modernist literature

modernist literature is the literary expression of the tendencies of Modernism, especially High modernism.[1]
Modernistic art and literature normally revolved around the idea of
individualism, mistrust of institutions (government, religion), and the
disbelief of any absolute truths.
Modernism as a literary movement reached its height in Europe between 1900 and the middle 1920s.[2]
Modernist literature addressed aesthetic problems similar to those
examined in non-literary forms of contemporaneous Modernist art, such as
Modernist painting. Gertrude Stein's abstract writings, for example, have often been compared to the fragmentary and multi-perspectival Cubism of her friend Pablo Picasso.[3]
The general thematic concerns of Modernist literature are well-summarized by the sociologist Georg Simmel:
.
"The
deepest problems of modern life derive from the claim of the individual
to preserve the autonomy and individuality of his existence in the face
of overwhelming social forces, of historical heritage, of external
culture, and of the technique of life."[4].
The Modernist emphasis on a radical individualism can be seen in the many literary manifestos
issued by various groups within the movement. The concerns expressed by
Simmel above are echoed in Richard Huelsenbeck's "First German Dada
Manifesto" of 1918:
.
"Art
in its execution and direction is dependent on the time in which it
lives, and artists are creatures of their epoch. The highest art will be
that which in its conscious content presents the thousandfold problems
of the day, the art which has been visibly shattered by the explosions
of last week ... The best and most extraordinary artists will be those
who every hour snatch the tatters of their bodies out of the frenzied
cataract of life, who, with bleeding hands and hearts, hold fast to the
intelligence of their time.".
The
cultural history of humanity creates a unique common history that
connects previous generations with the current generation of humans. The
Modernist re-contextualization of the individual within the fabric of
this received social heritage can be seen in the "mythic method" which
T.S. Eliot expounded in his discussion of James Joyce's Ulysses:
.
"In
using the myth, in manipulating a continuous parallel between
contemporaneity and antiquity, Mr. Joyce is pursuing a method which
others must pursue after him ... It is simply a way of controlling, of
ordering, of giving a shape and a significance to the immense panorama
of futility and anarchy which is contemporary history."[5].

Modernist authors include Knut Hamsun (whose novel Hunger is considered to be the first modernist novel), James Joyce, Mikhail Bulgakov, T. S. Eliot, Gertrude Stein, H.D., Virginia Woolf, Marcel Proust, John Steinbeck, Dylan Thomas, D. H. Lawrence, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Ezra Pound, Mina Loy, Hugh MacDiarmid, William Faulkner, Jean Toomer, Ernest Hemingway, E. M. Forster, Rainer Maria Rilke, Franz Kafka, Robert Musil, Joseph Conrad, Andrei Bely, W. B. Yeats, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Luigi Pirandello, Katherine Mansfield, Jaroslav Hašek, Samuel Beckett, Menno ter Braak, Robert Frost, Boris Pasternak, Djuna Barnes, Patricia Highsmith, Sherwood Anderson, Mervyn Peake among others.

Characteristics of Modernity/Modernism
Formal/Stylistic characteristics



Free indirect speech
Stream of consciousness
Juxtaposition of characters[clarification needed]
Wide use of classical allusions
Figure of speech
Intertextuality
Personification
Hyperbole
Parataxis
Comparison[vague]
Quotation
Pun
Satire
Irony
Antiphrasis
Unconventional use of metaphor
Symbolic representation
Psychoanalysis
Discontinuous narrative
Metanarrative
Multiple narrative points of view


Thematic characteristics



Breakdown of social norms
Realistic embodiment of social meanings
Separation of meanings and senses from the context
Despairing individual behaviours in the face of an unmanageable future
Spiritual loneliness
Alienation
Frustration
Disillusionment
Rejection of history
Rejection of outdated social systems
Objection to traditional thoughts and traditional moralities
Objection to religious thoughts
Substitution of a mythical past
Two World Wars' effects on Humanity