MODERNISM
The origin of modernism, considered as an art and a philosophical movement is traced in North America and Europe in the late
nineteenth-century and early twenties. There comes contradiction about the
exact figures related to the beginning of modernism, yet it is generally
accepted that the commencement of modern age is viewed in the 1880s or 1900.
According to Virginia Woolf, the debatable point reaches the result that
“human nature underwent a change in December 1910. It is between 1910 and 1930
that modernism became influential.
Literary modernism is
classified and identified as the break from traditional ways and means of
writing, in prose as well as poetic fiction. In the modern age, modernists; both
writers and poets applied their experimentation on literary form, which can be
interpreted as a revolution, that breaks the previously existing boundaries and
standards, “to make it new” as is expressed by Ezra Pound. Major figures
of literary modernism are T.S. Eliot, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Ezra
Pound, Marcel Proust, Franz Kafka, Andre Gide, and Stephan Mallarme.
Modernism as a movement was driven by the spirit to overthrow and
overturn the traditional styles, modes and ways of presentation and
representation and present the novel sensibilities, notions, and trends of that
time. The havocs and horrors of world war prevailing the lives of people can be
seen emerging as the perpetual theme covering the surface and implicit matter
of produced works in the modern age, triggering off the pessimism and
unreliability. Modernism brings to the fore new literary form that most often
appears to be formless.
The factors that contribute to a great extent in shaping modernism
are fast growth of cities, industrial societies and painful reactions to the
dreads of war. It consists of productions, creations and manifestations of
the artists, poets, and writers who took old and traditional norms of
literature, art, architecture, religion, science, and philosophy mandatory to be
eliminated rather than revising them in the light of contemporary trends and
techniques, considering them ill-fitted for advanced age.
In providing a shape to modernism the theories of major figures
like Freud, Nietzsche, Marx and Darwin, the early nineteenth century thinkers,
were the profound incentives. The early modernists, adopted and incorporated
the ideas provided in their theories.
Karl Marx’s views
exploited and explored the denigrations of poor in the cruel hands of the rich. He
proposed that this Poverty cannot be accounted for as the consequences of fate but
it is the direct and dreadful result of the capitalist system whose hold leads to
the exploitation of the poor.
Darwin’s theory is ranked as introducing unusual ideas about humans evolution. It can be termed as the scientific Revolution appearing to
shake the religious certainty. It provoked the commencement of unending and
far-reaching science and religious conflict.
Freud’s suggestion of underlying “subconscious urges” proved
to be the realm that modern writers and artists portrayed and picturized.
Nietzsche brought to the fore the conflict of culture and man’s
nature. He talks about animalistic instincts within man that according to his
views should be accepted and regarded by society. The culture, and its exposed
and imposed values become meaningless for him as they are the main burden that
suppresses and deny man’s nature. Life for him is “devoid of any meaning”.
Developments in the nineteenth century, cumulating industrial
revolution, discoveries in science, geology, urbanization, theories of
evolution, Nietzsche’s notions, and Freud’s concepts all shaped modern
works. The result that came on the surface was confusion, meaninglessness, complexity, and pessimism. Therefore, Fredric Jameson in his words defines modernity as
“catastrophe”, a way to nihilism.
It nudged the innovations in novel literary techniques that add up
to the development of a stream of consciousness, multiple points of views and
interior monologues.
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