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    Modernism in Literature: Taha Yasin

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    jasmeet gill
    This document provides an overview of modernism in literature. It defines modernism as an international movement that flourished in the early 20th century reflecting a sense of cultural crisis through experimentation with literary form. Some key features discussed include the rejection of realism and romanticism, a belief in science and technology, and manipulation of form. Modernist works are characterized by a fragmented narrative style, stream of consciousness technique, and exploration of the unconscious mind. The document also profiles some influential modernist authors and thinkers like Einstein, Freud, Yeats, Pound, Eliot, Joyce, and Woolf.

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    Modernism in Literature: Taha Yasin

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    jasmeet gill
    264 views20 pages
    This document provides an overview of modernism in literature. It defines modernism as an international movement that flourished in the early 20th century reflecting a sense of cultural crisis through experimentation with literary form. Some key features discussed include the rejection of realism and romanticism, a belief in science and technology, and manipulation of form. Modernist works are characterized by a fragmented narrative style, stream of consciousness technique, and exploration of the unconscious mind. The document also profiles some influential modernist authors and thinkers like Einstein, Freud, Yeats, Pound, Eliot, Joyce, and Woolf.

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    MODERNISM

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    This document provides an overview of modernism in literature. It defines modernism as an international movement that flourished in the early 20th century reflecting a sense of cultural crisis through experimentation with literary form. Some key features discussed include the rejection of realism and romanticism, a belief in science and technology, and manipulation of form. Modernist works are characterized by a fragmented narrative style, stream of consciousness technique, and exploration of the unconscious mind. The document also profiles some influential modernist authors and thinkers like Einstein, Freud, Yeats, Pound, Eliot, Joyce, and Woolf.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    Download as pdf or txt
    264 views20 pages

    Modernism in Literature: Taha Yasin

    Uploaded by

    jasmeet gill
    This document provides an overview of modernism in literature. It defines modernism as an international movement that flourished in the early 20th century reflecting a sense of cultural crisis through experimentation with literary form. Some key features discussed include the rejection of realism and romanticism, a belief in science and technology, and manipulation of form. Modernist works are characterized by a fragmented narrative style, stream of consciousness technique, and exploration of the unconscious mind. The document also profiles some influential modernist authors and thinkers like Einstein, Freud, Yeats, Pound, Eliot, Joyce, and Woolf.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    of 20

    Modernism in literature

    TAHA YASIN
    ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
    RAM LAL ANAND COLLEGE, DU
     Define the word “modern” in your own
    words
    Definition

    Modernism is a literary and cultural


    international movement which flourished in the
    first four decades of the 20th century. It reflects
    a sense of cultural crisis which was both
    exciting and disquieting, in that it opened up
    a whole new vista of human possibilities
    at the same time as putting into question any
    previously accepted means of grounding and
    evaluating new ideas. Modernism is marked by
    experimentation, particularly manipulation
    of form, and by the realization that knowledge
    is not absolute.
    Definition
     Modernism
     a term typically associated with the twentieth-century
    reaction against realism and romanticism within the arts.
    More generally, it is often used to refer to a twentieth-
    century belief in the virtues of science, technology and the
    planned management of social change.
     Modernity
     refers to a period extending from the late sixteenth and
    early seventeenth centuries (in the case of Europe) to
    the mid to late twentieth century characterized by the
    growth and strengthening of a specific set of social
    practices and ways of doing things. It is often associated
    with capitalism and notions such as progress.
    A few dates
     1909  1912-17
     First “Manifesto” of
    Italian Futurism  Imagism

     1910  Tradition and


     Death of Edward VII individual Talent by
     Post-impressionist
    TS Eliot
    exhibition in London
     1913  1922
     Russian Cubo-futurism  Ts. Eliot’s The
     English Verticism Waste Land
    1916-20

     J. Joyce’s Ulysses
     Dada
     Death of M.Proust
    Modernism as a movement
    Modernism as a movement can be recognized not only
    in literature but also in
     The sciences

     Philosophy

     Psychology

     Anthropology

     Painting

     Music

     Sculpture

     Architecture
    General Features
    Modernism was built on a sense of lost community and
    civilization and was made up of a series of contradictions ,
    embraced multiple features of modern sensibility
     Revolution and conservatism
     Loss of a sense of tradition
     Increasing dominance of technology
    Thematic features
     Intentional distortion of shapes
     Focus on form rather than meaning
     Breakdown of social norms and cultural values
     Dislocation of meaning and sense from its normal context
     Disillusionment
     Rejection of history and the substitution of a mythical past
     Need to reflect the complexity of modern urban life
     Importance of the unconscious mind
     Interest in the primitive and non-western cultures
     Impossibility of an absolute interpretation of reality
     Overwhelming technological changes
    Modernists:
     challenged the idea that God played an active role in the world,
    which led them to challenge the Victorian assumption that there
    was meaning and purpose behind world events.
     Instead, Modernists argued that no thing or person was born for
    a specific use; instead, they found or made their own meaning
    in the world.
     Challenging the Victorian dichotomy between "civilized" and
    "savage," Modernists reversed the values associated with each
    kind of culture.
     Modernists presented the Victorian "civilized" as greedy and
    warmongering (instead of being industrialized nations and
    cash-based economies), as hypocrites (rather than Christians),
    and as enemies of freedom and self-realization (instead of
    good patriarchs).
    Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

    The Theory of General Relativity


     A metric theory of gravitation
     Einstein's equations link the geometry of a four-dimensional space-
    time with the energy-momentum contained in that space-time
     Phenomena ascribed to the action of the force of gravity in classical
    mechanics, correspond to inertial motion within a curved geometry of
    spacetime
     The curvature is caused by the energy-momentum of matter
     Space-time tells matter how to move
     Matter tells space-time how to curve.
    Sigmund Freud (1856-1938)

    Austrian psychologist and psychotherapist


     Discovered a new method to investigate
    the mind through analysis of dreams and free associations
     Known for his theories of the unconscious mind and the defense
    mechanism of repression
     Renowned for his redefinition of sexual desire as the primary
    motivational energy of human life directed toward a wide
    variety of objects
     Famous for his therapeutic techniques, including
     theory of transference in the therapeutic relationship
     value of dreams as sources of insight into unconscious desires
    Formal features of poetry
     Open form
     Use of free verse
     Juxtaposition of ideas rather than consequential
    exposition
     Intertextuality
     Use of allusions and multiple association of words
     Borrowings from other cultures and languages
     Unconventional use of metaphor
     Importance given to sound to convey “the music of
    ideas”
    Free verse
     Use of poetic line
     Flexibility of line length
     Massive use of alliteration
    and assonance
     No use of traditional
    metre
     No regular rhyme scheme
     Use of visual images in
    distinct lines
    Modernist poets
     W.B. Yeats
     Ezra Pound
     T.S. Eliot
     Emily Dickinson
    Modernist novelists
     J, Joyce  F. Scott Fitzgerald
     V. Woolf
     D.H. Lawrence
     J. Conrad
     E.M. Forster
     E. Hemingway
     W. Faulkner
     K.Mansfield
    Literary Characteristics:
     "a general term applied retrospectively to the wide range of
    experimental & avant-garde trends in the literature (and other arts) of
    the early 20th century....

     characterized chiefly by a rejection of 19th century traditions and of


    their consensus between author and reader: realism ... or traditional
    meter.
     Modernist writers tended to see themselves as an avant-garde,
    disengaged from bourgeois values, and disturbed their readers by
    adopting complex and difficult new forms and styles.

     Modernist writing is predominantly cosmopolitan, and often expresses


    a sense of urban cultural dislocation, along with an awareness of new
    anthropological and psychological theories. Its favored techniques of
    juxtaposition and multiple point of view challenge the reader to re-
    establish a coherence of meaning from fragmentary forms."
    Formal features of narrative
     Experimental nature
     Lack of traditional chronological narrative
    (discontinuous narrative)
     Moving from one level of narrative to another
     A number of different narrators (multiple narrative
    points of view)
     Self-reflexive about the act of writing and the nature
    of literature (meta-narrative)
     Use of interior monologue technique
     Use of the stream of consciousness technique
     Focus on a character's consciousness and
    subconscious
    Stream of consciousness
     Aims to provide a textual equivalent to the stream of a
    fictional character’s consciousness
     Creates the impression that the reader is eavesdropping on
    the flow of conscious experience in the character’s mind
     Comes in a variety of stylistic forms
     Narrated stream of consciousness often composed of different
    sentence types including free indirect style
     characterized by associative (and at times dissociative) leaps
    in syntax and punctuation
    Interior monologue
     A particular kind of stream of consciousness writing
     Also called quoted stream of consciousness, presents
    characters’ thought streams exclusively in the form of silent
    inner speech, as a stream of verbalised thoughts
     Represents characters speaking silently to themselves and
    quotes their inner speech, often without speech marks
     Is presented in the first person and in the present tense and
    employs deictic words
     also attempts to mimic the unstructured free flow of thought
     can be found in the context of third-person narration and
    dialogue
    References
     Bradbury, Malcolm, and McFarlane, James, eds. Modernism: A
    Guide to European Literature, 1890-1930. London: Penguin
     Brooker, Peter, ed. Modernism/Postmodernism. London:
    Longman, 1992
     Hassan, Ihab and Hassan, Sally, eds. Innovation/Renovation: New
    Perspectives on the Humanities. Madison: University of Wisconsin
    Press, 1983
     Huyssen, Andreas. After the Great Divide: Modernism, Mass Culture,
    Postmodernism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986
     Lodge, David, ed. Modernism, Antimodernism, and
    Postmodernism. Birmingham: University of Birmingham Press, 1977
     Wilde, Alan. Horizon of Assent: Modernism, Postmodernism and the
    Ironic Imagination. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University
    Press, 1981.

    THANK YOU !!!

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