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Modernist literature originated in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and is characterised by a self-conscious separation from traditional ways of writing in both poetry and prose fiction writing.Modernism experimented with literary form and expression, as exemplified byEzra Pound's maxim to "Make it new".[1] This literary movement was driven by a conscious desire to overturn traditional modes of representation and express the new sensibilities of the time.[2] The immense human costs of theFirst World War saw the prevailing assumptions about society reassessed,[3] and much modernist writing engages with the technological advances and societal changes of modernity moving into the 20th century. InModernist Literature, Mary Ann Gillies notes that these literary themes share the "centrality of a conscious break with the past", one that "emerges as a complex response across continents and disciplines to a changing world".[4]
Literary modernism is often summed up in a line fromW. B. Yeats: "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold" (in 'The Second Coming').[5] Modernists often search for ametaphysical 'centre' but experience its collapse.[6] (Postmodernism, by way of contrast, celebrates that collapse, exposing the failure of metaphysics, such asJacques Derrida'sdeconstruction of metaphysical claims.)[6]
Philosophically, the collapse of metaphysics can be traced back to the Scottish philosopherDavid Hume (1711–1776), who argued that we never actually perceive one event causing another. We only experience the 'constant conjunction' of events, and do not perceive a metaphysical 'cause'. Similarly, Hume argued that we never know the self as object, only the self as subject, and we are thus blind to our true natures.[7] Moreover, if we only 'know' through sensory experience—such as sight, touch and feeling—then we cannot 'know' and neither can we make metaphysical claims.
Thus, modernism can be driven emotionally by the desire for metaphysical truths, while understanding their impossibility. Some modernist novels, for instance, feature characters likeMarlow inHeart of Darkness orNick Carraway inThe Great Gatsby who believe that they have encountered some great truth about nature or character, truths that the novels themselves treat ironically while offering more mundane explanations.[8] Similarly, many poems ofWallace Stevens convey a struggle with the sense of nature's significance, falling under two headings: poems in which the speaker denies that nature has meaning, only for nature to loom up by the end of the poem; and poems in which the speaker claims nature has meaning, only for that meaning to collapse by the end of the poem.
Modernism often rejects nineteenth centuryrealism,if the latter is understood as focusing on the embodiment of meaning within a naturalistic representation. At the same time, some modernists aim at a more 'real' realism, one that is uncentered. Picasso's proto-cubist painting, 'The Poet' of 1911 is decentred, presenting the body from multiple points of view. As thePeggy Guggenheim Collection website puts it, 'Picasso presents multiple views of each object, as if he had moved around it, and synthesizes them into a single compound image'.[9] This avoids the limitations of a single, privileged viewer, and points towards a more objective realism. Similarly, it has been argued that Wallace Stevens's realism
"serves a truth that is revealing—not the truth that prevails. It also is a “realism” that recognizes multiple perspectives, multiple truths. Perhaps the snow is not just white; it is also turning black, attuned to the menacing storm in the sky—or it is perhaps purple, surrounding a man with a monarch’s boundless ego."[10]
Modernism, with its sense that 'things fall apart,' can be seen as theapotheosis ofromanticism, if romanticism is the (often frustrated) quest for metaphysical truths about character, nature, ahigher power and meaning in the world.[11] Modernism often yearns for a romantic or metaphysical centre, but later finds its collapse.
This distinction between modernism and romanticism extends to their respective treatments of 'symbol'. The romantics at times see an essential relation (the 'ground') between the symbol (or the 'vehicle', inI.A. Richards's terms)[12] and its 'tenor' (its meaning)—for example in Coleridge's description of nature as 'that eternal language which thy God / Utters'.[13] But while some romantics may have perceived nature and its symbols as God's language, for other romantic theorists it remains inscrutable. AsGoethe (not himself a romantic) said, ‘the idea [or meaning] remains eternally and infinitely active and inaccessible in the image’.[14] This was extended in modernist theory which, drawing on itssymbolist precursors, often emphasizes the inscrutability and failure of symbol and metaphor. For example, Wallace Stevens seeks and fails to find meaning in nature, even if he at times seems to sense such a meaning. As such, symbolists and modernists at times adopt amystical approach to suggest a non-rational sense of meaning.[15]
For these reasons, modernist metaphors may be unnatural, as for instance in T.S. Eliot's description of an evening 'spread out against the sky / Like a patient etherized upon a table'.[16]
In the 1880s, increased attention was given to the idea that it was necessary to push aside previous norms entirely, instead of merely revising past knowledge in light of contemporary techniques. The theories ofSigmund Freud (1856–1939) andErnst Mach (1838–1916) influenced early Modernist literature. Ernst Mach argued that the mind had a fundamental structure, and that subjective experience was based on the interplay of parts of the mind inThe Science of Mechanics (1883). Freud's first major work wasStudies on Hysteria (withJosef Breuer; 1895). According to Freud, all subjective reality was based on the play of basic drives and instincts, through which the outside world was perceived. As a philosopher of science, Ernst Mach was a major influence onlogical positivism, and through his criticism ofIsaac Newton, a forerunner ofAlbert Einstein'stheory of relativity.
Many prior theories aboutepistemology argued that external and absolute reality could impress itself, as it were, on an individual—for example,John Locke's (1632–1704)empiricism, which saw the mind beginning as atabula rasa, a blank slate (An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, 1690). Freud's description of subjective states, involving an unconscious mind full of primal impulses and counterbalancing self-imposed restrictions, was combined byCarl Jung (1875–1961) with the idea of thecollective unconscious, which the conscious mind either fought or embraced. WhileCharles Darwin's work remade theAristotelian concept of "man, the animal" in the public mind, Jung suggested that human impulses toward breaking social norms were not the product of childishness or ignorance, but rather derived from the essential nature of the human animal.[citation needed]
Another major precursor of modernism wasFriedrich Nietzsche,[17] especially his idea that psychological drives, specifically the "will to power", were more important than facts, or things.Henri Bergson (1859–1941), on the other hand, emphasised the difference between scientific clock time and the direct, subjective, human experience of time.[18] His work on time and consciousness "had a great influence on twentieth-century novelists," especially those modernists who used thestream of consciousness technique, such asDorothy Richardson for the bookPointed Roofs (1915),James Joyce forUlysses (1922) andVirginia Woolf (1882–1941) forMrs Dalloway (1925) andTo the Lighthouse (1927).[19] Also important in Bergson's philosophy was the idea ofélan vital, the life force, which "brings about the creative evolution of everything".[20] His philosophy also placed a high value on intuition, though without rejecting the importance of the intellect.[20] These various thinkers were united by a distrust of Victorian positivism and certainty.[citation needed] Modernism as a literary movement can also be seen as a reaction to industrialisation, urbanisation and new technologies.
Important literary precursors of modernism wereFyodor Dostoyevsky (1821–1881) (Crime and Punishment (1866),The Brothers Karamazov (1880));Walt Whitman (1819–1892) (Leaves of Grass) (1855–1891);Gustave Flaubert (1821–1880) (Madame Bovary (1856–1857),Sentimental Education (1869),The Temptation of Saint Anthony (1874),Three Tales (1877),Bouvard et Pécuchet (1881));Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867) (Les Fleurs du mal),Rimbaud (1854–1891) (Illuminations, 1874);Knut Hamsun (1859–1952) (Hunger, 1890);August Strindberg (1849–1912), especially his later plays, including the trilogyTo Damascus 1898–1901,A Dream Play (1902), andThe Ghost Sonata (1907).
Initially, some modernists fostered a utopian spirit, stimulated byinnovations in anthropology,psychology,philosophy,political theory,physics andpsychoanalysis. The poets of theImagist movement, founded byEzra Pound in 1912 as a new poetic style, gave modernism its early start in the 20th century,[22] and were characterized by a poetry that favoured a precision ofimagery, brevity andfree verse.[22] This idealism, however, ended with the outbreak ofWorld War I, and writers created more cynical works that reflected a prevailing sense of disillusionment. Many modernist writers also shared a mistrust of institutions of power such as government and religion, and rejected the notion of absolute truths.
Modernist works such asT. S. Eliot'sThe Waste Land (1922) were increasingly self-aware, introspective, and explored the darker aspects of human nature.[23]
The term modernism covers a number of related, and overlapping, artistic and literary movements, includingImagism,Symbolism,Futurism,Vorticism,Cubism,Surrealism,Expressionism, andDada.
Early modernist writers, especially those writing after World War I and the disillusionment that followed, broke the implicit contract with the general public that artists were the reliable interpreters and representatives of mainstream ("bourgeois") culture and ideas, and, instead, developedunreliable narrators, exposing the irrationality at the roots of a supposedly rational world.[24]
They also attempted to address the changing ideas about reality developed byCharles Darwin,Ernst Mach,Freud,Albert Einstein,Nietzsche,Bergson and others. From this developed innovative literary techniques such as stream-of-consciousness,interior monologue, as well as the use of multiple points-of-view. This can reflect doubts about the philosophical basis ofrealism, or alternatively an expansion of our understanding of what is meant by realism. For example, the use ofstream-of-consciousness or interior monologue reflects the need for greater psychological realism.
It is debatable when the modernist literary movement began, though some have chosen 1910 as roughly marking the beginning and quote novelistVirginia Woolf, who declared that human nature underwent a fundamental change "on or about December 1910".[25] But modernism was already stirring by 1902, with works such asJoseph Conrad's (1857–1924)Heart of Darkness, whileAlfred Jarry's (1873–1907)absurdist playUbu Roi appeared even earlier, in 1896.
Among early modernist non-literary landmarks is theatonal ending ofArnold Schoenberg'sSecond String Quartet in 1908, theExpressionist paintings ofWassily Kandinsky starting in 1903 and culminating with his first abstract painting and the founding of theExpressionistBlue Rider group inMunich in 1911, the rise offauvism, and the introduction ofcubism from the studios ofHenri Matisse,Pablo Picasso,Georges Braque and others between 1900 and 1910.
Sherwood Anderson'sWinesburg, Ohio (1919) is known as an early work of modernism for its plain-spoken prose style and emphasis on psychological insight into characters.
James Joyce was a major modernist writer whose strategies employed in his novelUlysses (1922) for depicting the events during a twenty-four-hour period in the life of his protagonist,Leopold Bloom, have come to epitomize modernism's approach to fiction. The poet T. S. Eliot described these qualities in 1923, noting that Joyce's technique is "a way of controlling, of ordering, of giving a shape and a significance to the immense panorama of futility and anarchy which is contemporary history.... Instead of narrative method, we may now use the mythical method. It is, I seriously believe, a step toward making the modern world possible for art."[26] Eliot's own modernist poemThe Waste Land (1922) mirrors "the futility and anarchy" in its own way, in its fragmented structure, and the absence of an obvious central, unifying narrative. This is in fact a rhetorical technique to convey the poem's theme: "The decay and fragmentation of Western Culture".[27] The poem, despite the absence of a linear narrative, does have a structure: this is provided by both fertility symbolism derived from anthropology, and other elements such as the use of quotations and juxtaposition.[27]
InItalian literature, the generation of poets represented byEugenio Montale (with hisOssi di seppia),Giuseppe Ungaretti (with hisAllegria di naufragi), andUmberto Saba (with hisCanzoniere) embodies modernism. This new generation broke with the tradition ofGiosuè Carducci,Giovanni Pascoli, andGabriele D'Annunzio in terms of style, language and tone. They were aware of the crisis deriving from the decline of the traditional role of the poet as foreseer, teacher, prophet. In a world that has absorbedFriedrich Nietzsche's lesson, these poets want to renew literature according to the new cultural world of the 20th century. For example, Montale usesepiphany to reconstruct meaning, while Saba incorporates Freudian concepts ofpsychoanalysis.[28]
Modernist literature addressed similar aesthetic problems as contemporary modernist art.[29]Gertrude Stein's abstract writings, such asTender Buttons (1914), for example, have been compared to the fragmentary and multi-perspectiveCubist paintings of her friendPablo Picasso.[30] The questioning spirit of modernism, as part of a necessary search for ways to make sense of a broken world, can also be seen in a different form in the Scottish poetHugh MacDiarmid'sA Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle (1928). In this poem, MacDiarmid applies Eliot's techniques to respond to the question of nationalism, using comedic parody, in an optimistic (though no less hopeless) form of modernism in which the artist as "hero" seeks to embrace complexity and locate new meanings.[citation needed]
Regarding technique, modernist works sought to obfuscate the boundaries between genres. Thus, prose works tended to be poetical and poetry prose-like. T. S. Eliot's poetry sacrified lyrical grace for the sake of fragmented narrative while Virginia Woolf's novels (such asMrs Dalloway andThe Waves) have been described as poetical.
Other early modernist writers and selected works include:
Significant modernist works continued to be created in the 1920s and 1930s, including further novels byMarcel Proust,Virginia Woolf,Robert Musil (The Man Without Qualities), andDorothy Richardson. TheAmerican modernist dramatistEugene O'Neill's career began in 1914, but his major works appeared in the 1920s and 1930s and early 1940s. Two other significant modernist dramatists writing in the 1920s and 1930s wereBertolt Brecht andFederico García Lorca.D. H. Lawrence'sLady Chatterley's Lover was published in 1928, while another important landmark for the history of the modern novel came with the publication ofWilliam Faulkner'sThe Sound and the Fury in 1929. The 1920s would prove to be watershed years in modernist poetry. In this period,T. S. Eliot published some of his most notable poetic works, includingThe Waste Land,The Hollow Men, andAsh Wednesday.
In the 1930s, in addition to further major works by William Faulkner (As I Lay Dying,Light in August),Samuel Beckett published his first major work, the novelMurphy (1938), while in 1932John Cowper Powys publishedA Glastonbury Romance, the same year asHermann Broch'sThe Sleepwalkers. In 1935E. du Perron published hisCountry of Origin, the seminal work ofDutch modernist prose.Djuna Barnes published her novelNightwood in 1936, the same year asMiroslav Krleža'sBallads of Petrica Kerempuh. Then in 1939James Joyce'sFinnegans Wake appeared. It was in this year that another Irish modernist,W. B. Yeats, died. In poetry,E. E. Cummings, andWallace Stevens continued writing into the 1950s. It was in this period whenT. S. Eliot began writing what would become his final major poetic work,Four Quartets. Eliot shifted focus in this period, writing several plays, includingMurder in the Cathedral.
Whilemodernist poetry in English is often viewed as an American phenomenon, with leading exponents includingEzra Pound,Hart Crane,Marianne Moore,William Carlos Williams,H.D., andLouis Zukofsky, there were important British modernist poets, including T. S. Eliot,David Jones,Hugh MacDiarmid,Basil Bunting, andW. H. Auden. European modernist poets includeFederico García Lorca,Fernando Pessoa,Anna Akhmatova,Constantine Cavafy, andPaul Valéry.
ThoughThe Oxford Encyclopedia of British Literature sees Modernism ending byc. 1939,[31] with regard to British and American literature, "When (if) Modernism petered out andpostmodernism began has been contested almost as hotly as when the transition from Victorianism to Modernism occurred".[32] Clement Greenberg sees Modernism ending in the 1930s, with the exception of the visual and performing arts.[33] In fact, many literary modernists lived into the 1950s and 1960s, though generally speaking they were no longer producing major works.[citation needed]
The termlate modernism is sometimes applied to modernist works published after 1930.[31][34] Among modernists (or late modernists) still publishing after 1945 wereWallace Stevens,Gottfried Benn,T. S. Eliot,Anna Akhmatova,William Faulkner,Dorothy Richardson,John Cowper Powys, andEzra Pound.Basil Bunting, born in 1901, published his most important modernist poemBriggflatts in 1965. In additionHermann Broch'sThe Death of Virgil was published in 1945 andThomas Mann'sDoctor Faustus in 1947 (early works byThomas Mann,The Magic Mountain (1924), andDeath in Venice (1912) are sometimes considered modernist).Samuel Beckett, who died in 1989, has been described as a "later modernist".[35] Beckett is a writer with roots in theexpressionist tradition of modernism, who produced works from the 1930s until the 1980s, includingMolloy (1951),En attendant Godot (1953),Happy Days (1961) andRockaby (1981). The termsminimalist andpost-modernist have also been applied to his later works.[36] The poetsCharles Olson (1910–1970) andJ. H. Prynne (b. 1936) have been described as late modernists.[37]
More recently the term late modernism has been redefined by at least one critic and used to refer to works written after 1945, rather than 1930. With this usage goes the idea that the ideology of modernism was significantly re-shaped by the events ofWorld War II, especially theHolocaust and the dropping of the atom bomb.[37] Taking this further, instead of attempting to impose some arbitrary 'end-date' on modernism, one may acknowledge the many writers after 1945 who resist easy inclusion into the category 'postmodern' and yet, heavily influenced by (say) American and/or European modernism, continued to manifest significant neo-modernist works, for instanceRoy Fisher,Mario Petrucci andJorge Amado. Another example of post-1945 modernism, then, would be the first modernist work ofReunionnais literature entitledSortilèges créoles: Eudora ou l'île enchantée (fr), published 1952 byMarguerite-Hélène Mahé.[38][39]
The termTheatre of the Absurd is applied to plays written by primarily European playwrights, that express the belief that human existence has no meaning or purpose and therefore all communication breaks down. Logical construction and argument gives way to irrational and illogical speech and to its ultimate conclusion, silence.[40] While there are significant precursors, includingAlfred Jarry (1873–1907), the Theatre of the Absurd is generally seen as beginning in the 1950s with the plays ofSamuel Beckett.
CriticMartin Esslin coined the term in his 1960 essay, "Theatre of the Absurd." He related these plays based on a broad theme of the Absurd, similar to the wayAlbert Camus uses the term in his 1942 essay, "The Myth of Sisyphus".[41] The Absurd in these plays takes the form of man's reaction to a world apparently without meaning, and/or man as a puppet controlled or menaced by invisible outside forces. Though the term is applied to a wide range of plays, some characteristics coincide in many of the plays: broad comedy, often similar toVaudeville, mixed with horrific or tragic images; characters caught in hopeless situations forced to do repetitive or meaningless actions; dialogue full of clichés, wordplay, and nonsense; plots that are cyclical or absurdly expansive; either a parody or dismissal of realism and the concept of the "well-made play".
Playwrights commonly associated with the Theatre of the Absurd includeSamuel Beckett (1906–1989),Eugène Ionesco (1909–1994),Jean Genet (1910–1986),Harold Pinter (1930–2008),Tom Stoppard (b. 1937),Alexander Vvedensky (1904–1941),Daniil Kharms (1905–1942),Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921–1990),Alejandro Jodorowsky (b. 1929),Fernando Arrabal (b. 1932),Václav Havel (1936–2011) andEdward Albee (1928–2016).
