Paper nb. : 9 - Modernist Literature

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Background Reading of Modernist Age

Name: Zala Namrataba Kishorsinh

Roll No. : 20

Year: 2016-18

M.A Semester: 3

Paper No. : (9) Modernist Literature

Email Id: namratazala2707@gmail.com

Unit: 5

Assignment Topic: Background Reading of Modernist Literature

Submitted to: smt.S.B.Gardi,

Department Of English,

Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University,

Bhavnagar, Gujarat-364001.

Background Reading of Modernist Age

Broadly speaking, ‘modernism’ might be said to have

been characterised by a deliberate and often

radical shift away from tradition, and consequently

by the use of new and innovative forms of

expression Thus, many styles in art and literature

from the late 19th and early 20th centuries are

markedly different from those that preceded them. T

                   he term ‘modernism’ generally covers the

creative output of artists and thinkers who saw ‘tr

aditional’ approaches to the arts, architecture,

literature, religion, social organisation (and even

life itself) had become outdated in light of the n

ew                                   

economic, social and political circumstances of a b

y now fully industrialised society.

Amid rapid social change and significant developmen

ts in science (including the social sciences),

modernists found themselves alienated from what mig

ht be termed Victorian morality and

convention. They duly set about searching for radic

al responses to the radical changes occurring

around them, affirming mankind’s power to shape and

influence his environment through

experimentation, technology and scientific advancem

ent, while identifying potential obstacles to

‘progress’ in all aspects of existence in order to

replace them with updated new alternatives.

All the enduring certainties of Enlightenment think

ing, and the heretofore unquestioned existence of

an all-seeing, all-powerful ‘Creator’ figure, were

high on the modernists’ list of dogmas that were

now to be challenged, or subverted, perhaps rejecte

d altogether, or, at the very least, reflected upon

from a fresh new ‘modernist’ perspective.

Not that modernism categorically defied religion or

eschewed all the beliefs and ideas associated

with the Enlightenment; it would be more accurate t

o view modernism as a tendency to question,

and strive for alternatives to, the convictions of

the preceding age. The past was now to be seen and

treated as different from the modern era, and its a

xioms and undisputed authorities held up for

revision and enquiry.

The extent to which modernism is open to diverse in

terpretations, and even rife with apparent

paradoxes and contradictions, is perhaps illustrate

d by the uneasy juxtaposition of the viewpoints

declared by two of modernist poetry’s most celebrat

ed and emblematic poets: while Ezra Pound

(1885-1972) was making his famous call to “make it

new”, his contemporary T. S. Eliot (1888-

1965) was stressing the indispensable nature of tra

dition in art, insisting upon the artist’s

responsibility to engage with tradition. Indeed, th

e overtly complex, contradictory character of

modernism is summed up by Peter Childs, who identif

ies “paradoxical if not opposed trends

towards revolutionary and reactionary positions, fe

ar of the new and delight at the disappearance of

the old, nihilism and fanatical enthusiasm, creativ

ity and despair”.

THE ‘EARLY MODERN’ PERIOD

‘Early modern’ is a term used by historians to refe

r to the period approximately from AD 1500 to

1800, especially in Western Europe. It follows the

Late Medieval period, and is marked by the first

European colonies, the rise of strong centralised g

overnments, and the beginnings of recognisable

nation-states that are the direct antecedents of to

day’s states, in what is called modern times. This

era spans the two centuries between the Middle Ages

and the Industrial Revolution that provided

the basis for modern European and American society,

and in subsequent years the term ‘early

modern has evolved to be less euro-centric, more ge

nerally useful for tracking related historical

events across vast regions, as the cultural influen

ces and dynamics from one region impacting on

distant others has become more appreciated.

The early modern period is characterised by the ris

e of science, the shrinkage of relative distances

through improvements in transportation and communic

ations and increasingly rapid technological

progress, secularised civic politics and the early

authoritarian nation-states. Furthermore, capitalis

t

economies and institutions began their rise and dev

elopment, beginning in northern Italian republics

such as Genoa, and the Venetian oligarchy. The earl

y modern period also saw the rise of the

economic theory of mercantilism. As such, the early

modern period represents the decline and

eventual disappearance, in much of the European sph

ere, of Christian theocracy, feudalism and

serfdom. The period includes the Reformation, the d

isastrous Thirty Years’ War (1618-48), which

is generally considered one of the most destructive

conflicts in European history, in addition to the

Commercial Revolution, the European colonisation of

the Americas, the Golden Age of Piracy and

the peak of the European witch-hunt craze.

The expression ‘early modern’ is sometimes (and inc

orrectly) used as a substitute for the term

‘Renaissance’. However, ‘Renaissance’ is properly u

sed in relation to a diverse series of cultural

developments that occurred over several hundred yea

rs in many different parts of Europe –

especially central and northern Italy – and spans t

he transition from late medieval civilization to th

e

opening of the ‘early modern’ period.

Artistically, the Renaissance is clearly distinct f

rom what came later, and only in the study of

literature is the early modern period considered br

oadly as a standard: music, for instance, is

generally divided between Renaissance and Baroque;

similarly, philosophy is divided between

Renaissance philosophy and the Enlightenment. In ot

her fields, perhaps, there is more continuity

through the period, as can be seen in the contexts

of warfare and science.

THE ‘MODERN’ PERIOD

The modern period (known also as the ‘modern era’,

or also ‘modern times’) is the period of history

that succeeded the Middle Ages (which ended in appr

oximately 1500 AD) As a historical term, it is

applied primarily to European and Western history.

The modern era is further divided as follows:

* The ‘early period’, outlined above, which conclud

ed with the advent of the Industrial Revolution

in the mid 18

th

century.

* The 18th century Enlightenment, and the Industria

l Revolution in Britain, can be posited amid the

dawning of an ‘Age of Revolutions’, beginning with

those in America and France, and then

pushed forward in other countries partly as a resul

t of the upheavals of the Napoleonic Wars.

* Our present or contemporary era begins with the e

nd of these revolutions in the 19th century, and

includes World War I, World War II, and the Cold Wa

r.

The modern period has been a period of significant

development in the fields of science, politics,

warfare, and technology. It has also been an age of

discovery and globalisation: it is during this tim

e

that the European powers and later their colonies,

began their political, economic, and cultural

colonisation of the rest of the world.

By the late 19th and early 20th century, modernist

art, politics, science and culture had come to

dominate not only Western Europe and North America,

but almost every civilised area on the globe,

including movements thought of as opposed to the We

st and globalisation. The modern era is

closely associated with the development of individu

alism, capitalism, urbanisation and a belief in

the positive possibilities of technological and pol

itical progress.

The brutal wars and other problems of this era, man

y of which come from the effects of rapid

change and the connected loss of strength of tradit

ional religious and ethical norms, have led to

many reactions against modern development: optimism

and belief in constant progress has been

most recently criticised by ‘postmodernism’, while

the dominance of Western Europe and North

America over other continents has been criticised b

y postcolonial theory.

The concept of the modern world as distinct from an

ancient or medieval one rests on a sense that

‘modernity’ is not just another era in history, but

rather the result of a new type of change. This is

usually conceived of as progress driven by delibera

te human efforts to better their situation.

Advances in all areas of human activity – politics,

industry, society, economics, commerce,

transport, communication, mechanisation, automation

, science, medicine, technology, and culture –

appear to have transformed an ‘old world’ into the

‘modern’ or ‘new world’. In each case, the

identification of the old Revolutionary change can

be used to demarcate the old and old-fashioned

from the modern.

Much of the modern world has replaced the Biblical-

oriented value system, re-evaluated the

monarchical government system, and abolished the fe

udal economic system, with new democratic

and liberal ideas in the areas of politics, science

, psychology, sociology, and economics.

MODERNISM

The first half of the nineteenth century saw an aes

thetic turning away from the realities of political

and social fragmentation, and so facilitated a tren

d towards Romanticism: emphasis on individual

subjective experience, the sublime, the supremacy o

f Nature as a subject for art, revolutionary or

radical extensions of expression, and individual li

berty. By mid-century, however, a synthesis of

these ideas with stable governing forms had emerged

, partly in reaction to the failed Romantic and

democratic Revolutions of 1848. Exemplified by ‘pra

ctical’ philosophical ideas such as positivism,

and called by various names – in Great Britain it i

s designated the ‘Victorian era’ – this stabilizing

synthesis was rooted in the idea that reality domin

ates over subjective impressions.

Central to this synthesis were common assumptions a

nd institutional frames of reference, including

the religious norms found in Christianity, scientif

ic norms found in classical physics and doctrines

that asserted that the depiction of external realit

y from an objective standpoint was not only possibl

e

but desirable. Cultural critics and historians labe

l this set of doctrines Realism, though this term i

s

not universal. In philosophy, the rationalist, mate

rialist and positivist movements established a

primacy of reason and system.

Against this current ran a series of ideas, some of

them direct continuations of Romantic schools of

thought. Notable among these were the agrarian and

revivalist movements in plastic arts and poetry

(e.g. the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the philos

opher John Ruskin). Rationalism also drew

responses from the anti-rationalists in philosophy:

in particular, G. W. F. Hegel’s dialectic view of

civilization and history drew responses from Friedr

ich Nietzsche and Søren Kierkegaard, who were

major influences on Existentialism. All of these se

parate reactions together began to be seen as

offering a challenge to any comfortable ideas of ce

rtainty derived by civilization, history, or pure

reason.

From the 1870s onward, the ideas that history and c

ivilization were inherently progressive and that

progress was always good came under increasing atta

ck. The likes of the German composer Richard

Wagner (1813-83) and the Norwegian dramatist Henrik

Ibsen (1828-1906) had been reviled for

their own critiques of contemporary civilization an

d for their warnings that accelerating ‘progress’

would lead to the creation of individuals detached

from social values and isolated from their fellow

men. Arguments arose that the values of the artist

and those of society were not merely different,

but that Society was antithetical to Progress, and

could not move forward in its present form.

Philosophers called into question the previous opti

mism. The work of the German philosopher

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) was labelled ‘pessi

mistic’ for its idea of the ‘negation of the

will’, an idea that would be both rejected and inco

rporated by later thinkers such as Nietzsche

(1844-1900)

MODERNIST LITERATURE

Modernism as a literary movement reached its height

in Europe between 1900 and the mid-1920s.

‘Modernist’ literature addressed aesthetic problems

similar to those examined in non-literary forms

of contemporaneous Modernist art, such as painting.

Gertrude Stein’s abstract writings, for

example, have often been compared to the fragmentar

y and multi-perspectival Cubism of her friend

Pablo Picasso. The general thematic concerns of Mod

ernist literature are well-summarised by the

sociologist Georg Simmel: “The deepest problems of

modern life derive from the claim of the

individual to preserve the autonomy and individuali

ty of his existence in the face of overwhelming

social forces, of historical heritage, of external

culture, and of the technique of life” (

The Metropolis

and Mental Life

, 1903).

The Modernist emphasis on radical individualism can

be seen in the many literary manifestos issued

by various groups within the movement. The concerns

expressed by Simmel above are echoed in

Richard Huelsenbeck’s

First German Dada Manifesto

of 1918: “Art in its execution and direction

is dependent on the time in which it lives, and art

ists are creatures of their epoch. The highest art

will be that which in its conscious content present

s the thousandfold problems of the day, the art

which has been visibly shattered by the explosions

of last week. The best and most extraordinary

artists will be those who every hour snatch the tat

ters of their bodies out of the frenzied cataract o

f

life, who, with bleeding hands and hearts, hold fas

t to the intelligence of their time.”

The cultural history of humanity creates a unique c

ommon history that connects previous

generations with the current generation of humans,

and the Modernist re-contextualization of the

individual within the fabric of this received socia

l heritage can be seen in the ‘mythic method’

which T.S. Eliot expounded in his discussion of Jam

es Joyce’s

Ulysses

: “In using the myth, in

manipulating a continuous parallel between contempo

raneity and antiquity, Mr. Joyce is pursuing a

method which others must pursue after him ... It is

simply a way of controlling, of ordering, of

giving a shape and a significance to the immense pa

norama of futility and anarchy which is

contemporary history” (

Ulysses, Order and Myth

, 1923).

Modernist literature involved such authors as Knut

Hamsun (whose novel

Hunger

(1890) is

considered to be the first ‘modernist’ novel), Virg

inia Woolf, T. S. Eliot, Gertrude Stein, H.D.

(Hilda Doolittle), Dylan Thomas, Paul Laurence Dunb

ar, Ezra Pound, Mina Loy, James Joyce,

Hugh MacDiarmid, William Faulkner, Jean Toomer, Ern

est Hemingway, Rainer Maria Rilke, Franz

Kafka, Robert Musil, Joseph Conrad, Andrei Bely, W.

B. Yeats, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Luigi

Pirandello, D. H. Lawrence, Katherine Mansfield, Ja

roslav Hašek, Samuel Beckett, Menno ter

Braak, Marcel Proust, Mikhail Bulgakov, Robert Fros

t, Boris Pasternak, Djuna Barnes, and others.

Modernist literature attempted to move from the bon

ds of Realist literature and to introduce

concepts such as disjointed timelines. Modernism wa

s distinguished by an emancipatory

metanarrative. In the wake of Modernism, and post-e

nlightenment, metanarratives tended to be

emancipatory, whereas beforehand this was not a con

sistent characteristic. Contemporary

metanarratives were becoming less relevant in light

of the implications of World War I, the rise of

trade unionism, a general social discontent, and th

e emergence of psychoanalysis. The consequent

need for a unifying function brought about a growth

in the political importance of culture.

Modernist literature can be viewed largely in terms

of its formal, stylistic and semantic movement

away from Romanticism, examining subject matter tha

t is traditionally mundane – a prime example

being

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

by T. S. Eliot (1915). Modernist literature often

features

a marked pessimism, a clear rejection of the optimi

sm apparent in Victorian literature in favour of

portraying alienated or dysfunctional individuals w

ithin a predominantly urban and fragmented

society. Many Modernist works, like Eliot’s

The Waste Land

(1922), are marked by the absence of 

any central, heroic figure at all, as narrative and

narrator are collapsed into a collection of disjoi

nted

fragments and overlapping voices. Modernist literat

ure, moreover, often moves beyond the

limitations of the Realist novel with a concern for

larger factors such as social or historical change

,

an this is particularly prominent in ‘stream of con

sciousness’ writing. Examples can be seen in the

work of, among others, two exact contemporaries, Vi

rginia Woolf and

James Joyce (1882-1941).

Works Cited

college, symbiosis. "https://symbiosiscollege.edu.in/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/ModernismBackground.pdf." https://symbiosiscollege.edu.in/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/ModernismBackground.pdf. <https://symbiosiscollege.edu.in/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/ModernismBackground.pdf>.

Symbiosis. Modernist literature background and introduction. pune: symbiosis, n.d.