Modernism

1. Modernism Post WWI 1910-1940’s

2. Modernism • Reflects a sense of cultural crisis • Knowledge is not absolute • Marx, Freud and Darwin had started it with the naturalists • Freud’s psycho-analytic theories • Loss of a sense of tradition • Life is fragmented, not continuous • Increasing dominance of technology

3. Modernist Period • Late 19th century- 1930’s/1940’s • Historians say that modernism is the result of the general transformation of society caused by industrialization and technology during the 19th century.

4. Modernism • Focuses on how modern life is ruining the individual spirit • Disillusionment- the impoverished human soul

5. Modernism • Sense of alienation, loss and despair • Portrays elements of society that serve to separate and isolate people • The “evils” and effects of modern life

6. Modernism • Radical experiment with form and style • Unconventional structures • Strange capitalization and lack of punctuation • Stream of consciousness • e.e.cummings and Gertrude Stein exemplified this experimentation

7. Novelists: F. Scott Fitzgerald John Steinbeck William Faulkner Ernest Hemingway Playwrights: Tennessee Williams Arthur Miller Eugene O’Neill Poets: T.S. Eliot William Carlos Williams Ezra Pound John Dos Passos e.e. cummings Edna St. Vincent Millay Prominent American Modernists