Modernism 1918 -1945 Modernism o a general

Modernism 1918 -1945

Modernism o a general term applied retrospectively to the wide range of experimental and avant-garde trends in the literature (and other arts) of the early 20 th century o a movement which began in the closing years of the 19 th century and which had a wide influence internationally during much of the 20 th century.

Modernism’s Mission o Literature = art object produced by consummate craft rather than as a statement of emotion. o Not a set of stylistic features; an impulse to perfect o A refusal of clichés; a system of taboos o A reaction against degraded Realism, especially in the marketplace o A repudiation of monopoly capitalism’s effects on human being (conformity, standardization, repetition, seriality, stupidity)

Difference between Realism and Modernism o Whereas REALISM n Emphasized absolutism, and n Believed that a single reality could be determined through the observation of nature o MODERNISM n Argued for cultural relativism, n And believed that people make their own meaning in the world.

Value Differences in the Modern World Pre-Modern World (Early 20 th Century) Ordered Chaotic Meaningful Futile Optimistic Pessimistic Stable Fluctuating Faith Loss of faith Morality/Values Collapse of Morality/Values Clear Sense of Identity Confused Sense of Identity and Place in the World

Karl Marx’s new explanations of history—dialectical materialism which sees historical progress as the political struggle between two classes resulting in a new socioeconomic order

Charles Darwin’s new view of humanity as ascended from apes rather than descended from God— shifts humanity’s conception of its place in the world

Ferdinand de Saussure Swiss linguist who argues that language is relative, that words have no direct relationship to the concepts or objects they signify

Albert Einstein o Theory of relativity abandoned the concepts of absolute motion and the absolute difference of space and time ( сcompare to previous scientific notions of stable time and space) o all knowledge is relative - we cannot know anything for sure; o Theories became interpreted in popular culture

Friedrich Nietzsche “God is Dead” argued for the power of the human will shifted cultural ideologies about religion and philosophy

Sigmund Freud o Stressed subconscious motives and instinctual drives. o It is impossible to ignore psychological undercurrents of human behaviors. o Writers deal with subconscious motivations. o stream of consciousness technique similar to Freud’s therapeutic tactic of free association.

Modernism Timeline o 1914: Outbreak of WWI o 1917: US enters war, Russian Revolution o 1919: WWI ends, n Einstein’s Relativity theory confirmed, n Prohibition begins n

Modernism Timeline o 1920 n League of Nations begins; n 19 th Amendment granting women the vote o 1921—Irish Free State proclaimed o 1922—Fascists march on Rome under Mussolini o 1923—Charleston craze

Modernism Timeline o 1925— n Image of human face televised n Hitler published Mein Kampf o 1927 n Lindbergh flies solo across Atlantic n Al Jolson, first talkie

Modernism Timeline o 1929—US stock market crashes; o 1933 n n n Hitler appointed Chancellor of Germany First German concentration camps Prohibition ends in US

Modernism Timeline o 1934—Hitler becomes dictator o 1936—Civil War in Spain begins o 1938—Germany occupies Austria o 1939 n n n Hitler and Stalin make pact; Germany invades Poland Great Britain and France declare war on Germany

Modernism Timeline o 1941 n Germany invades USSR n Japan bombs Pearl Harbor, US enters war o 1942 n Battle of Stalingrad, n T-shirt invented o 1944—D-Day invasion of France

Modernism Timeline o 1945 n End of war in Europe n Atomic bomb dropped on Japan n First computer built n Microwave oven invented n United Nations founded

World War I: 1914 (1917 -1918)

WWI: Doughboys and Air Fights

WWI: Trench War Fare and Poison Gas

Russian Revolution: 1917

Social Snapshot of the Times o Result of Political Turmoil n Revolutionary Ideologies Rise p Fascism n The separation and persecution or denial of equality to a certain group based on race, creed, or origin p Nazism n Socialism featuring racism, expansionism and obedience to a strong leader p Communism n Control of the means of production should rest in the hands of the laborers.

Fascism and Nazism

Scientific Rationalism • During 19 th Century, the Enlightenment notion of the world as a machine—something whose parts could be named and seen to function—came back into favor. • Positivism—the 19 th Century belief that everything, including human nature, could be explained and understood through science. • Modernism rejects this idea.

Social Snapshot of the Times o. Scientific Revolution n Quantum theory p. Explains the nature of matter and energy on the atomic and subatomic level n Principle of Uncertainty p. In quantum mechanics: increasing the accuracy of measurement of one observable quantity increases the uncertainty with which another may be known

Snapshot of the Times: Implications for Nature of Reality o Many-worlds (multi-verse) theory n As soon as the potential exists for any object to be in any state, the universe of the object transmutes into a series of parallel universes equaling the number of possible states in which an object can exist. Stephen Hawking posits the possibility for interaction between universes. o Nothing exists until it is measured: n Schrödinger's cat (dead and alive)

Schrödinger's cat

Forces Behind Modernism o The sense that our culture has no center, no values. o Paradigm shift n from the closed, finite, measurable, causeand-effect universe of the 19 th century to an open, relativistic, changing, strange universe;

Art for Modernists o artifact rather than reality o Unique and original - anti-commercial o Explores the human subconscious o Relies on and employs myth as a reaction against scientific rationalism, uses sensuality and intuition o A search for “Truth”

Slogans of Modernism o “Make it new!” o “Make it different!” o “Make it difficult!”

“Make it new!” o. Resentment at close-mindedness and complacency of late Victorian culture o. Cynicism and distrust of “pat” solutions odoubts no longer resolved by faith o. Nature replaced with the impersonalism of cities, the sterility of wastelands “The perpetual task of poetry is to make all things new. Not necessarily to make new things. ” (T. S. Eliot)

“Make it different!” o Emergence of vers libre (free verse) to replace prescribed metric forms o Attack on and dismantling of Victorian literary proprieties: language, sex, form, even typography o “Anxiety of influence”—effect of tradition on individual writers, trying to get out from under the perceived weight of the past

“Make it difficult!” o Sense that “intellectual” literature had to be different from that which pleased the masses—takes Swift’s highbrow/lowbrow distinction even further. o Modrnists believed that art had to be perceived as elitist and ‘hard’ to have value. o Bring in anthropology, mythology, psychology, science—challenge readers’ knowledge and expectations

Modernist Writing o Time is circular rather than linear o Human character can only be known through memories and thoughts vs external description o Reacts against Realism and Victorian morality, find sexuality and sexual desire as a subject o Modernism is disenchanted

J. Joyce about the Victorian style “a namby-pamby jammy marmalady drawersy (alto-là) style with effects of incense, mariolatry, masturbation, stewed cockles, painter’s palette, chitchat, circumlocutions, etc. ”

Characteristics of Modernism in Literature I. Perspectivism Meaning comes from the individual’s perspective and is thus personalized; n A single story might be told from the perspective of several different people, with the assumption that the “truth” is somewhere in the middle n Unreliable narrator n

Characteristics of Modernism in Literature II. Language : n No longer seen as transparent, allowing us to “see through” to reality; n the way an individual constructs reality; n “thick” with multiple meanings and varied connotative forces. n Literature and language - a game

Characteristic of Modernism in Literature III. Experiment Experience (layered, allusive, discontinuous) portrayed through fragmentation and juxtaposition. n Rejection of chronological and narrative continuity. n Ambiguous endings—open endings are seen as more representative of reality. n New techniques (Stream of consciousness) n

Cubism o. Cubism— 1909 -1911 n Art in which multiple views are presented simultaneously in flattened, geometric way.

Cubism

Dadaism o Dadaism –deliberately irrational n a protest against the barbarism of the War and oppressive intellectual rigidity; n Anti-art p. Strives to have no meaning p. Interpretation dependent entirely on the viewer; p. Intentionally offends.

Fauvism p. Supremacy of colour over form p. Interest in the primitive and the magical p. Matisse

Matisse

Dadaism Duchamp

Surrealism o. Surrealism n Grew out of Dada and automatism. n Reveals the unconscious mind in dream images, the irrational, and the fantastic, n Impossible combinations of objects depicted in realistic detail.

Surrealism Dali Magritte

Jackson Pollock

Futurism o. Futurism—grew out of Cubism. n Added implied motion to the shifting planes and multiple observation points of the Cubists; n Celebrated natural as well as mechanical motion and speed. n Glorified danger, war, and the machine

Futurism Kandinsky Giacomo Balla

Expressionism o Refused direct representation of reality. o Favor of expressing an inner vision, emotion, or spiritual reality. The Scream by Edvard Munch

Features of Modernist poetry o Open form o Use of free verse o Juxtaposition of ideas rather than consequential exposition o Intertextuality o Use of allusions and multiple association of words o Borrowings from other cultures and languages o Unconventional use of metaphor o Importance given to sound to convey “the music of ideas”

Modernist poets o. W. B. Yeats o. T. S. Eliot

W. B. Yeats (1855 -1939)

Born June 13 th, 1865 in Sandymount, County Dublin, Ireland. Irish nationalist Founder and the chief playwright of The Abbey Theatre (The National Theatre of Ireland) opened in December , 1904 the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1923. an Irish senator, serving two terms

Writing Style o spoke out about the severe Nationalist policies of the time o Early works of drama show his love for Irish legends, history, and myths o Later plays are more poetic and experimental o Wrote poetry about nature and his homeland, Ireland o Wrote poetry, plays, short-stories, non-fiction, and fiction

Plays o The Land of Heart’s Desire • Deirdre • At the Hawk’s Well • The Only Jealousy of Emer • Calvary • The Cat and the Moon • The Dreaming of the Bones

Poetry The Stolen Child The Lake Isle of Innisfree Down by the Salley Gardens The Ballad of Moll Magee The Ballad of Father Gilligan The Fiddler of Dooney September 1913 Easter 1916 A Prayer for my Daughter

Thomas Stearns Eliot ( 1888 - 1965)

• Born in St. Louis, Missouri • studied at Harvard, the Sorbonne, and Oxford. • 1914 - moved to London • Since 1927 a British subject • worked as a teacher and a bank clerk • assistant editor of the Egoist (1917– 19) • edited his own quarterly, the Criterion (1922– 39). • 1948 he was awarded both the Order of Merit and the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Early poetical works Prufrock and Other Observations (1917), Poems (1920) The Waste Land (1922) express : §the anguish and barrenness of modern life §the isolation of the individual §the failure of love.

Eliot's masterpiece The Four Quartets o issued as a book in 1943, though each "quartet" is a complete poem. o The first of the quartets, "Burnt Norton, “ had appeared in the Collected Poems of 1936 – a meditation on the nature of time and its relation to eternity. o three more poems, "East Coker" (1940), "The Dry Salvages" (1941), and "Little Gidding" (1942) explored through images of great beauty and haunting power his own past, the past of the human race, and the meaning of human history o This work led to the award to Eliot of the Nobel Prize for Literature.

According to T. S. Eliot o fragmentary nature of the poetry with its lack of connection o o between sections, stanzas, lines, and sentences-unity and coherence must in many ways be supplied by the reader. juxtaposing crude and disgusting details of the present with the more wholesome images of the past. the poetry, like music, doesn't always require rational understanding; a poem can be apprehended emotionally if not comprehended intellectually poetry should be difficult and that great poetry need not be understood in every line and detail to be appreciated poetry should reflect the complexities and ambiquities of experience

Characteristic features of T. S. Eliot's poetry o The heavy use of allusion o borrowings from foreign languages o The structural mode of juxtapositon o mystical and paradoxical ideas about time, death, and spirituality o references to history, philosophy, and literature, especailly medieval and Renaissance drama, classical literature of Greece and Rome o highly imagistic o the poems often assume musical structures

Modernist novelists o. J, Joyce o. V. Woolf o. D. H. Lawrence o. J. Conrad o. E. M. Forster

V. Woolf (1882 -1941)

Virginia Woolf’s Life "Have you any notion how many books are written about women in the course of one year? Have you any notion how many are written by men? Are you aware that you are, perhaps, the most discussed animal in the universe? ” --- Virginia Woolf

Biography o Adeline Virginia Stephen born in London, o brought up and educated at home. o father - Leslie Stephen an eminent Victorian man of letters. o 1895 had the first of numerous nervous breakdowns. n n the death of her mother sexual abuse by Gerald Duckworth, her half-brother

o 1905: began writing professionally initially for the Times Literary Supplement. o In 1912 married Leonard Woolf, a civil servant and political theorist. o 1915: first novel, The Voyage Out, was published.

Suicide o WWII increased her anxiety and fears o In 1941 committed suicide, by drowning herself near her home in Rodmell. filled her pockets with stones and jumped into the Ouse River. n left a suicide note: ‘I have a feeling I shall go mad. I cannot go on longer in these terrible times. I shan't recover this time. I hear voices and cannot concentrate on my work. I have fought against it but cannot fight any longer. ’ n

oconsidered a leading modernist oone of the greatest innovators in the English language. n experimented with: pstream-of-consciousness, punderlying psychological /emotional motives of characters pfractured narrative and chronology.

Literary career Evolution of her style in her main novels • The Voyage Out (1915) • Night and Day (1917) Traditional narratives • Jacob’s room (1922) Narrative experimentation with the novel • Mrs. Dalloway (1925) “stream-of-consciousness technique” • To the Lighthouse (1927)

A feminist writer themes of androgyny, women and writing • Mrs. Dalloway (1925) • Orlando (1928) Deals with androgyny • A Room of One’s Own (1929) Describes Clarissa Dalloway and Sally Seton’s relationship as young women Shows Woolf’s concern with the questions of women’s subjugation and the relationship between women and writing

Stream of Consciousness Traditional narrative Reveal the action or plot through the mental processes of the character …. through the commentary of an omniscient author Character development is achieved through revelation of extremely personal and often typical thought process …through the creation of typical characters in typical environment

Stream of consciousness Traditional narrative The action of the plot moves back and forth through present time to memories of past events and dreams of the future. Dramatic monologue & free association … corresponds to real, chronological time. Narration, description, and commentary

o Main aim to give voice to the complex inner world of feeling and memory. o The human personality a continuous shift of impressions and emotions. o Narrator disappearance of the omniscient narrator. o Point of view shifted inside the characters’ minds through flashbacks, associations of ideas, momentary impressions presented as a continuous flux.

Woolf vs Joyce Woolf’s stream of consciousness never lets her characters’ thoughts flow without control, maintains logical and grammatical organisation Joyce’s stream of consciousness characters show their thoughts directly through interior monologue, sometimes in an incoherent and syntactically unorthodox way

Woolf vs Joyce Moments of being Epiphanies Rare moments of insight during the characters’ daily life when they can see reality behind appearances The sudden spiritual manifestation caused by a trivial gesture, an external object the character is led to a self-realization about himself/herself

Woolf’s Essays o The Common Reader (1925), o The Second Common Reader (1933), o The Death of the Moth and Other Essays (1942), o The Moment and Other Essays (1948). o A Room of One's Own (1929) feminist o Three Guineas (1938) tracts

James Joyce (1882 -1941) o Born into new Catholic middle class o Family’s decline o Jesuit education o Education in the City of Dublin o Vocation: from Priest to Poet

Love and Exile o Experiences Paris (1902 -03) o Meets Nora Barnacle (June 1904) o Leaves Ireland (October 1904) o The Continent: Trieste, Rome, Zurich, Paris

The most important features of Joyce’s works o The setting of most of his works Ireland, especially Dublin. o He rebelled against the Catholic Church. o All the facts explored from different points of view simultaneously.

Dubliners (1914) o 15 stories, written 1903 -4 (12), 1906 (2) and 1907 (“The Dead”) o “My intention was to write a chapter of the moral history of my country and I chose Dublin for the scene because that city seemed to me the center of paralysis (of the will). ”

Joyce on Dubliners o ‘I always write about Dublin, because if I can get to the heart of Dublin, I can get to the heart of all the cities of the world. In the particular is contained the universal’ o ‘I have tried to present it to the indifferent public under four of its aspects: childhood, adolescence, maturity and public life. The stories are arranged in this order. ’

James Joyce Dubliners: structure and style o The stories present human situations o They are arranged into 4 groups: The Sisters After the Race A Little Cloud An Encounter The Boarding House Clay Ivy Day in the Committee Room Counterparts A Mother A Painful Case Grace Araby Eveline Two Gallants Childhood Adolescence Mature life DUBLIN Paralysis / Escape Public life

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) o Highly autobiographical (but beware!) o A declaration of artistic independence o Highly modernist: stream-of- consciousness, confluence of naturalism and symbolism o Long composition: essay (“A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man” ~ 1904), early novel (Stephen Hero ~ 190406), finished novel (1907 -08, 1914)

Importance of A Portrait o THE Modernist bildungsroman (novel of education) and kunstlerroman (novel of the making of an artist) o Liberating style and themes o The anguish and exhilaration of gaining power over language o Develops through style as much as through plot

Ulysses (1922) o The great modernist epic o Mythic method: the past and the present o Extends Joyce’s experiments with style to the extreme: style becomes the plot o “With me, the thought is always simple” o “I have discovered that I can do anything with language I want”

Ulysses o Instead of the wanderings of Homer’s Ulysses/Odysses over the geographical world, Joyce shows the mental wanderings of a character in Dublin for the space of about 20 hours. o 1. Leopold Bloom (modern Ulysses), middle-aged Irish Jew, an “Everyman”, symbolic of universal human experience. o 2. Molly Bloom, Leopold’s unfaithful wife, represents the earthy forces of life and reproduction. o 3. Stephen Dedalus, a dedicated writer like Joyce.

Finnegans Wake (1939) o Composed from 1922 to 1939 o “Work in Progress” (only Nora knew the title) o An unclassifiable work: Dream? Scripture? Joke? Philosophy of language? Myth? o The Dream of Everyman and Everywoman, in Everylanguage

Death of Joyce o A war refugee: fled Paris, arrived in Switzerland o Illness of daughter Lucia o Despondent over reception of Finnegans Wake o Died on 13 January, 1941, 3 weeks after reaching Switzerland

D. H Lawrence (1995 -1930)

The young Lawrence o David Herbert Lawrence was born in 1885 in Eastwood, Nottinghamshire. o He was the fourth of five children of a miner and an educated mother.

Education o Educated in local schools and then attended Nottingham University College where he trained as a teacher. o Taught school in Croydon from 1908. o His first novel, The White Peacock, was published in 1911, shortly after th death of his mother to whom he’d been very close.

Struggles o Anti-German during the war o Censorship o Ill health—tuberculosis o The search for a “right place” o Travel included Sicily, Sri Lanka, Australia, New Mexico and Mexico, New Zealand, Tahiti, Italy, Australia, and France

Themes and Philosophy o Themes of: n n love, sex, and cultural decay Nietzschean idea of the superman and rebellion o novels and poetry explore: n n n social ills created by the Industrial Revolution role of sexuality in human relationships (Freudian and Jungian psychology). dialectic between man and woman p a relentless struggle for possession and dominance

Western Civilization o dissatisfaction with Western civilization n Industrialized too intellectual and dehumanized; n Promotes a new awareness of self and connection with Nature. p Balance between Blood and Mental consciousness; o modern – “We always want a ‘conclusion, ’ an end. ” o Primitive –having mythical and symbolic consciousness.

Novels o The Trespasser 1912 o The Rainbow 1920 o The Virgin and the Gypsy 1930 o Women in Love o Sons and Lovers o Lady Chatterley’s Lover o Kangaroo o The Plumed Serpent

Novels and Controversy o Several novels are banned by the censors: n n n The Rainbow Women in Love Lady Chatterley's Lover p Charged (but acquitted) with obscenity n n n Explicit sex scenes Using banned four-letter words Inappropriate relations between a working class male and an aristocratic female. p Not “fully” published in USA or UK until the 1960 s

Poems Mostly imagistic and in free verse about the individual inner nature of plants and animals. o “Fish” o “Snake” o “Mountain Lion” o “Bavarian Gentians” o Look! We Have Come Through (1917)

Short Stories o “The Prussian Officer” o “The Woman Who Rode Away” o “The Fox” o “The Rocking-Horse Winner” o “The Man Who Loved Islands” o “The Odour of Chrysanthemums”

Criticism and Essays Topics included § Travel writing § American literature § Psychoanalysis § The Unconscious § History and democracy

Last years o Leaves England begins traveling around the world: o For some time settled in Taos, New Mexico o 1930 dies in Vence, France of tuberculosis, at age 44.

Edward Morgan Forster o Born in 1879 in London o Father was an architect n Died before Edward was 2 o Raised by women - mother and aunts n n Used money from great aunt to travel and write later in life Died in 1970

Works o 1905 - Where Angels Fear to Tread o 1907 - The Longest Journey o 1908 - A Room with a View o 1910 - Howard’s End Clash between business and art o 1924 - A Passage to India (the last completed novel published during his lifetime). n o 1971 - Maurice n Homosexual theme

Key themes in Forster’s novels Criticism of Victorian middle class attitudes and British colonialism The pursuit of personal connections in spite of the restrictions of contemporary society The irreconcilability of class differences Sexuality: a general shift from heterosexual love to homosexual love over the course of his writing career (the posthumously published novel Maurice and the short-story collection The Life to Come)