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Literary Modernism from 1 st two decades of 20 th century . . . (to today ?)

Belief in Western Science & Technology to effect Progress achieves status of a religion in pre-World War I Western Europe Western European Imperialism: dominates 4/5 of Earth’s land surface, represented as enlightened force of peace & progress.

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Literary Modernism from 1 st two decades of 20 th century . . . (to today ?)

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  1. Belief in Western Science & Technology to effect Progress achieves status of a religion in pre-World War I Western Europe Western European Imperialism: dominates 4/5 of Earth’s land surface, represented as enlightened force of peace & progress Industrialism’s 2nd wave: electricity, chemicals, oil, trans-portation, communica-tion technology prep for automobile, telephone, radio, airplane Literary Modernism from 1st two decades of 20th century . . . (to today ?)

  2. e.g Thomas Hardy: Dark mood of human winter; stern, stoic look at senseless universe > anarchy & perverse tragic ironies of elemental human passions & fate’s “Crass Doomsters” (Chance, Time, Causality) Aesthetic Movement, Decadence, Fin-de-siecle - e.g. Oscar Wilde (1)Artists/Writers alienated by “Philistine” middle-class culture e.g. > Matthew Arnold Later C19th Mood (1870-1901)

  3. (2) Art for Art’s Sake: Art’s Independence as (pseudo-religious) end in itself: Unique, special (mythic-symbolic) value in form, language inseparable from meaning (3) Aestheticism descends into excesses of Decadence: hedonistic, emotional debauchery, degeneration Fin de siecle[>French = “end of century”] mood: melancholy, witty, sophisticated ennui (world weariness), doom Eve of earth-shaking changes Late 19th century Mood, cont.

  4. Edwardian England > Edward VII (r. 1901-1910) = hedonism, conspicuous consumption (by those who could afford it) Consciously anti-Victorian: attacks on Victorian art & respectability (family, education, religion), position of women, British Empire e.g. Samuel Taylor Butler’sWay of All Flesh (1884; 1903); & Lytton Strachey’sEminent Victorians (1918) Anti-colonialism > fueled by U.K.-Boer War (1899-1902), Irish nationalism, & works like Heart of Darkness Edwardian (1901-1910) & Georgian England (1910 – 1914+): Pre-World War I Storm

  5. Artists’ alienation from grey, bureaucratic, urban contemporary society = a sterile, materialistic “waste land” of “hollow men”: “Mistah Kurtz—he dead” [>Conrad, HofD] Radical break from “hollow” religion, art history, knowledge, morality, self of trad. Western civilization Artists & writers seek inspiration from new sources + turn inwardto create new artistic forms for rendering contemporary chaos, disorder, alienation; & search for meaning Literary ModernismEarly 20th century - Post-WW I

  6. Imagism (Ezra Pound) in US, UK & W. Europe:“Make It New!” Hard, clear, precise images > haiku(vs. Rom. fuzziness & emotionalism) Direct treatment of the thing (subjective or objective) Free metrical movement Short, sharply etched, descriptive lyric (but no method for longer, complex poems) Modernist Poetic Revolution

  7. New Apocalypse: Idealism replaced by profound disillusion-ment, cynicism, despair Catastrophe of WWI further shook faith in Western civilization, imperialism, & cultural values Wilfred Owen (1893-KIA: 1918): “The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est / Pro patria mori” The Great War (to end all wars)1914-1918

  8. W. B. Yeats’s career spans literary movements: 1890s’ Aestheticism gives way to tough, spare, ironic language of Modernism, but also heir of Romantics: >Wm Blake: create own system of be enslaved by another’s; warring contraries=progression; Creates complex mystical system (like Blake) Spiritus Mundi = storehouse of all human experience & know-ledge(Jung: archetypes, collective unconscious) W. B. Yeats (Irish, 1865-1939)

  9. Human history: alternating 2000-year cycles, @ antithetical to values, beliefs of cycle before ca. 1900 = at end of Christian era -”center cannot hold”-antithetical new era (“rough beast” ) now slouching toward Bethlehem to be born Yeats’s metaphor: interlocking cones or spirals (“widening gyre”): Blake: without warring Contraries,”no progression Yeats & “Second Coming”

  10. New Apocalypse: “Second Coming” rivals Heart of Darkness as source of phrases and metaphors used to describe the Modern experience of the 20th century WWI fosters Modernism: chaos of (dis)belief, ominous forbidding future Yeats’s verbal magic: rich symbols, haunting cadences, emotionally suggestive Yeats & “Second Coming”

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