What is Modernism?
Uploaded by amany kamal on May 26, 2006
Modernism Essay
Modernism as a theory refers to love to whatever is modern. It has to do with a literary writing. It aims at a deep-seated alteration from outer issues to more philosophical ones. When we have a cocktail of literary genres such as realism, humanism, naturalism, etc, this means that we are working as modernist writers or critics.
According to Modernist upholders, God is responsible for nature. They believe also that the world around them is losing meaning and altering to garbage; consequently they lost faith in religion. The only faith they admit of its existence is found in art/ literature.
What is worse is post modernism, in which neither religion nor art are potentials for faith. As far as Modernism is concerned, it is totally in opposition with realism. In other words, realism has faith in society.
In Modernist fiction, there is a shift from the external to the inner psychological aspects of human psyche. Modernists celebrate the coherence of a work of art, nonetheless, Postmodernists do the opposite- they celebrate the incoherence of it. The ability to recognize whether a certain literary work is Modernist or not depends on a segment of characteristic features, for most: the narration type is not chronologically ordered in Modernist genres. Instead, it is disruptive; it could be cyclic, zigzag, but not linear.
Modernist work also is too imaginative. That is to say, it depends on imagery and symbolism that stops the reader and defamilirize his perceptions about reality. The language too should not be that transparent; to some extent it is complicated. In addition, Modernist literature relays on modern themes. Characters and participants experience the lack of beliefs; it is highly individual.
Thirdly, the literary work is greatly conversational; it is based on discussion. And this is evident in Eliot The Waste Land in which a sort o conversation takes place between Terisias and his cousin Marry. Furthermore, in such theory readers are invited to decode he symbols available in the text. Finally, the closure is open-ended.