Modernism

Modernism —
Concepts
Dr. Joel Peckham
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Modernism Overview

Modernism is far too general a term to break down into a simple definition. Unlike Romanticism, one cannot list a set of philosophical beliefs or stylistic characteristics that would broadly apply to every Modern Writer. The Modern Period could be argued to extend from the late 19th century to the mid-twentieth century and could include any author writing during that period—even if that author hated the modern world and Modernist thinking. In fact, the reactionary impulse—to go back to a time that was more civilized, more Godly, more rational, more whole—may be the most modern of all impulses as it is reflected in the work of Yeats, Eliot, Stevens, Pound, and Jeffers. It may be most useful, then to look at Modern Writers as those authors who responded to the particular challenges that various upheavals from that era posed to the individual. The industrial revolution and its corresponding scientific advances, two major world wars, the development of the atomic bomb, The Great Depression, the Russian Revolution, the end of slavery in the United States, a burgeoning Women’s Movement, the influence of African Americans on world art and music etc., all combined to create a world in which the old order of things seemed to have been upended and there was no clear sense of a new direction being offered. For some artists, this meant a realization of the freedom only hinted at by the Romantics, for some it meant a disorienting, fragmented, and purposeless reality in which the individual was lost in a churning mass of humanity. What follows is a by no means exhaustive list of terms important to Modernism and Modernists with examples drawn from literature and art intended to stimulate discussion.
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15 Terms Cont.
Deracination: Rootlessness. The sense of being disconnected from the land, the earth, what is natural. Agrarianism: A direct response to the industrialization of America in general and the South in particular—a reactionary movement led by Southern Writers like John Crowe Ransom, Allen Tate, and Robert Penn Warren. This movement emphasized closeness to the land, a spiritual connection between man and God, and for some writers a return to classic forms of literature. Many Agrarians were also segregationists. Segregationist: Someone who believed that the solution to the African American "Problem" was complete separation of the races. Politicized, it meant Jim Crow laws in the South. But it was also embraced by some American authors of the south —seen as a reactionary impulse to return to the ways of the Southern past. Like Nazism it can be seen as a powerful effort to impose order on a world in which old values and systems of belief were under threat from new ways of thinking and the questioning of authority
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15 Terms Cont.
Absurd Hero: The outlook of the absurd hero is this: determined to continue living with passion even though life appears to be meaningless. The absurd hero does not look back in regret or forward with hope--he or she simply accepts life as it is and keep going in accordance with a personal code. Alienation: Quite simply the sense of being completely disconnected from, rejected by and even repulsed by one's culture—including one's nation, religion, and social class. Misogyny: In many ways modernism is a reaction against Romanticism, that would include the Romantic idealization of the feminine. Many male modernist writers work with an outright hostility toward the feminine, seeing it as the voice of society (an empty realm of superficial value).
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15 Terms

Existentialism: A philosophy that emphasizes the uniqueness and isolation of individual experience in a hostile or indifferent universe, regards human existence as unexplainable, and stresses freedom of choice and responsibility for the consequences of one's acts. The Problem of Radical Freedom: Derives from the existential belief in absolute freedom—the idea that men can literally do anything and are totally responsible for their own actions. Of course in a world with infinite choices and no clear guide for action, this freedom can be terrifying, leading to Existential Panic: A condition in which the individual, completely aware of his freedom and his responsibility, is overwhelmed by that awareness and cannot act. It can also be defined by the panic caused when one cannot discover his purpose or value in the universe.
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15 Terms Cont.
Fragmentation: An extremely important modernist concept, characterized by the effects of an increasingly industrial world on the individual. Many modernists felt that the city and the assembly line—as well the killing machines of war—literally fragmented the individual, treating men as interchangeable, valueless, pieces of some gigantic machine. Ratiocination: The act of wandering around, nomadically—a sense of being lost, of belonging to nothing, no-one and nowhere. Feminism: Belief in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes. Important in modernism because it inspired great writers like Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Susan Glaspell, Edna St. Vincent Millay and later Adrienne Rich to find their voices in counterpoint to the dominant machismo of the period. Though modern writers were often misogynists, this misogyny was in itself a recognition and response to the increasing economic, political and social power brought on by increasing freedoms afforded different groups as the industrial revolution heated up.