Literature

The Main Characteristics of Modernist Literature
By Josh Patrick

Literature scholars classify the years from 1900 to about 1965 as the Modernist period. During this period, society at every level underwent profound changes. War and industrialization seemed to devalue the individual. Global communication made the world a smaller place. The pace of change was dizzying. Writers responded to thisnew world in a variety of ways.

Modernist writers proclaimed a new "subject matter" for literature and they felt that their new way of looking at life required a new form, a new way of writing. Writers of this period tend to pursue more experimental and usually more highly individualistic forms of writing. The sense of a changing world was stimulated by radical new developments, such as:* new insights from the emerging fields of psychology and sociology
* anthropological studies of comparative religion
* new theories of electromagnetism and quantum physics
* a growing critique of British imperialism and the ideology of empire
* the growing force of doctrines of racial superiority in Germany
* the escalation of warfare to a global level
* shiftingpower structures, particularly as women enter the work force
* the emergence of a new "city consciousness"
* new information technologies such as radio and cinema
* the advent of mass democracy and the rise of mass communication
* fin-de-siècle ["end-of-the-century"] consciousness

Individualism
In Modernist literature, the individual is more interesting than society.Specifically, modernist writers were fascinated with how the individual adapted to the changing world. In some cases, the individual triumphed over obstacles. For the most part, Modernist literature featured characters who just kept their heads above water. Writers presented the world or society as a challenge to the integrity of their characters. Ernest Hemingway is especially remembered for vividcharacters who accepted their circumstances at face value and persevered.

Experimentation
Modernist writers broke free of old forms and techniques. Poets abandoned traditional rhyme schemes and wrote in free verse. Novelists defied all expectations. Writers mixed images from the past with modern languages and themes, creating a collage of styles. The inner workings of consciousness were a commonsubject for modernists. This preoccupation led to a form of narration called stream of consciousness, where the point of view of the novel meanders in a pattern resembling human thought.

Absurdity
The carnage of two World Wars profoundly affected writers of the period. Several great English poets died or were wounded in the First World War. At the same time, global capitalism was reorganizingsociety at every level. For many writers, the world was becoming a more absurd place every day. The mysteriousness of life was being lost in the rush of daily life. The Holocaust of the Second World War was yet more evidence that humanity had taken a wrong turn.

Symbolism
The Modernist writers infused objects, people, places and events with significant meanings. They imagined a reality withmultiple layers, many of them hidden or in a sort of code. The idea of a poem as a riddle to be cracked had its beginnings in the Modernist period. Symbolism was not a new concept in literature, but the Modernists' particular use of symbols was an innovation. They left much more to the reader's imagination than earlier writers, leading to open-ended narratives with multiple interpretations.Formalism
Writers of the Modernist period saw literature more as a craft than a flowering of creativity. They believed that poems and novels were constructed from smaller parts instead of the organic, internal process that earlier generations had described. The idea of literature as craft fed the Modernists' desire for creativity and originality. Modernist poetry often includes foreign languages,...