a presentation about modernism. lasting up to nowadays

1. Modernism

2. What is Modernism?
Modernism is an artistic and cultural movement
that flourished in the first decades of the 20th.
century, about the time of WWI.
Modernism is a cultural trend. It is the movement in
visual arts, music, literature and drama which rejected
the old Victorian standards of how art should be made.
Modernism was developed in the first three decades of
the 20th century. It was developed in Europe,
expecially in the Great Britain.

3. Modernism was very important in Europe
because it “founded” Postmodernist movement,
which developed in the second half of the 20th
century.

4.  Brief introduction of the modern period
 In the second half of the 19th century and the early
decades of the 20th century, both natural and social
sciences in Europe had advanced.
 Their rapid development led to great gains in material
wealth. But when capitalism came into its monopoly
stage, the sharpened contradictions between socialized
production and the private ownership caused frequent
economic depressions and mass unemployment.
 The gap between the rich and the poor was further
deepened. Then the First World War brought
tremendous catastrophe with it .

5. Characteristics of Modernism
Modernist writers believed that the traditional
social, religious, and political order had broken
down.
Economically, the World War marked the last
stage of the disintegration of the British Empire.
Britain suffered heavy losses in the war: thousands
of people were killed; the economy was ruined; and
almost all its former colonies were lost. People had
economic and cultural problems.

6. The writers did not believe in bourgeois values.
They disturbed their readers by adopting
complex and difficult new forms and styles.
Ideologically, The rise of the irrational
philosophy and new science greatly incited modern
writers to make new explorations on human
natures and human relationships.

7. A number of theories which were influential for
modernism were elaborated, such as Einstein’s
treatise on relativity(1905), Max Planck’s on
Quantum Theory(1900), Freud’s theory ( The
Interpretation of Dream, 1900), and Darwin’s
theory of evolution and heredity.
Modernism was built on a sense of lost
community and civilization.
It included contradictions and paradoxes.
After the First World War, all kinds of literary
trends of modernism appeared: symbolism,
expressionism, surrealism, futurism, and imagism.

8. The loss of a sense of tradition was a common
theme to modernist writers. They saw it as a means
of liberation from the limitations of past artistic
traditions.
The increasing dominance of technology was
another prevalent Modernist preoccupation.
Modernism in Literature
In novel, the first three decades of 20th century
were golden years of the modernist novel.
Modernist novelists reexamined the techniques of
fiction writing.

9. Some of the novelists used the technique of the
stream of Consciousness, multiple point of views,
and the inner monologue to reveal the inner lives of
the characters and to criticize the social system of
the day. The writers also used the Third-Person
Narrator Voice.
The major themes of the modernist writers were
the distorted, alienated and ill relationships
between man and nature, man and society, man
and man, and man and himself.

10. Political corruption, immorality, woman’s
psychological and sexual development were also
main themes in modern fiction.
racism, slavery, and civil war were main themes
in American fictions.
Socialist- feminist theories were common themes
for feminist writers.
In novel of manners, novelists explored realistic
characters and scenes and described the customs
of a particular social class.

11. In poetry, poets rejected traditional meters,
and made use of free verse. They made, in
some sense, a revolution against the
conventional ideas and forms of the Victorian
poetry.
They mixed colloquial language with
elegant phrases and quotations from earlier
poems, and brought about collages of
fragmentary images and complex allusions
instead of expressing logical thoughts.

12. Modernist poets placed contradictory feelings
and events side by side to portray the
disconnectedness of modern life and challenge the
reader to re-established coherent meaning from
fragmentary forms.
Modernist poets viewed the work of art more as
an aesthetic object than as a representation of
reality.
Modernist poems reflected the complexity and
pessimistic reflection of modern life.
In drama, writers wrote about the criminals,
homeless, alcoholics , and workers. These
characters spoke harsh, slangly, but lively

13. Lack of meaning, incoherence of character and
lack of plot were main features of modern works.
Subjectivity, individual freedom, choice,
materialism, existentialism, Pessimism and
absurdity of life were common themes in modern
plays.
The continuation of the traditional Comedy of
Manners was another feature of modern drama.
Dramatic monologue where the protagonist
spoke with his consciousness about his inner
problems was also a feature of modern drama.

14. T.S.Eliot
E.Pound
W.B.Yeats

15. James Joyce
Virginia Woolf

16.  George Bernard Shaw