The Twentieth Century

Question 1

From when it starts?
History and Politics
Society

Answer 1

1901 - 1939
See Notability

Question 2

How can we define Modernism?

Answer 2

We can’t. Modernism is a complex and contested label within literary studies and some critics now prefer to talk of dispar ate ‘modernisms’ rather than of one overarching ‘modernism’. This label came into regular use in the 1960s, but there was never any single ‘movement’ or grouping of writers who actually identified themselves as so. That’s not a term that writers invented for themselves, but it was conceived by critics.

Question 3

Which are the two main lines of stylistic development?
How are they different?

Answer 3

Modernism and Realism
1. Modernism = new, original and authentic art // Realism = plodding continuation of worthy but outmoded past forms;
2. Modernism = obscure, elitist and out of touch with everyday experience // Realism = truthful representation of the historical actuality, direct relevance to people’s lives.

Question 4

Talk about visual arts, literature and poetry

Answer 4

Modernist Literature is based on fundamental, existential questions, stimulated by the new developing scientific, philosophical and psychological theories —> VISUAL ARTS: cubism, abstractionism, strange compositions.

LITERATURE: rhythmic or special forms of narrative, rapid changes of p.o.v., stream of consciousness&raquo_space;> “the enigma of language” was nearly an obsession. Modernist writers wanted to push language beyond its limits, in order to generate non-linguistic revelations or EPIPHANY (Joyce, for the Irish writer, an epiphany is a sudden spiritual revelation, caused by a gesture, an object, a daily situation, seemingly trivial, but revealing something deeper, more significant and unexpected)
In Modern Fiction (essay), Virginia Woolf says that, for the “moderns”, the focal point of interest lies in the dark places of psychology&raquo_space;> THE GOLDEN AGE OF THE PSYCHOLOGICAL NOVEL

Poetry: Variety of trends and currents: Symbolism, Oxford Poets, The New Romantics

Question 5

The most important poets and novelist

Answer 5

Samuel Butler, Henry and William James, Yeats, Lawrence, T.S. Eliot.
War Poets (Sassoon, Brooke, Owen, Rosenberg)

Question 6

What’s the Modernist Novel?

Answer 6

Different from the Victorian Novel: the characters make their own destiny, take choices
A new concept of time: William James held that: “Our mind records every single experience as a continuous flow. Distinction between:
Historical time = external, linear and measured by the hands of a clock.
Psychological time = internal, subjective, measured by the relative emotional intensity of the moment. In literature: no well-structured plots, no chronological sequence of events (like in the Victorian age).
The theory of the unconscious: Sigmund Freud > what we do in our life is not only the result of our rationality, but could emerge from our unconscious, willingly or not: simultaneous existence of different levels of consciousness and unconsciousness;

Question 7

What’s the “New Women” literature?

Answer 7

Debates about women’s issues were already significant at the end of the 19th century, but in the first decades of the 20th century it became an integral part of the historical context (suffragettes).
However, there also was a widespread opposition to the suffrage movement, this form of modernism, later called “High Modernism”, was almost entirely composed by male writers, that were later accused of misogyny.

Question 8

Readings

Answer 8

Herbert George Wells - Tono-Bungay (1909)
David Herbert Lawrence - The Rainbow (1915)
Thomas Stearns Eliot - The Waste Land (1922)
Virginia Woolf - Mrs. Dalloway (1925)