Exploring Modernism: Literature & Art Movement

1. by Francesco Bernardini Modernism

2. Definition • A literary and artistic movement that developed in Europe during the first three decades of XX century. • Its name describes the period in which it developed, that is the end of the Modern age

3. Cultural Background • Modernism development between the end of the XIX century and the beginning of the XX century • In that period all traditional beliefs were put into doubt by scientific discoveries (evolution theory, theory of relativity) • In society the general atmosphere was one that recorded a sense of confusion and absence of points of reference and authorities

4. Objective • The main objective of Modernism was to create a new way of expression in which the absence of points of reference, and the idea of a changing the world was expressed and traditional beliefs were turned upside down • It also created a new connection between tradition and myths and contemporary literature by means of trans-codifiction

5. Main Features • Modernist works are the most complex works in the history of literature • Modernism became an elitarian movement: since its artistic production was so difficult and couldn’t be understood by ordinary people since it required ahigh level of culture • Modernist artists used particular devices to better convey feelings, emotions and ideas; it also made reference to a new conception of time

6. Literary Devices • Shift of the point of view • Dramatic monologue • Speaking voice • Interior monologue • Stream of consciousness • Intertextuality

7. Conceptual Devices • Anthropology • The Objective correlative • Anti-hero • The Mythical method • Transcodification • Importance of mankind

8. Representative Writers Poetry: Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888-1965) USA - UK Ezra Pound (1885-1972) USA - UK William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) IRL Novel: James Joyce (1882-1941) IRL Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) UK Franz Kafka (1883-1924) CS

9. Representative Works • James Joyce : “Ulysses” 1922, “Finnegan’s Wake” 1939, Dubliners, 1914 • Virginia Woolf: Mrs Dalloway,1925,To the Lighthouse, 1927 • T.S.Eliot: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, 1915, The Wasteland 1922, The Four Quartets, 1936-1942