The Modernist Period and English Literature - 1188 Words

To get to the bottom of everything, the background knowledge must be built up before anything. The Modernist Period came to English Literature around the beginning of the twentieth century and marked its way with groundbreaking ways of viewing tradition and worldly views. A series of events would have been happening around this time to shape such views; one such event would be named the War to End All Wars. World War I had just broke out and continued to ravage Europe from the years 1914 through to 1918 and the horrors that happened during this war had shocked the people of that time greatly, which left such an impact on their lives. This in turn made the citizens question their humanity and what the world was becoming of, thus turning all the past beliefs and assurance in things like religion, politics, or society now no longer relevant since â€Å" two world wars in the span of a generation [had] effectively shell-shocked all of Western civilization† (Rahn 1). Religion in th e past provided the citizens coherency, guidance, and even insight into the human condition, but as times were changing it seemed as though religion was becoming to be replaced by art, literature, etc. Not all modernists rejected religion though, some stayed neutral and rather just questioned the beliefs and aspects of the past enlightenment thinkers. With the new and becoming age of the industrialized world, politics came to be ignored as well by the anti-conformists of the period, proving to be tooShow MoreRelatedModernism Essay1103 Words   |  5 Pages The modernist period in British and Irish literature was one of the most important and exciting times in literary history. The term modernist stemmed from the beginning of the 20th century labelled the modern period. The modern period was a time of confusion and transitions, mostly due to the result of people returning from World War I. The modern period was an era of massive unemployment and technological changes. Freud, Jung , and Marx were redefining human identity, Assembly lines and factoriesRead MoreEssay on Modernism Brought Much Change into the World1074 Words   |  5 Pages​Modernism or modernist poetry refers to the time period where poems were written by various people between the 1890s and 1970s. Modernism poets have a lot of knowledge and their works reflect it. The Era of modernism brought on modern language as it referred to thought, practice or someone’s character. This brought on a lot of change in the world. The thought behind the thinking of modernist poets were that of individualism. The modern movement came about as the result of the industrial revolutionRead MoreThe Demon Lover By Elizabeth Bowen1383 Words   |  6 PagesBritish writers switched their writing style to mimic the values of the modernism period. The main values of this period include psychology and science, the effects of war, social and personal concerns, and streams of consciousness. â€Å"The Demon Lover† by Elizabeth Bowen, â€Å"Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night† by Dylan Thomas and â€Å"The Naming of Cats† by T.S. Eliot all embody these values in some way. The Modernism period gave authors a more open approach to express psychological feelings and also gaveRead More Modernism and the Modern Novel Essay565 Words   |  3 PagesModernism and the Modern Novel ============================== The term modernism refers to the radical shift in aesthetic and cultural sensibilities evident in the art and literature of the post-World War One period. The ordered, stable and inherently meaningful world view of the nineteenth century could not, wrote T.S. Eliot, accord with the immense panorama of futility and anarchy which is contemporary history. Modernism thus marks a distinctive break with Victorian bourgeois morality;Read MoreAnalysis Of Literary Modernism1019 Words   |  5 Pagesrealistic life. It was believed that one way of life no longer fit for everyone and modernism introduced literature and art that began to question and show various perspectives of life. Peter Childs explains that â€Å"modernist writing â€Å"plunges† the reader into confusing and difficult mental landscape which cannot be immediately understood†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Childs 15). Uncommon poetry and prose stemmed from this modernist development. A popular one being Nella Larsen’s Passing, which encompasses two African American womenRead MoreThe Birth Of The Realism And Modernism Era1322 Words   |  6 Pagesof the Realism and Modernism era appeared during the late eighteenth century to early nineteenth century. Both Realism and Modernism are evident in many of Edith Wharton’s literary works. Realism came from chaotic times where it â€Å"encompasses the period of time from the Civil War†(Realism from American). The United States grew enormously after the civil war with â€Å"the rapid growth in industrialism and urbanization, an expanding population base due to immigration, and a relative rise in middle-class†Read MoreThe Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock: A Good Example of Modernism1066 Words   |  5 Pagesis a period which is both progressive and optimistic.The Modern period starts with the Renaissance for historians.It’s stem ‘’Modern’’, comes from the Latin which means ‘’current’’.It is a cultural movement which involves changes in art,architecture,music and literature: ‘’†¦ the vast majority of attempts to offer alternative modes of representation in literature,music,painting,film and architecturefrom the middle of the 19th century to the middle of 20th century have been termed modernist’’(ChildsRead MoreThe Social And Historical Context Of A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man And My Son1436 Words   |  6 Pagesstruggles with religion and independence using this method but also the conflict found within Ireland at the time. Our understanding of the text is deepened here because we can comprehend the struggle that the people of Ireland went through in that time period and we can see that Stephen Dedalus is much more than just a character but also the embodiment of all of these struggles faced by the people of Ireland. But A portrait of the Artist as a Young Man has more historical context than just early twentiethRead MoreEssay about Modernism in T.s. Eliotss the Wasteland885 Words   |  4 PagesThe Wasteland Modernism has been defined as a rejection of traditional 19th-century norms, whereby artists, architects, poets and thinkers either altered or abandoned earlier conventions in an attempt to re-envision a society in flux. In literature this included a progression from objectivist optimism to cynical relativism expressed through fragmented free verse containing complex, and often contradictory, allusions, multiple points of view and other poetic devices that broke from the formsRead MoreImportance Of Modernism In Our Town By Thornton Wilder1317 Words   |  6 Pagesdrama for his play Our Town and later for The Skin of Our Teeth. He became involved with theater when teaching Literature at the University of Chicago which led to his interest in drama and playwriting. His work was influenced by major writers of his time period such as Ernest Hemingway and Willa Cather. Willa Cather was a major realist artist and Ernest Hemingway was considered a modernist writer. Wilder’s play mi ght be influenced by Hemingway as it includes some elements of Modernism. Thornton Wilder’s