Modernism
Modernism
Modernism
What is Modernism?
Romance In medieval literature, a verse narrative recounts the marvellous adventures of a chivalric hero. In modern literature (from the later 18th through 19th centuries) a romance is a work of prose fiction in which the scenes and incidents are more or less removed from common life and are surrounded by a halo of mystery, an atmosphere of strangeness and adventure.
Realism A mode of writing that gives the impression of recording or reflecting faithfully an actual way of life. The term refers, sometimes confusingly, both to a literary method based on detailed accuracy of description (verisimilitude) and to a more general attitude that rejects idealization, escapism, and other extravagant qualities of romance in favour of recognizing soberly the actual problems of life.
We can dispute when it starts (French symbolism, decadence, the break-up of naturalism) and whether it has ended (Kermode distinguishes paleo-modernism and neo-modernism and hence and degree of continuity to post-war art). We can regard it as a timebound concept (say 1890 to 1930) or a timeless one (including Sterne, Donne, Villon, Ronsard).
The best focus remains a body of major writers (James, Conrad, Proust, Mann, Gide, Kafka, Svevo, Joyce, Musil, Faulkner in fiction; Strindberg, Pirandello, Wedekind, Brecht in drama; Mallarm, Yeats, Eliot, Pound, Rilke, Apollinaire, Stevens in poetry) whose works are aesthetically radical, contain striking technical innovation, emphasize spatial or fugal as opposed to chronological form, tend towards ironic modes, and involve a certain dehumanization of art.
Modernism In Art
Avant-garde Impressionism 1870s and 1880s (Monet, Renoir, Degas) Expressionism 1900s (Munch, Kandinsky) Futurism, Cubism, and Dada 1900 1920 and Beyond Surrealism (Dali) 1920s Abstract Expressionism (Pollock) 1940s
T.S. Eliot
Born September 26 1888 St. Louis MO USA Died January 4 1965 London UK Father businessman, Mother a poet and social worker he was the last of six children Limited by physical disability he delved into literature
Educated in St. Louis and in Massachusetts he moved on to Harvard to study Philosophy, getting a BA in 1909 Worked as an assistant at Harvard for a year before moving to Paris to study Philosophy at the Sorbonne 1911-1914 when he moved to Oxford instead of Germany due to the outbreak of WWI (he did not serve) He hated the town of Oxford and spent much time in London where he met Ezra Pound he completed his Ph.D. in 1916 but did not defend.
Married Vivienne Haigh-Wood in 1915 moving to London where he taught both in University and High School he also took a job in a bank, writing book reviews on the side. In 1925 he became an editor at Faber and Faber. He became a British Subject in 1927 While he was working some of his poetry was published but he also became and accomplished Literary Critic
Eliots Poetry
Love Song of Alfred J. Prufrock (1915) The Waste Land (1922) The Hollow Men (1925) Four Quartets (1943) led to his winning Nobel Prize Eliot was not a prolific writer, unlike others we have discussed, he struggled to make the poetry he did write have the most profound impact on those who read it.