Modernism

Question 1

Timeline

Answer 1

Start: Edwardian Era (1901)
End: 1939-45 WWII
George V (1910-1936): during his reign rise of Socialism, Communism and Fascism, WWI
1918 Women’s right to vote
1922 The formation of the Irish Free State
1931 British Commonwealth
George VI (1936-52): British Empire → Commonwealth of Nations, WWII

Question 2

Society & Politics

Answer 2

The Interwar Period:
- ‘Age of entertainment and popular culture’, ‘The Roaring Twenties’
- new self-consciousness of the ‘New Woman’; right to vote; criticising gender roles

Question 3

Great Topics of Modernism

Answer 3

• disillusionment with the world and society, war, questioning of tradition
• psychology: insight into the human mind (Freud et. al)
• change in aesthetics and art → questioning beauty (cubism, fauvism, futurism, surrealism, expressionism, Bauhaus …) → ‘The age of -isms’

Question 4

Term: Modernism

Answer 4

• modern = something referring to the contemporary, to the here and now opposed to the past
• Modernism vs. classical antiquity → struggle between contemporary and classical ideals of art

Question 5

Modernist Literature

Answer 5

• literature radical, experimental, difficult, innovative
• fragmentation: of the self, of time and history, of society, of sexuality, of the body
• individualism: rejection of the pre-war collective and their social norms; estrangement and loneliness
• formal aspects: stream-of-consciousness, internal monologues; the story unfolds not through action, but reaction, intertextuality, satire and symbolism

Question 6

Modernist Writing in General

Answer 6

• lack of optimism and factual thinking → Lost Generation
• avant-garde vs. popular authors → avant-garde modernist writers were involved in all kinds of literary experimentalism
• traditional forms dissolve (metre and rhyme, chronological and causal structures), replaced by avant-garde experiments (no more standardisation)
• reader active in interpreting the text

Question 7

Innovation(s) in Literary Form

Answer 7

• novel remains most popular medium
• short story changes in the same way from description to experiment
• stream of consciousness = narrative mode attempting to depict thoughts and feelings passing the human mind inward turn → looking from the inside to the outside
• literary theory / criticism develops

Question 8

Authors & Works

Answer 8

Katherine Mansfield - Miss Brill