MODERNISM and POSTMODERNISM

What is Modernism?

What do you think this painting is

trying to suggest?

Realist Painting

Realist Painting

Modernism

Picasso

Modernism

Dali

Modernism

Magritte

Modernism

Modernist Architecture

A Reaction to Realism Ezra Pound said, “make it new!” The Modernists were traumatized by the events that brought about

the Realist age—such as WWI and the Great Depression—but they were not going to be beaten.

While they saw modern life as disjointed and overwhelming, they did not see it as worthless. They saw it as possessing its own unique beauty, however challenging to appreciate.

The Modernists reacted against the Realist depiction of people as nothing but nameless, faceless, two-dimensional characters carried along by external forces.

Their fiction returned authority to the individual, and they allowed him/her to live his/her life (or at least judge its meaning or value) through art.

Historical Context WWI and Great Depression until 1960s

American prosperity leads to changing social boundaries

1. Women’s rights recognized2. African-Americans’ rights recognized3. General Civil Rights Act of 1964 Era is a paradox: commercialization allows

people to conform but also prompts them to rebel

Overarching PrinciplesContent

A. Often summarized as “Make it New!” 1. “=Modernize!”

2. focuses on taking traditional stories, styles, and formulas, but reinvents them.

Overarching PrinciplesContent

B. Common Theme: Importance of Individuality

1. Protagonists in conflict with a corrupt society

2. Protagonists feel alienated; they are often expatriates or exiles

3. Protagonists try to achieve an identity; the art they produce affirms them in their ongoing struggle.

3. Protagonists are shown as admirable despite no obvious successes—simply because they persevere.

1953 19491951

Each of these Modernist novels features individuals who are radically estranged from the worlds in which they and others expect them to successfully exist.

Overarching PrinciplesContent

C. Modernism rejected traditional views of the divine– secular humanism

1. Ethics are applied relatively because circumstances change.

2. Right and wrong determined by personal discernment, not dogma/doctrine.

3. Agnostic

D. In a pluralistic world, you live, or try to live, whatever American Dream you feel is best suited to you.

Modernist Style

A. Emphasis on compacted (concise but densely-packed) language in both prose and poetry. Focus is on immediacy of effect.

B. Extensive use of symbolism.

C. Abstract, expressive, surreal, and fantastical elements return to literature.

D. Experimentation in narration like stream-of-consciousness – narrator is often involved in the action and has a very distinctive, often idiosyncratic, “voice.”

Your Loyola Blakefield Modernist Experience

Important Modernist influence

Good friend of F. Scott Fitzgerald

Believed in “Iceberg Theory” of writing that many modernists emulated

Hemingway Short Story

Possibly apocryphal, Hemingway is said to have once wagered that he could write an entire short story in only six words.

“For Sale: Baby Shoes, Never Worn.”

“This is Just to Say” by William Carlos Williams (Modernist)

I have eaten

the plums

that were in

the icebox

and which

you were probably

saving

for breakfast

Forgive me

they were delicious

so sweet

and so cold

The Challenges of Chronology

Realism(Civil War, Reconstruction, Into WWI)

Modernism(WWI, Depression, WWII, Maybe Into 60’s+)

Postmodernism(WWII, Cold War, Maybe into 80’s+)

1860 1880 1900 1920 19401960 1980

“Duck and Cover” PSA

Postmodernism

Postmodernism

Post-Modernism

Post-Modernism

Postmodern Architecture

“Variations on a Theme” by Kenneth Koch (Postmodern)

1I chopped down the house that you had been saving to live in next summer.

I am sorry, but it was morning, and I had nothing to doand its wooden beams were so inviting.

2We laughed at the hollyhocks together

and then I sprayed them with lye.Forgive me. I simply do not know what I am doing.

3I gave away the money that you had been saving to live on for the

next ten years.The man who asked for it was shabby

and the firm March wind on the porch was so juicy and cold.

4Last evening we went dancing and I broke your leg.

Forgive me. I was clumsy andI wanted you here in the wards, where I am the doctor!

Comparing the Two Eras

Modernism and Postmodernism

Literature that “calls for bold experimentation and wholesale rejection of traditional themes and styles . . . the writers of this era . . . were . . . still trying to find the answers to basic human questions: Who are we?” (566-568).

Literature that “allows for multiple meanings and multiple worlds . . . literal worlds, past worlds, and dreamlike metaphorical worlds may merge . . . postmodern writers structure their works in a variety of nontraditional forms . . . they do not abide by conventional rules for shaping fiction . . . also intensely self conscious: they comment on themselves, criticize themselves, take themselves apart” (802).

According to textbooks like ours, the similarities are striking!

Modernism and Postmodernism

Both try new things.

Both emphasize the power of the individual to judge themselves and their lives in a way that Realism did not.

Both stress the power of art as a medium of that judgment. Both empower the reader of the text as well as the characters in it.

Postmodernism An extension of Modernism (WWI-1960s+), born late in the

period but partially co-existing with it (WWII-1980s+) Accepts basic principles of Modernism to “make it new” and

to celebrate the power of the individual, but takes them further

Primary difference: Modernism assumes meaning in disorder and asks reader to discover it; Postmodernism does not assume meaning in disorder and, instead, asks reader to create it

Secondary difference: Modernist works experiment with literature; Postmodern works challenge what even makes literature “literature”

Summary of DifferencesPOSTMODERNISM

Content-wise Does not assume meanings in

disorder… Challenges readers to create meanings (that were not already there)

Form-wise Literature is absurd—challenges what

even makes literature “literature” Sometimes associated with “pop art” Literature is a process with all sorts of

loose ends, ragged edges, etc.

MODERNISM

Content-wise Assumes meanings in disorder… Challenges

reader to discover meanings (that were already there)

Form-wise Literature is playful—experiments Sometimes associated with “high art” Literature is a product with structure