Transcript Moderni sm Magonara Luca Alvise

Moderni
sm
Magonara Luca Alvise
What was it?
Modernism was a literary movement developed
during 1900 and 1930 and reached its height with
authors such as:
T. S. Eliot, James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway,
Virginia Woolf, W.B. Yeats, F. Scott Fitzgerald,
Ezra Pound, D.H. Lawrence, H.D. and Mikhail
Bulgakov.
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What was its historical background?
Its historical background of Modernism was split in
two notorious periods: at the end of "The long
nineteenth century" and at the beginning of "The short
twentieth century".
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What was its historical background?
The Great depression: it caused an enormous
unemployment rate and loss of faith in liberal
democracy.
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What was its historical background?
Wars: First World War shocked a whole generation
and confirmed the Victorian doubts and fears.
Moreover changed completely the positivist idea of
progress.
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What was its historical background?
Darwinism: The human beings lost their central
position in the universe and concepts such as
“unconscious” influenced artistic currents (e.g. steam
of conscious and Surrealism)
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What were its literary features?
Modernism was considered an emancipated
movement, because it broke with Realistic and
Romantic literature introducing new features such as:
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What were its literary features?
Parody of mundane: a prime
example being "The Love Song of
J.Alfred Prufock" by T.S.Eliot.
“In the room the women come
and go
Talking of Michelangelo.”
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What were its literary features?
The absence of a heroic figure:
there is a recognition that people
are fraught with human frailties
e.g. T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land.
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What were its literary features?
..and much more:
Disjointed timelines
No omniscient narrator
Eclipse of the narrator
Shifting point of view
No more framework of reference
Flux of thought
Elitarian movement
Objective correlative
Mythical method
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What about its form?
Focusing on modernist form we can notice
particular features:
The plot is reduced to minimum (e.g. Joyce's
“Ulysses”)
Individual side and subjectivity (e.g. Joyce's
“Leopold Bloom”)
Internal monologue and personal search (e.g.
Eliot's”Prufrock”)
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