Modernism

INTRODUCTION

The Modernist Period in English Literature occupied the years from shortly after the beginning of the twentieth century through roughly 1965. In broad terms, the period was marked by sudden and unexpected breaks with traditional ways of viewing and interacting with the world. 

Experimentation and individualism became virtues, where in the past they were often heartily discouraged.Modernism was set in motion, in one sense, through a series of cultural shocks. The first of these great shocks was the Great War, which ravaged Europe from 1914 through 1918, known now as World War One. At the time, this “War to End All Wars” was looked upon with such ghastly horror that many people simply could not imagine what the world seemed to be plunging towards. The first hints of that particular way of thinking called Modernism stretch back into the nineteenth century.

As literary periods go, Modernism displays a relatively strong sense of cohesion and similarity across genres and locales. Furthermore, writers who adopted the Modern point of view often did so quite deliberately and self-consciously. Indeed, a central preoccupation of Modernism is with the inner self and consciousness. In contrast to the Romantic world view, the Modernist cares rather little for Nature, Being, or the overarching structures of history. Instead of progress and growth, the Modernist intelligentsia sees decay and a growing alienation of the individual. The machinery of modern society is perceived as impersonal, capitalist, and antagonistic to the artistic impulse. War most certainly had a great deal of influence on such ways of approaching the world. Two World Wars in the span of a generation effectively shell-shocked all of Western civilization.

In Modernist literature, it was the poets who took fullest advantage of the new spirit of the times, and stretched the possibilities of their craft to lengths not previously imagined. In general, there was a disdain for most of the literary production of the last century. The novel was by no means immune from the self-conscious, reflective impulses of the new century. Modernism introduced a new kind of narration to the novel, one that would fundamentally change the entire essence of novel writing. The “unreliable” narrator supplanted the omniscient, trustworthy narrator of preceding centuries, and readers were forced to question even the most basic assumptions about how the novel should operate. Rather than looking out into the world, the great novelists of the early twentieth century surveyed the inner space of the human mind. At the same time, the psychoanalytic theories of Sigmund Freud had come into mainstream acceptance. These two forces worked together to alter people’s basic understanding of what constituted truth and reality.

The cynicism and alienation of the first flowering of Modernist literature could not persist. By mid-century, indeed by the Second World War, there was already a strong reaction against the pretentions of the Moderns. Artists of this newer generation pursued a more democratic, pluralistic mode for poetry and the novel. There was optimism for the first time in a long time. Commercialism, publicity, and the popular audience were finally embraced, not shunned. Alienation became boring. True, the influence of Modernist literature continues to be quite astonishing. The Modern poet-critics changed the way people think about artists and creative pursuits. The Modern novelists changed the way many people perceive truth and reality. These changes are indeed profound, and cannot easily be replaced by new schemas.

The major author of this period is Ruben Darío, also known as "The Father Of Modernism, whom was a an acclaimed Nicaraguan poet, essayist, and journalist who introduced the style known as Modernism to Spanish Literature. He was born on January 18, 1867, in Metapa, Nicaragua, would immerse himself in various forms of literaty study and exploration. In books of poetry and prose like Azul and Prosas Profanas. He died on February 6, 1916.

CHARACTERISTICS:
The Modernist authors were simultaneously positivists, by hostility to the established conventions, and antipositivists, by reaction against a system in which the spiritual tendencies did not have place. Trying to affiliate them with a philosophy is so impossible and absurd as trying to affiliate them with a party. From Platon and Pythagoras, mainly from this last one, or the doctrines that are protected under their name, the rhythmical conception of the universe and the life arrived to the Modernists, and it became the axis of their poetic creation.

The common topics of the Modernist literature are:

• Sensory beauty and flight from the world: Modernists want to escape their world and take refuge in a perfect, utopian world, where everything is beautiful and expressive. They want to escape from their day-to-day and routine. They feel predilection towards the Middle Ages, the classic world and the Renaissance, as well as for the France of the 17th and 18th centuries and other far away and exotic places. Settings are usually genteel and the characters tend to be princesses, mythological and literary heroes, knights... Swans and the color blue are important for Modernists, the first because they remind him of aristocrats (in opposition to the bourgeoisie), and the latter because it symbolizes freedom. The tendency of evading from reality is a reminder of Romanticism.
• The writer's inner world: Modernists oppose Realism, which is centered around the observation of the outside world, while Modernism revolves more around the feelings and emotions of the writers, which are sometimes reflected in landscapes. They also talk about sensuality and the idealization of love and women.

The style of the Modernist literature is a very characteristic one. Modernists choose their words very carefully to produce colorful and musical effects. The use of phonic resources like onomatopoeias and alliterations is quite common, as well as figures of speech like metaphors, allegories, parallels and synesthesia. Adjectives and exotic, foreign or peculiar sounding words are also used often, and they recover some types of verses used in the past, like the alexandrine verses. Old stanzas are brought back and new ones are created.

In Spain there's a parallel movement called "Generation of '98", which shares some of the characteristics of Modernist literature, but which is also quite different in some other aspects.

When being taught in Spanish Schools, both movement are normally put together into one, but there are differences that have to be acknowledged.

CONCLUSION: After mentioning how the Modernism period was formed and it's characteristics as a literary movement, we're amused how Ruben Darío influenced this period, and that without his influence , we wouldn't know Modernism Period as it is nowadays. How this period took magical thoughts about the Romanticism and new and different ideologies. Let the Modernism enter into your knowledge and travel back in time to be amused about this movement.