Modernism

Historical, political and social context

the Great War;
the British Empire and its gradual dismantling
industrialisation and urbanisation, mass production;
changes in social structure: from the rural to urban, medrn, secular society,
the working class;
the rise of the Labor party (the first Labor government 1924); feminism
(women's suffrage 2928)
rapid development in science and technology (motor buses, the telephone
and the typewriter, synthetic materials, the X-ray and radioactivity,
electrons are discovered; science as a challenge to the traditional vision of
the universe;)
The meaning of the term "modernism"
a descriptive term (a time-bound definition): a particular period of time
Cyril Connolly in The Modern Movement: (1965): Modernism started in
1880, with the peak between 1910 and 1925
Frank Kermode: the 1890s as the forerunner to Modernism, its peak
between 1907 and 1925
Stephen Spender in The Struggle of the Moderns (1963) and Graham
Hough: Modernism between 1910 and the Great War
intrinsic characteristic of literature (genre-bound definition): the term
suggests innovation and novelty; experimentation with the material of
literature, language;
referring to certain qualities by certain authors (James Joyce, Virginia
Woolf or T.S. Eliot).
Steven Spender: two groups of writers:
the moderns, whose work is marked by some qualities such as
experimental drive (for example the Imagists);
the contemporaries who write in the first decades of the 20th
century, but they are mere commentators, they lack the
experimental drive and deal with subjects of immidiate concern
(for example Georgian poets, G.B. Shaw, or John Galsworthy).
Criticism of (Victorian) realism
Virginia Woolf: Mr Bennett and Mrs Brown (1924) and "Modern Fiction
(1925)
criticism of realism understood as concentrating on the plot and
material reality
criticism of writers enslaved by conventions
reality understood in terms of individual perceptions
T.S. Eliot
"Tradition and Individual Talent"
Criticism of biographical criticism and of a romantic idea about
the role of the poet:
"Honest criticism and sensitive appreciation is directed not upon
the poet but upon the poetry."
"the poet has, not a 'personality' to express, but a particular
medium"