Modernism

1. Modernism The Modern Age Postmodernism

2. Modernism • The major artistic movement that attempted to develop a response to the sense of social breakdown occurring in the aftermath of WWI • It was an international movement shared by many art forms • Characterized by the use of experimental techniques with a common purpose: to capture the essence of modern life in the form & content of their work

3. Experimentation • In literature, James Joyce, T. S. Eliot, and Virginia Woolf experimented with narrative structure, grammar, syntax, and spelling. • In dance, Sergei Diaghilev, Isadora Duncan, and Loie Fuller experimented with unconventional choreography and costume. • In music, Arnold Schoenberg and Igor Stravinsky composed pieces that did not depend on traditional tonal structure.

4. Stream of Consciousness/Interior Monologue • A technique that was developed by modernist writers to present the chronological flow of the seemingly unconnected, unfiltered thoughts, responses, and sensations of a character. • “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” –T.S. Eliot • Ulysses – James Joyce • The Sound and the Fury – William Faulkner

5. Stream of Consciousness/Interior Monologue A few of the more famous works to employ the technique are: • Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment • James Joyce's Ulysses (in particular Molly Bloom's soliloquy) • Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse and The Waves • William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury and As I Lay Dying • Jack Kerouac's On the Road • J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye • Robert Anton Wilson's & Robert Shea's Illuminatus! • Allen Ginsberg's poem Howl

6. Stream of Consciousness/Interior Monologuefrom James Joyce’s Ulysses "...I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes. "

7. Stream of Consciousness/Interior Monologuefrom William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury I could hear the clock, and I could hear Caddy standing behind me, and I could hear the roof It's still raining, Caddy said. I hate rain. I hate everything. And then her head came into my lap and she was crying, holding me, and I began to cry. Then I looked at the fire again and the bright, smooth shapes went again. I could hear the clock and the roof and Caddy.   That's right, Dilsey said. I reckon it'll be my time to cry next. Reckon Maury going to let me cry on him a while, too. His name's Benjy now, Caddy said. How come it is, Dilsey said. He aint wore out the name he was born with yet, is he. Benjamin came out of the bible, Caddy said. It's a better name for him than Maury was. How come it is, Dilsey said. Mother says it is, Caddy said. Huh, Dilsey said. Name aint going to help him. Hurt him, neither. Folks dont have no luck, changing names. My name been Dilsey since fore I could remember and it be Dilsey when they's long forgot me. How will they know it's Dilsey, when it's long forgot, Dilsey, Caddy said. It'll be in the Book, honey, Dilsey said. Writ out. Can you read it, Caddy said. Wont have to, Dilsey said. They'll read it for me. All I got to do is say Ise here.      Your name is Benjy, Caddy said. Do you hear. Benjy. Benjy. Dont tell him that, Mother said. Bring him here. Caddy lifted me under the arms. Get up, Mau I mean Benjy, she said. Dont try to carry him, Mother said. Cant you lead him over here. Is that too much for you to think of. I can carry him,       Versh set me down and we went into Mother's room. There was a fire. It was rising and falling on the walls. There was another fire in the mirror, I could smell the sickness. It was on a cloth folded on Mother's head. Her hair was on the pillow. The fire didn't reach it, but it shone on her hand, where her rings were jumping.

8. Fragmentation • related to the fragmentation of society in late 19th – early 20th century • Increasing technological aspirations of the industrial revolution widened the rift between the middle and the working classes. • Women demanded the vote and equal rights. • Sigmund Freud, founder of psychoanalysis, stipulated that the human psyche was fraught with emotional conflicts and contradictions.

9. Sigmund Freud • Fragmentation of the human Mind: • Id • Ego • Super-Ego

10. The Human Psyche - Freud Id • primary process thinking—our most primitive, need-gratification impulses • organized around the primitive instinctual drives of sexuality and aggression • these drives require instant gratification or release Ego • mediates among the id, the superego, and the external world to balance our primitive drives, our moral ideals and taboos, and the limitations of reality. Superego • stands in opposition to the desires of the id • based upon the internalization of the world view, norms and attitudes a child absorbs from parents and the surrounding environment at a young age. • As the conscience, it includes our sense of right and wrong, maintaining taboos specific to a child's internalization of parental culture.

11. Cubism • Cubist paintings create an ambiguous sense of space through geometric shapes that flatten and simplify form, spatial planes that are broken into fragments, and forms that overlap and penetrate one another. • The Spanish artist Pablo Picasso and the French artist Georges Braque invented the movement in 1907-08.

12. Surrealism – Salvador Dali(The world is not what it seems to be) The discovery of X rays, physicist Albert Einstein's theory of relativity, and other technological innovations suggested that our visual experience no longer corresponded with science's view of the world.

13. Futurism • The futurists, a group of Italian artists working between 1909 and 1916, had an enthusiasm for technology. • The futurists embraced all that glorified new technology and mechanization and denounced anything that had to do with tradition. • To them, a speeding automobile was more beautiful than an ancient Greek statue.

14. Free Verse Poetry • Rhymed or unrhymed poetry composed without attention to conventional rules of meter • Lines vary in length and cadence, usually not rhymed.

15. cummings, e(dward) e(stlin) (1894-1962) • American poet--one of the most radically experimental and inventive writers of the 20th century. • A distinctive feature of Cummings' poetry is the abandonment of uppercase letters and often punctuation. • Cummings' poetic style typographical nonconformity distortions of syntax unusual punctuation new words use of jazz rhythms, elements of popular culture, and slang.

16. e e cummings

17. l(a le af fa ll s) one l iness

18. Imagism • A literary movement established in the early part of the 20th century by Ezra Pound and other poets. • The Imagists concentrated on the direct presentation of images, or word pictures. An Imagist poem expressed the essence of an object, person, or incident, without explanations or generalizations.

19. Imagism • Through the spare, clean presentation of an image, the Imagists hoped to evoke an emotional response. • They hoped to freeze a single moment in time and capture the emotions of that moment. • Everyday language was used.

20. In a Station of the MetroEzra Pound The apparition of these faces in the crowd; Petals on a wet, black bough.

21. This is Just to Say- William Carlos Williams I have eaten the plums that were in the ice box and which you were probably saving for breakfast Forgive me they were delicious so sweet and so cold

22. so much depends upon a red wheel barrow glazed with rain water beside the white chickens. The Red Wheelbarrow- William Carlos Williams

23. The Search for Meaning • Themes of modern works were usually implied rather than directly stated, creating a sense of uncertainty Readers were forced to draw their own conclusions This search for meaning, even if unsuccessful, becomes meaningful in itself. Fog The fog comeson little cat feet.It sits lookingover harbor and cityon silent haunchesand then moves on. -- Carl Sandburg

24. Reinventing Art & Literature • In Modernism, the past—former beliefs, values, social structures, art forms—have all been destroyed or are no longer valid • The world is no longer seen as black & white • Therefore, art & literature had to be reinvented • The traditional voice lost its authority

25. Postmodernism • began in the 1970s • artists and critics began to question the modernist directive to be original • Instead, many postmodern artists have appropriated (taken for their own use) well-known images from their predecessors or contemporaries.

26. Postmodern Literary Criticism • Known as deconstructivism interpretation of complex literary works suggest no definitive meaning Proponents of deconstruction elaborate on textual ambiguities and paradoxes that most earlier interpreters (including the New Critics) attempted to resolve.

27. Postmodern Art • Bulgarian-born American artist Christo is noted for his large-scale environmental sculptures known as earthworks, such as the arrays of umbrellas that he conceived and began planning in 1984 and set up in 1991 in the country sides of both Japan and California. • Christo’s works embrace large areas, forcing his public to see familiar landscapes in new ways. The Umbrellas, Japan-USA, 1984-91

28. Christo: Postmodern Art • His method consists essentially of “wrapping” landscapes or large objects in a new packaging; his goal is to prove the susceptibility of contemporary consumer society to packaging. • Christo’s sculptures cost millions of dollars to plan and execute, and they remain standing for a relatively short period of time.