrence  Henry Miller
J. Conrad  T.S. Eliot
E.M. Forste K.Mansfield
E. Hemingway
SUMMARY
A set of writers disillusioned by WWI, the Great Depression
Shifts in means of expression, writing style, greater use of symbols
Writings often reflect ideas of alienation, isolation, individual perception and
human consciousness
Authors include: F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, Henry
Miller and T.S. Eliot