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Name: Nagla Drashsti P.Roll no: 9
Paper no : 7 Literary Theory and Criticism
Class: M.A : Sem-2
Year: 2016-2018
Enrollment no : 2059108420170021
E-mail address: nagladrashti38@gmail.com
Submitted: Smt S.B Gardy
Department of English Maharaja
Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar
University,Bhavnagar.
Assignment Topic: Modernism and Postmodernnism
Modernism
What is Modernism?
Modernism is notoriously difficult to define clearly because the term encompasses a variety of specific artistic and philosophical movements including symbolism, futurism, surrealism, expressionism, imagism, vorticism, dada, and others. To further complicate matters, many Modernists (including some of the most successful and most famous), are not affiliated with any of these groups.
However, there are some basic tenets of the Modernist period that apply, in one way or another, to all these movements and those writers and artists not associated with them: “Modernist literature is characterized chiefly by a rejection of 19th-century traditions and of their consensus between author and reader”. Specifically, Modernists deliberately tried to break away from the conventions of the Victorian era. This separation from 19th century literary and artistic principles is a major part of a broader goal. Modernists wished to distinguish themselves from virtually the entire history of art and literature. Ezra Pound captured the essence of Modernism with his famous dictum, “Make it new!” Many Modernist writers felt that every story that could possibly be told had, in one way or another, been told already. Therefore, in order to create something new, they often had to try using new forms of writing. The period thus produced many experimental and avant-garde styles. Perhaps best known for such experimentation are fiction writers James Joyce and Virginia Woolf, and poets T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound, just to name a few.
When Was Modernism?
The dates of the Modernist movement (itself a problematic term, as there was in no sense a singular, consolidated, “movement”) are sometimes difficult to determine. The beginning of the 20th century is an extremely convenient starting point. It saw the end of Queen Victoria’s reign, marking a symbolic break from the preceding century. The turn of the century also roughly coincided with the publication of several groundbreaking theories, such as Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams and Einstein’s theory of special relativity. As such, there were real shifts (not merely symbolic changes) in the natural sciences, social sciences, and liberal arts occurring at this time as well. However, using the year 1900 as a starting point for Modernism is also problematic, as it would exclude some writers or texts from the late 1800s which definitively display Modernist tendencies. Many scholars thus use the year 1890 as a starting point; it is close to the end of Queen Victoria’s reign and the end of the century, but still fairly inclusive. It is important to remember, however, that while 1890 is an entirely appropriate starting date, it is also an artificial one.
By convention and convenience, most scholars use 1945 as the endpoint for Modernism. The date marks the end of WWII, and a momentous shift in world politics as well as in the most prominent social, cultural, and literary values. Personally, I prefer to use the year 1939 as a demarcation point. It is the beginning of WWII, and symbolically represents the same political and cultural changes brought about by the war as 1945 would represent. There is, however, a specific literary reason to use 1939 rather than 1945: it is the publication year of James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake. Insofar as Modernism is characterized chiefly by experimentation in structure, form, and technique, Finnegans Wake is the ultimate work of Modernism. It is truly the pinnacle of this experimentation and novelty. After the Wake, it is no longer possible for a writer to attempt to supersede his or her predecessors in the way Modernists often strove to do. As such, the Modernist movement had reached its natural teleological conclusion, and anything which came after must be part of a different part of literary history.
More on the Modernist Aesthetic:
Pieter Bruegel the Elder (c. 1525 - 1569) - Landscape with the Fall of Icarus
Marcel Duchamp - Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 (1912)
The goal of accomplishing something which, artistically speaking, had never been done before was often accompanied by a sense of despair due to the inherent difficulty (and sometimes the apparent impossibility) of accomplishing that goal. This despair coincided with a changing worldview that filtered throughout British and much of European and American society. While the pre-Modernist world is characterized by sense of order and stability rooted in the meaningful nature of faith, collective social values, and a clear sense of identity (both personal and cultural), the Modernist period is characterized by a sense of chaotic instability rooted in the revelation that collective social values are not particularly meaningful, leading to faithlessness, skepticism, and a confused sense of identity. This worldview is prominent in much (though certainly not all) Modernist literature, perhaps most famously in the fragmented verse of T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land.
An excellent visual depiction of this distinction between the pre-Modernist and Modernist ideology appears to the right. The painting at left is Bruegel's Landscape with the Fall of Icarus (the inspiration for W. H. Auden's poem "Musée des Beaux Arts"). Notice the clear imagery: the coastline with the seaside town; the shepherd with his dog and his flock; the plowman working his field; the ships, the sunset, and the flailing legs of the fallen Icarus. The images are clear, as is the classical allusion, and likely the message. Compare that to the painting at the right, Marcel Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase. Notice the fragmented imagery, the multiple perspective coalescing into a single view. If not for the title, many people would have no idea what the painting is supposed to depict. The clarity and order which characterize Bruegel's painting are entirely absent, replaced by a sense of chaos, confusion, and futility of meaning.
What is postmodernism? What are the Characteristics of Postmodern Literature?
Post-modernism
Post-modernism is the term used to suggest a reaction or response to modernism in the late twentieth century. So postmodernism can only be understood in relation to Modernism. At its core, Postmodernism rejects that which Modernism champions. While postmodernism seems very much like modernism in many ways, it differs from modernism in its attitudse toward a lot of these trends. Modernism, for example, tends to present a fragmented view of human subjectivity and history, but presents that fragmentation as something tragic, something to be lamented and mourned as a loss. Postmodernism, in contrast, doesn't lament the idea of fragmentation, provisionality, or incoherence, but rather celebrates that. In literature, it used to sdescribe certain characteristics of post–World War II literature, for example, on fragmentation, paradox, questionable narrators, etc. and a reaction against Enlightenment ideas implicit in Modernist literature.
Characteristics of Post-modernism:
Because of some similar characteristics of modernism and postmodernism, critics some time become confuse to differentiate one from the other. It would be more helpful if we discuss the characteristics of post-modernism in compare and contrast to modernism.
Like modernism, postmodernism also believes the view that there is no absolute truth and truth is relative. Postmodernism asserts that truth is not mirrored in human understanding of it, but is rather constructed as the mind tries to understand its own personal reality. So, facts and falsehood are interchangeable. For example, in classical work such as King Oedipus there is only one truth that is “obey your fate”. In contrast to classical work in postmodern work such as in Waiting for Godot, there is no such thing as absolute truth. All things are relative here.
Whereas Modernism places faith in the ideas, values, beliefs, culture, and norms of the West, Postmodernism rejects Western values and beliefs as only a small part of the human experience and often rejects such ideas, beliefs, culture, and norms.
Whereas Modernism attempts to reveal profound truths of experience and life, Postmodernism is suspicious of being "profound" because such ideas are based on one particular Western value systems.
Whereas Modernism attempts to find depth and interior meaning beneath the surface of objects and events, Postmodernism prefers to dwell on the exterior image and avoids drawing conclusions or suggesting underlying meanings associated with the interior of objects and events.
Whereas Modernism focused on central themes and a united vision in a particular piece of literature, Postmodernism sees human experience as unstable, internally contradictory, ambiguous, inconclusive, indeterminate, unfinished, fragmented, discontinuous, "jagged," with no one specific reality possible. Therefore, it focuses on a vision of a contradictory, fragmented, ambiguous, indeterminate, unfinished, "jagged" world.
Whereas Modern authors guide and control the reader’s response to their work, the Postmodern writer creates an "open" work in which the reader must supply his own connections, work out alternative meanings, and provide his own (unguided) interpretation.
Source: http://faculty.univ.edu
www.literary-articals.com
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