what is modernism

Modernism is a literary, artistic, and political movement beginning at the end of the nineteenth century and continuing into the middle of the twentieth. In general, modernism stretches from 1899 to 1945, but can also be subdivided into early modernism, 1899 to 1914, and high modernism, 1914 to 1945. Lacking a concise definition of my own, I find myself drawn to a line of The Waste Land noted in our course materials. While the poem itself is a famous work of modernism incorporating many of the thematic and formal hallmarks of the movement, one line in particular sees the fullest expression of these characteristics. For example, “These fragments I have shored against my ruins” illustrates some particular formal and thematic elements indicative of work of the period.

Fragmentation, for instance, was common in literature of the time. Poetry was often disjointed and novels such as Faulkner’s The Sound and The Fury contain passages wherein separate thoughts and dialogues are often indistinguishable from one another. The world climate and a population reeling from staggering violence and death as a result of World War I and vexed emotions regarding technology as both salvation and destruction set the stage for fear and unease which then manifested itself in literature as fragmented sentences and seemingly incohesive thoughts. This is slightly different albeit related to Christopher Reed’s observation that modernism is “a cascade of oppositions.”

Perhaps it was the trauma resulting from the events of the war that led to a desire to reinvent much of literature and, by extension, a reinvention of the authors who created it in order to jump start the healing process. This is most available in Ezra Pound’s resounding command to “make it new.” The movement is described by Michael Levenson as “turbulent,” but how could it be anything but in a world that was not only shrinking--the emergence of a global community resulting in increased technology--but also now aware of the horrors of violent conflict in that global community. This was further magnified by the industrial revolution’s impact on weaponry as well as other less apocalyptic improvements.

These non-violent and less morbid changes occurring during the decades in which modernism thrived are mentioned by Reed and helped give the era a recognizable look and feel. Aesthetically speaking, “high-tech design and abstract art became the look of modernity” as did “the refusal of norms of beauty” (Levenson 3). The authors themselves, individuals such as T.S Eliot, Ezra Pound, Virginia Woolf, and T.E Hulme, H.D., Joseph Conrad, and Gertrude Stein to name a few, were often serious and able to write, even in times of personal strife. Other names commonly associated with modernism include composers Stravinsky and Schoenberg, artists like Picasso, and architect Walter Gropius. In general, the movement and the work resulting from it are regarded as masculine despite the contributions of women, an inaccurate perception these women often addressed.

Personally, it was the intersection of gender and modernism that I found most intriguing in these readings. It was a pairing that I neglected to focus on in my own very limited study of modernism, but one which I am grateful for as I will now read these texts with an eye towards gender and its implications. I find it interesting although not surprising that it was the female writers, Woolf for instance, who focused more on gender in their writing. It seems the marginalized groups, be they race, gender, class etc. are the ones who must explore it in their work. It was though a single sentence in one of Scott’s introductions which struck me: “Modernism, particularly as negotiated through the cultural complex of gender, in the broader scope of modernity, and verging upon challenges of globalism is “new” once again. I imagine I gravitate towards this line since it incorporates a discussion of gender with the maxim that has stuck with me and defines so much of what I notice in the writing of the time.