1. Modernism
ENG 531
An Overview of Modernism
Dr. Pizzetta

2. The Precursors of Modernism
A number of very innovative poets were
writing prior to the period we now identify
as modern.
• Walt Whitman
• Emily Dickinson
• Gerard Manley Hopkins
• Thomas Hardy
• A.E. Housman

3. Cultural Influences on Modernism
Certain cultural conditions existed that made
modernism an appropriate and perhaps
necessary response from the artistic community.
The effects of World War I, the rise in technology
(automobiles, telephones, moving pictures), the
increasingly global economy, and the rapid
population shifts to urban areas are some of the
most often remarked upon elements. These
historical, cultural, economic and political
conditions appear in the literary and aesthetic
representations of and responses to those
conditions.

4. “Human nature underwent a fundamental change
on or about December 1910”—Virginia Woolf
Pre-Modern World (e.g.
Romantic and Victorian
Periods)
• Order
• Meaningful existence
• Optimistic
• Stability
• Dependence on faith
• Unquestioned
morality/values
• Clear sense of identity
Modern World (Early 20th
Century)
• Chaos
• Futility of existence
• Pessimistic
• Instability
• Loss of faith
• Collapse of
morality/values
• Confused sense of
identity and place in the
world

5. Modernist Reactions to Realism
Four Literary "isms" Inside Modernism
• Whereas Realism attempted to portray external objects and events as the common or middle
class man sees them in everyday life, impressionism tries to portray the psychological
impressions these objects and events make on characters, emphasizing the role of individual
perception and exploring the nature of the conscious and unconscious mind.
• Whereas Realism tried to focus on these external objects and events, expressionism tried to
express the inner vision, the inner emotion, or the inner spiritual reality that seem more
important than the external realities of objects and events.
• Whereas Realism focused on external objects and events as they are (verisimilitude),
surrealism tried to liberate the subconscious, to see connections overlooked by the logical
mind, to deny the supreme authority of rationality and so portray objects and events as they
seem rather than as they are.
• Whereas Realism tried to show the supreme importance of rationalality and reason,
absurdism tried to duplicate in literature the absurd conditions of contemporary life: nameless
millions dying in wars, commonplace horrors such as the Holocaust, a world in which "God is
dead" cast mankind afloat in a chartless and unknowable world void of a spiritual center, the
ultimate absurd circumstances in which contemporary humankind found itself.

6. Modern simply means something that is current
and contemporary. A writer could be called
modern even if he or she did not fit the definition
of a modernist. Modernist, however, suggests
artists and their creations that exhibit certain
qualities—an advocacy of innovation, difficulty or
obliqueness, an international flavor, and an
emphasis on the regenerative power of the
imagination.
Modern versus Modernist

7. Conservative Modernists
Although most of our time in this class will be spent
reading the writers who were interested in new forms of
poetry, you should be aware that some modernists were
artistically conservative while still using their ideological
and political beliefs in original ways.
• Edna St. Vincent Millay uses the sonnet form to explore
in a new way ideas of sexual liberation.
• Wilfred Owen uses traditional verse to detail the horrors
of war. His poems were often so graphic that school
children were not allowed ot read them.
• Claude McKay uses conventional verse to highlight the
violence and oppression endured by African Americans in
the South, especially by giving voice to the victims of
lynchings.

8. Modernism and Language
Characteristics of Language in Modernist Literature
• uses images ("word pictures") and symbols as typical and frequent
literary techniques
• uses colloquial language rather than formal language
• uses language in a very self-conscious way, seeing language as a
technique for crafting the piece of literature just as an artist crafts a piece
of art like a sculpture or a painting
• uses language as a special medium that influences what that piece of
literature can do or can be
• views the piece of literature as an object crafted by an artist using
particular techniques, crafts, skills (recall how the Romantics thought the
piece of literature was a work of genius that somehow appears full-blown
from the imagination of the genius). Form, style, and technique thus
become as important--if not more so--than content or substance.
• attempts to change the way readers see the world and to change our
understanding of what language is and does

9. Modernist Themes
1. Collectivism versus the authority of the individual
2. National identity versus the celebration of international culture
3. Alienation and self-awareness (“lost generation” Gertrude Stein,
“dissociation of sensibility” T.S. Eliot, “a Dream deferred”
Langston Hughes)
4. Obsession with primitive materials and attitudes (borrowed form
the Harlem Renaissance)
5. Artist’s self-consciousness about questions of form and structure
6. The relationship between tradition and innovation in art with an
emphasis on breaking away from patterned responses and
predictable forms.
7. The artist as a sensitive and even heroic figure who reinvigorates
art and public life
8. Dramatization of the plight of women (while some authors still
express repressive approaches to sexual relations)
9. The conflict between democratic and elitist ideals

10. Modernist Themes for ENG 531
Week 2: Modern/Modernity and Modernism and
the Visual Arts
Week 3: Difficulty and High Modernism
Week 4: Globalization and Regionalism
Week 5: Symbolism, Imagism, and Objectivism
Week 6: The Harlem Renaissance

11. GERTRUDE STEIN
It happens very often that a man has it in him, that a man does something, that he does it very often that
he does many things, when he is a young man when he is an old man, when he is an older man. One of
such of these kind of them had a little boy and this one, the little son wanted to make a collection of
butterflies and beetles and it was all exciting to him and it was all arranged then and then the father said to
the son you are certain this is not a cruel thing that you are wanting to be doing, killing things to make
collections of them, and the son was very disturbed then and they talked about it together the two of them
and more and more they talked about it then and then at last the boy was convinced it was a cruel thing
and he said he would not do it and his father said the little boy was a noble boy to give up pleasure when it
was a cruel one. The boy went to bed then and then the father when he got up in the early morning saw a
wonderfully
beautiful moth in the room and he caught him and he killed him and
he pinned him and he woke up his son then and showed it to him
and he said to him see what a good father I am to have caught and
killed this one, the boy was all mixed up inside him and then he said
he would go on with his collecting and that was all there was then of
discussing and this is a little description of something that
happened once and it is very interesting.
from
The Making of Americans
Portrait of Gertrude Stein (detail)
by Pablo Picasso