Modernist Literature

Modernism and Modernist Literature

“Make it new” (Lewis, The Cambridge Introduction to Modernism 26). This short statement by the poet Ezra Pound could explain the major characteristics of both modernism and modernist literature. In modernism, a rejection of traditional conventions for representing the world and the construction of works of art is the founding character trait (3). This break with tradition includes a strong reaction towards established religious, political and social views and a general point of view that truth is relative. Rather than rejecting conventions as a whole, modernism seeks to introduce new and more authentic manners of representation. In modernist literature, Pounds’ slogan can be applied in that the writers and poets began to experiment with language in response to the complexity of reality they consciously experienced. Examples include the introduction of the free verse, a violation of the syntax as well as the stream of consciousness in order to trace non-linear thought processes (1). However, a distinction is to be made between modernism and modernist literature. While in modern art works artists distanced themselves from mimesis -the depiction of reality- in modernist literature this aspect (apart from Dadaist experiments) mainly continued. A difference is that modernist literature found new methods to do so (such as the linguistic ones mentioned).

By looking at modernist literature as a historical concept, it is important to remark that modernists became consciously aware that their thoughts and behaviour were largely determined by historically rooted factors- exactly the systems that formed a constraint and they seeked to escape from. However, seeing modernist literature as a historic concept also means that artists included significant historic events within their works in order to raise awareness or to protest against it- such as the hegemony that resulted out of the so called “liberalist” order in the 19^th century where mostly the bourgeoisie held the possibility to be in power and which the modernists thus protested against through their works (12)

There are also a variety of issues when regarding modernist literature as a national concept- of which the very concept of a nation itself is one. A nation does not consist of a homogeneous society but rather different kinds of people, different political point of views and different social backgrounds to name a few examples. The United States is an example for why conceptualising modernist literature on a national level can be problematic. Due to the country’s pluralistic society, there was disagreement among the writers and artists on what the “true” American identity as well as American culture could be that artists or writers could depict in their works. Rather than functioning as an enrichment for arts, the boundaries set by rules through a national identity can narrow down the writer’s possibilities as he or she would be constantly thinking whether her or his work could be considered “British enough” or “American enough” (Morrisson, Nationalism and the modern American canon, 13).

Not only is it problematic to regard modernist literature as a national concept, but there are some major issues associated with defining modernism and its literature in the first place. First of all, it is not possible to give a precise definition of both vague terms as they are both subject to contest and the subjective opinion of the artist on what can be considered modern. As mentioned, they are often the result or the answer to political and social developments within their periods which is why there cannot be a set definition of how modernism or modernist literature should look like- because they are dynamic processes.

There is also a question that arises when dealing with modernist writers or artists whose intention was to create art against the market driven consumer society we find ourselves in nowadays- are they still allowed to be entitled modernists when they have gained international recognition and acquired wealth?