Modernism and the Modern Novel Essay - 565 Words

Modernism and the Modern Novel ============================== The term modernism refers to the radical shift in aesthetic and cultural sensibilities evident in the art and literature of the post-World War One period. The ordered, stable and inherently meaningful world view of the nineteenth century could not, wrote T.S. Eliot, accord with the immense panorama of futility and anarchy which is contemporary history. Modernism thus marks a distinctive break with Victorian bourgeois morality; rejecting nineteenth-century optimism, they presented a profoundly pessimistic picture of a culture in disarray. This despair often results in an apparent apathy and moral relativism. In literature, the movement is associated with the†¦show more content†¦(Barth, The Literature of Replenishment 68) Modernism is often derided for abandoning the social world in favour of its narcissistic interest in language and its processes. Recognizing the failure of language to ever fully communicate meaning (Thats not it at all, thats not what I meant at all laments Eliots J. Alfred Prufrock), the modernists generally downplayed content in favour of an investigation of form. The fragmented, non-chronological, poetic forms utilized by Eliot and Pound revolutionized poetic language. Modernist formalism, however, was not without its political cost. Many of the chief Modernists either flirted with fascism or openly espoused it (Eliot, Yeats, Hamsun and Pound). This should not be surprising: modernism is markedly non-egalitarian; its disregard for the shared conventions of meaning make many of its supreme accomplishments (eg. Eliots The Wasteland, Pounds Cantos, Joyces Finnegans Wake, Woolfs The Waves) largely inaccessible to theShow MoreRelatedFundamentalism and Modern People Essay613 Words   |  3 Pagescan be considered in the novel â€Å"Persepolis.† One of the major themes that can be found in the book is fundamentalism vs. modernism/western ideals. The author, Satrapi uses fundamentalism and modernism to show that there are multiple opposing sides to how society should be run. She clearly depicts this idea through various images and context in the novel, giving the reader a clear understanding of a conflict between two different groups. 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