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Modernist Literature
Modernist Literature
Modernist Literature
A Quick Overview of General
Characteristics, Themes, and
Agendas
Historical Background
W. H. Auden
Virginia
Woolf
D. H.
Lawrence
(1818-1883)
Marx felt that reality was determined by materialist cultures and economics.
He called for a social revolution.
Darwin
(1809-1882)
Darwin's theory of evolution and survival of the fittest suggests that survival
is determined by the ability to adapt. The Origin of the Species
Nietzsche
(1844-1900)
Feels that traditional religions have been debunked by physical and natural
sciences and thus, that moral and ethical systems that arise from traditional
religions are illogical.
Freud
(1856-1939)
Freud s theories of the dynamic unconscious suggested that humans are not
fully aware of what they think or why they think it. His ideas proposed that
awareness existed in layers and that many thoughts occur "below the surface.
Einstein
(1879-1955)
literature is a movement
away from Romanticism, Victorian
trends in literature, and Realism, and
really, is marked by its determined
desire to break away from all previous
forms and conventions. It reflects the
lack of order seen in a growing urban
society, celebrates passion over
reason, and questions traditional
moralities.
T.S. Eliot
I grow old I grow old
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.
Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.
( The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock lines 120-125)
James Joyce
I will not serve that in which I no longer
believe whether it call itself home, my
fatherland or my church: and I will try to
express myself in some mode of life or art
as freely as I can and as wholly as I can,
using for my defence the only arms I allow
myself to use, silence, exile, and cunning.
(A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man)