modernism in english literature

modernism in english literature

Exploring the Impact of Modernism on English Literature

1. Introduction to Modernism in English Literature

According to Homberger, Modernism has been described as ‘a searching self-examination, a restless musing on the mysteries of the unconscious as a means of escaping the control of traditional rational thought, a voyage into the overwhelming possibilities offered by technological progress along with world wars, and finally, a quest for simplicity and purity that led away from the filth, crowding and dishonesty of the urbs towards the purity of unspoiled nature.’ These political, philosophical, and sociological revolutions influenced the society, the contemporary existence, and the life, in general, of Modernist writers. But when the Modernist writers entered into the discussion on the Modernism, they were still not fully aware of who they were – they were influencing each other, discovering the new world of Modernism, and mimicking their writers’ mentors and friends while still in the turmoil of the last violent convulsion of the world.

“Modernism” is a catch-all term for literature that came into the mainstream in the first years of the last century. It is often associated with the main writers of the period – F. Scott Fitzgerald, D.H. Lawrence, T. S. Eliot, Virginia Woolf, and a few others. They abandoned the stultified traditional dungeons of Romanticism and Victorianism and, hungry for freedom, piled tumultuously into the new, undefined, and unlabeled lands of Modernism. In these undefined territories, there was only lightning conduct and daring to venture into the still-unsolved questions of the human condition. It was like the wild West of the literary movement – wide open, but unpredictable and fraught with dangers – an exciting but troubled Hell. In the seminal years before and after the First World War, Modernism exhibited both the nostalgic requirements of a pastiche of the humanity destroyed by war and the urgently needed expression of a new humanity and society with its hopes, dreams, and goals.

2. Key Characteristics of Modernist Literature

When it comes to discussing modernism in literature, there are a few characteristics that are exceptional. The primary characteristic is one of anti-realism; modernist literature portrayed the world as being in a constant state of flux and undergoing repeated, formless change. The world they presented was devoid of matter, signification, or dynamism; apart from that, it was fragmentary and repetitive. The characters they depicted were generally inward-turning and developing in response to the malaise, confusion, and doubt that was happening in the world around them. Other themes that modernist literature introduced were those of time as a recurrent danger, race, and gender; the difficulty of communication with other people; and the idea that intellectual templates have to be modified and should not be trusted as a measure of accuracy. All of these were radical departures from the way literature was written before 1900. Thus, it is seen that the modernist movement moved almost completely away from the original and additional rules of literature to become something extraordinary and inspiring.

Though modernism was seen as a movement that was somewhat anti-traditional in a number of respects, it actually evolved as a response to Realism, which was a burgeoning literary movement in the late 19th century. It was this movement that ushered in a preoccupation with middle-class life and the ideas and problems of real people that society was more and more concerned with identifying itself. Modernism rose as an attempt to be reactive as well as responsive to these changes in society. This was the beginning of the movement that brought us groundbreaking novels, poetry, and drama by writers such as Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, T. S. Eliot, W. B. Yeats, William Faulkner, Franz Kafka, Emily Dickinson, and many others.

3. Major Modernist Authors and Their Works

This story is developed in Stephen Hero and is the major theme of his short works, which are generally republished as Dubliners. The account of the artist and his victimized friend, Buck Mulligan, is developed in Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. He developed his love affair with a beautiful coquette named Nora in the erotic and humorous letters of Ulysses. Clarissa and Septimus Warren Smith are the focal characters of Mrs. Dalloway; and Orlando is a biographical fantasy that contrasts periods of time with the relationship of a man and woman. As loyal to his art as James Joyce was, Virginia Woolf struggles to avoid bitterness, obsessiveness, and concealment of beauty. Her novels, Mrs. Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927), Orlando, and The Waves (1931), testify to her evil experiences and the pride and joy in her world but do not provide her with spiritual peace.

The most representative writings were produced in the latter part of his life, by the modernist writers who lived between the two World Wars. Their personal anguish in attempting to impose order and significance upon a fragmented universe is expressed symbolically in the idiom of their works. Eliot’s earliest significant poem was “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” which appeared in 1915. The Waste Land, published in 1922, is his major work. He experimented with a form of poetic drama, of which The Cocktail Party (1949) is the best complete example. His early essays on poetry, religion, and society earned him a reputation as an influential and controversial commentator, and later appeared as a small book, The Sacred Wood.

4. Themes and Motifs in Modernist Literature

An understanding and delineation of self is rationality and the ability to control. Modernist literature portrays thinkers who wander lost in experience and can’t communicate their despair, often asking for the essence of the “It” or the essence behind creation. The irony of modernist art is that in their despair, in the realization that civilization itself is The Waste Land, there is an impulse for recovery, for clarity. Although this conclusion is controversial, the impulse for clarity is a statement of the importance of language and communicative rationality. Language, after all, is the key to expression and understanding, and modernist poetry is particularly effective in indicating lapses in understanding and the power of expression.

Along with this theme of the everyday life and common experience, modernist literature also stresses the idea of redemption. This is because of the continuing influence of religion on literature during this period or its lingering effect on modernist literature. Moreover, modernist literature, like all artistic movements over the years, deals with the theme of alienation, as it is another significant aspect of the modern understanding of the self. The alienation theme is perhaps most closely associated with the treatments of it in the writings of the existentialists, but alienation has been a constant theme in modern literature.

5. Legacy and Influence of Modernism on Contemporary Literature

But if Modernism went a long way towards making British literature and art part of a larger European or even more than European cultural scene, it did so at an appreciable cost. Most of this larger cultural scene that interested the modernist writer was not concerned with moral or ethical or spiritual issues. But by cutting itself off from the great twenty-ninth-century tradition which did deal with such issues, the modernist also turned his back on much which was the most interesting and distinctive in British literary tradition. During the 1920s and 1930s, the new writers started to treat with some sympathy the experiences of ordinary men and women. It was their best work, not only because it allowed them to draw more directly on human experience but because it helped restore vitality to the very tradition which they were exploiting or indeed creating.

Clearly, this survey of the impact and influence of modernism on contemporary literature would suggest that modernism is a continuing source of energy and vitality for the next generations of writers. New forms have been adapted for the purposes of new subjects, new styles have been invented in response to new kinds of experience. The whole ensemble of the modernist heritage continues to provide fresh sources of strength. When Auden and Isherwood wrote, “the poet must become a craftsman in each of the arts that are practiced today,” they were referring to the modernist’s heritage. It is a testament to the liveliness of that heritage that every generation of writers since 1920 has started by believing that only adding more bricks or repainting some of the old ones in new colors might have been enough.