Beginnings of the Modern Age

1. Beginnings of the Modern Age

2. Modernism Definition • Modernism • a term typically associated with the twentieth-century reaction against realism and romanticism within the arts. More generally,it is often used to refer to a twentieth-century belief in the virtuesof science, technology and the planned management of social change. • Modern literature developed in a turbulent era characterized by extremes – both despair and exuberance. The violence of WWI caused many people to lose faith in traditional values. Following the war, an economic boom ushered in an age of prosperity and confidence. Writers of the time crated new literary works that mirrored this period of rapid change and clashing values. Turn to page 635 in your books – let’s go through and look at the historical, social, and cultural changes of the time period.

3. A Working Definition • Modernism is a cultural movement which rebelled against Victorian values • emphasis on nationalism & cultural absolutism. • placing humans over and outside of nature. • belief in a single way of looking at the world, and in absolute and clear-cut dichotomies between right and wrong, good and bad, and hero and villain. • seeing the world as being governed by God's will, and that each person and thing in this world had a specific use.

4. A Working Definition • Modernism is a cultural movement which rebelled against Victorian values • seeing the world as neatly divided between "civilized" and "savage" peoples. • According to Victorians, the "civilized" were those from industrialized nations, cash-based economies, Protestant Christian traditions, and patriarchal societies; the "savage" were those from agrarian or hunter-gatherer tribes, barter-based economies, "pagan" or "totemistic" traditions, and matriarchal (or at least "unmanly" societies).

5. In contrast, Modernists • rebelled against Victorian ideals • emphasized humanism over nationalism, and argued for cultural relativism. • emphasized the ways in which humans were part of and responsible to nature. • argued for multiple ways of looking at the world, and blurred the Victorian dichotomies by presenting antiheroes, uncategorizable persons.

6. In contrast, Modernists • challenged the idea that God played an active role in the world, which led them to challenge the Victorian assumption that there was meaning and purpose behind world events. • Instead, Modernists argued that no thing or person was born for a specific use; instead, they found or made their own meaning in the world. • Challenging the Victorian dichotomy between "civilized" and "savage," Modernists reversed the values associated with each kind of culture. • Modernists presented the Victorian "civilized" as greedy and warmongering (instead of being industrialized nations and cash-based economies), as hypocrites (rather than Christians), and as enemies of freedom and self-realization (instead of good patriarchs).

7. Literary Characteristics • "a general term applied retrospectively to the wide range of experimental & avant-garde trends in the literature (and other arts) of the early 20th century.... • Modernist literature is characterized chiefly by a rejection of 19th century traditions and of their consensus between author and reader: conventions of realism ... or traditional meter. • Modernist writers tended to see themselves as an avant-garde disengaged from bourgeois values, and disturbed their readers by adopting complex and difficult new forms and styles. • Modernist writing is predominantly cosmopolitan, and often expresses a sense of urban cultural dislocation, along with an awareness of new anthropological and psychological theories. Its favored techniques of juxtaposition and multiple point of view challenge the reader to re-establish a coherence of meaning from fragmentary forms."

8. Avant - Garde • The concept of the avant-garde is that of a loosely organized oppositional force and challenge to the dominant artistic culture. The avant-garde is often thought of as part of the "inner logic of modernism" - the built in source of contradiction or critique that moves art forward. • Refers to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics.

9. The Scream THINK … Who is a modern day avant-garde artist?? Guernica Three Musicians

10. The…. Lady Gaga

11. New Poetics – Big Idea 1 • Many poets tried new ways to express themselves- this turned into modernism. • Some people thought modernism was an assault on literature. • Modernism spoke eloquently the mind and the heart and the heart of the individual. • Modern poets sought to “Make it New!” • Even painters felt the same way- Pablo Picasso (Avant Garde) • The Imagist Movements, largely funded by Ezra Pound, flourished after 1910. • Imagist poets believed that traditional poetry wasted energy by describing, generalizing, and rhyming.

12. New Poetics – Big Idea 1 • T.S. Eliot used wide ranging allusions… what’s an allusion? • ALLUSION - references to history, art, and literature. • Eliot believed the effects of war and industry had shattered the human spirit. • E.E. Cummings broke ALL the rules. • He didn’t care for literary conventions… what does this mean? • Odd arrangements of words, punctuation, and capitalization. • He insisted on this irregular use because it celebrated the individual! • Robert Frost, on the other hand, did not follow the Modernist lead… he held firm to the literary tradition.

13. PROJECT • Turn to page 640-641. • You will be assigned one of the red headings to research with a partner. • You will create a Glog or a PowerPoint. requirements • 10 facts about your topic. • 5 pictures of your topic. • Personal synopsis of how your topic led to the Modern Literary Movement. 5-8 sentences.