1、THE BLOOM OF MODERNISM 19101945INTRODUCTIONThe Era of ModernismThe English novelist Virginia Woolf once said that “on or about December 1910, human nature changed.” Of course human nature did not change, and Woolf knew it. What she meant was that the perception of human nature and of the human condi

2、tion changed, and that the new perceptions were often expressed in startling and bewildering ways. Virginia WoolfLife in the early 20th century seemed suddenly different. New inventions allowed people to travel from place to place with a speed that was never before possible. The telephone, the radio

3、, and the widespread availability of books, newspapers, and magazines all made people more aware of how others lived and thought. A person living in a remote village learned more about the variety and complexity of life on this planet than even a well-educated person living in a big city had known i

4、n the last century. The modern mind found this new knowledge exciting, but it was also bewildered by all the conflicting philosophies and ways of life.The years from 1910 to 1930 are often called the Era of Modernism, for there seems to have been in both Europe and America a strong awareness of some

5、 sort of “break” with the past. Movements in all the arts overlapped and succeeded one another with amazing speedImagism, Cubism In cubist artworks, objects are broken up, analyzed, and re-assembled in an abstracted forminstead of depicting objects from one viewpoint, the artist depicts the subject

6、from a multitude of viewpoints to represent the subject in a greater context. Often the surfaces intersect at seemingly random angles presenting no coherent sense of depth. The background and object planes interpenetrate one another to create the ambiguous shallow space characteristic of cubism., Da

7、daism Dadaism or Dada is a cultural movement that began in World War I and peaked from 1916 to 1920. The movement concentrated its anti war politic through a rejection of the prevailing standards in art. Dada thought that reason and logic had led people into the horrors of war, so the only route to

8、salvation was to reject logic and embrace anarchy and irrationality., Vorticism Vorticism was a short lived British art movement of the early 20th century. It is considered to be the only significant British movement of the early 20th century but lasted less than 3 years. Though the style grew out o

9、f Cubism, it is more closely related to Futurism in its embrace of dynamism, the machine age and all things modern. However, Vorticism diverged from Futurism in the way that it tried to capture movement in an image. In a Vorticist painting modern life is shown as an array of bold lines and harsh col

10、ors drawing the viewers eye into the centre of the canvas., and many others. The new artists shared a desire to capture the complexity of modern life, to focus on the variety and confusion of A picture of Cubism the 20th century by reshaping and sometimes discarding the ideas and habits of the 19th

11、century. The Era of Modernism was indeed the era of the New. Modernist LiteratureWhen we speak of Modernist literature, we speak of a broad range of artists and movements all seeking, in varying degrees, to break with the style, form, and content of the 19th century. Old ways of seeing, old ways of

12、making sense of experience, just did not seem to work anymore for 20th-century writers. “Make it new” was the cry of Ezra Pound, and most other writers of the time worked vigorously and self-consciously to make their poems and plays and novels new and different.Modern psychology had a profound impac

13、t on the literature of the early 20th century, and most great Modernist writers were interested in the workings of the human mind. Ordinary discourse had always put thoughts in a linear, cause-and-effect order: “If this is true and that is true, then this must be true.” Now came the recognition that

14、 the human mind does not always follow this straight-line pattern; we often think by leaping from association to association in what the psychologist William James called the “stream of consciousness.”Gertrude Stein, a pupil of Jamess, tried to capture this “stream” through such devices as repetitio

15、n and run-on sentences. The greatest practitioner of the Modernist style, however, was the Irish novelist James Joyce, whose Ulysses (1922) is sometimes said to be the last novel ever written because it took prose narrative to its most extreme point. Joyces influence was extraordinary, and although

16、novels are of course still being written all over the world, they are written with a heightened awareness of the experiments of Joyce.Modernists took risks as they wrote in new forms and styles. In “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” T. S. Eliot attempts to duplicate the “stream” of Prufrocks thou

17、ghts in a dramatic monologue. The result is a series of fragments that the reader must piece together.Modernist literature is often experimental in form and in content. Poetry usually discards the 19th-century traditions of meter and rhyme. Free verse is the tool of most Modernist poets, and even if

18、 a poem retains some rhymes, the poet rarely puts them in the usual places. The visual appearance of poetry is also a significant factor, another means of breaking with traditions. Modernist literature is often fragmentary, reflecting not only the “stream of consciousness” but the Modernist percepti

19、on of the 20th century as a jumble of conflicting ideas. Sometimes we are presented with only one fragment, the manner of presentation implying that there is no larger whole; the fragment “is what it is.” This is true of Ezra Pounds and Doolittles Imagist poetry, and of most of the poems of Gertrude

20、 Stein. Modernists often insist that their readers participate and draw their own conclusions. Direct statements of abstract ideas or emotions are usually avoided. The Modernist shows rather than tells. In Imagist poetry, for example, an image is used to capture an emotion; the poet does not tell us

21、, “This is how I felt.” In the attempt to capture the bewilderment of modern life, Modernist literature is sometimes intentionally puzzling. We may sometimes miss the esoteric allusions in the poetry of Pound and Eliot, and we can never be sure why “so much depends” on Williams red wheelbarrow. The

22、point may be that the mystery itself is the “message.” If there is something we do not know, we may not be meant to know it but rather be puzzled by it and so to think about the mystery again and again.The degrees to which writers of this period adapted Modernist techniques vary greatly. Some writer

23、s did take comfort in the pattern and discipline of 19th-century literary forms. In content, however, these writers are part of the Modernist era: Their subject matter shows that they could not have been writing at any other time. In fact, one of the most fascinating aspects of Modernist literature

24、is the way each individual writer comes to terms with the changes of the time. Each poet or novelist seems to ask, “What does being new mean to me?” The responses of creative individuals produced the great variety of Modernist literature.The Modernist Achievement What did the modernists accomplish?

25、They took the first great steps in the search for a new art. They broke out of old forms and styles and generated new ones. They studied the elements of the past that could still be used and showed why the rest had to be put aside. They and those who followed them used the past to create a new relat

26、ionship with a new world. Wallace Stevens called this relationship “the supreme fiction,” a way of living in the world, creating it anew every day, and being open to change even as the world itself changes. The Modernist achievementin poetry, fiction, drama, in music and painting, in psychology and

27、philosophylies largely in throwing open for us the doors of possibility.T. S. Eliot 18881965Life and CareerThomas Stearns Eliot, a poet, dramatist and literary critic, received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1948. His great reputation lies in his poems “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” (1915)

28、, The Waste Land (1922), “The Hollow Men” (1925), “Ash Wednesday” (1930), and Four Quartets (1943); the plays Murder in the Cathedral (1935) and The Cocktail Party (1949); and the essay “Tradition and the Individual Talent”. Eliot was born an American, moved to the United Kingdom in 1914 (at the age

29、 of 25), became a British subject in 1927 (at the age of 39), and about the same time entered the Anglican Church.Born into a prominent St. Louis family and educated at Harvard as a student of philosophy, T. S. Eliot first met Ezra Pound in England in 1914. The two men were outwardly differentPound

30、rough, wild, Bohemia; Eliot the image of a polite, conservatively dressed gentlemanyet together, both as critics and as poets, they did more than anyone else to revolutionize literary tastes in the 20th century. In London, Eliots poetic genius was immediately recognized by Pound, who assisted him in

31、 the publication of his work in a number of magazines, most notably “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” in Poetry. His first book of poems, Prufrock and Other Observations, was published in 1917, and immediately established him as a leading poet of the avant-garde. With the publication of The Wast

32、e Land, now considered by many to rank with James Joyces novel Ulysses as the greatest success of Modernist movement in Anglo-American literature, The Waste Land became instantly famous among literary people, many of whom thought that it spoke for the postwar generation in its suggestion that the 20

33、th century was a fragmented, emotionally and spiritually a period. Few at the time saw the poems deeply religious concern nor did they recognize that in defining the condition of the modern “waste land,” Eliot was searching for something better. Eliots reputation began to grow to nearly mythic propo

34、rtions; by 1930, and for the next thirty years, he was the most dominant figure in poetry and literary criticism in the English-speaking world.Eliot has been one of the most daring innovators of the 20th-century poetry. Never compromising either with the public or indeed with language itself, he has

35、 followed his belief that poetry should aim at a representation of the complexities of modern civilization in language and that such representation necessarily leads to difficult poetry. As a poet, he transmuted his affinity for the English metaphysical poets of the 17th century (most notably John D

36、onne) and the 19th century French symbolist poets (including Baudelaire and Laforgue) into radical innovations in poetic technique and subject matter. His poems, the early ones in particular, in many respects articulated the mental crisis of a younger post-World-War-I generation with the values and

37、conventionsboth literary and socialof the Victorian era.The crisis marked by The Waste Land was resolved for Eliot when he became a devout member of the Church of England. In 1927 he described himself as “classicist in literature, royalist in politics, and Anglo-Catholic in religion”a remarkable tur

38、naround, for as a Modernist, Eliot was “supposed” to be none of these. His spiritual journey can be traced through his poetry from Gerontion (1919), The Hollow Men, and Ash Wednesday The poem is the first long poem written by Eliot after his 1927 conversion to Anglicanism. With a base of Dantes Purg

39、atorio, It is richly but ambiguously allusive and deals with the aspiration to move from spiritual barrenness to hope for human salvation. The style is different from his poetry which predates his conversion. “Ash Wednesday” and the poems that followed had a more casual, melodic, and contemplative m

40、ethod. to one of the most profound religious poems in English, Four Quartets Although many critics preferred his earlier work, Eliot and many other critics considered Four Quartets his masterpiece and it is the work which led to his receipt of the Nobel Prize. The Four Quartets draws upon his knowle

41、dge of mysticism and philosophy. It consists of four long poems, published separately: Burnt Norton (1936), East Coker (1940), The Dry Salvages (1941) and Little Gidding (1942), each in five sections. Although they resist easy characterization, each begins with a rumination on the geographical locat

42、ion of its title, and each meditates on the nature of time in some important respecttheological, historical, physicaland its relation to the human condition. Also, each is associated with one of the four classical elements: air, earth, water, and fire. They approach the same ideas in varying but ove

43、rlapping ways, and are open to a diversity of interpretations. However, Eliot has always taken care not to become a religious poet and often belittled the power of poetry as a religious forcelike his poems, Eliot the poet has never become less complicated, probably the result of his early study on p

44、hilosophy that had almost offered him a doctorate degree.In his later years Eliot worked for a large British publishing house. Meanwhile he wrote plays, many of them in verse. His plays Murder in the Cathedral, The Family Reunion (1939), The Cocktail Party, The Confidential Clerk (1954), and The Eld

45、er States Man (1959) were published in one volume in 1962, one year before his Collected Poems 190962 appeared. He was among the few Modernist writers who made good use of blank verse. Eliot also contributed a substantial body of literary criticism and rested much of his literary reputation in this

46、respect. His books of literary and social criticism include The Sacred Wood (1920), The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism (1933), After Strange Gods (1934), and Notes Towards the Definition of Culture (1940). In his essays, especially the later ones, Eliot advocated a traditionalism in religion

47、, society, and literature that seems at odds with his pioneer activity as a poet. But although the Eliot of Notes Towards the Definition of Culture (1948) is an older man than the poet of The Waste Land, it should not be forgotten that for Eliot tradition is a living organism comprising past and pre

48、sent in constant mutual interaction.Eliot was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1948 and died in London in 1965. During these years, he achieved a personal happiness that at last matched the pleasure he derived from his public life as the leading man of letters of his time. SELECTED READING“The Love Song o

49、f J. Alfred Prufrock” is an early poem by T. S. Eliot but is marked by an assurance in phrasing that has made many of its lines almost proverbial in our century. Its now-famous opening lines, comparing the evening sky to “a patient etherised upon a table,” were considered shocking and offensive, esp

50、ecially at a time when the poetry of the Georgians was hailed for its derivations of the 19th century Romantic Poets. The poem is a dramatic monologue (relayed in the “stream of consciousness” form indicative of the Modernists) spoken by one J. Alfred Prufrock, whose very name seems to combine the d

51、ignity and absurdity of his public and private selves. The poem follows Prufrocks conscious experience, lamenting his physical and intellectual inertia, the lost opportunities in his life and lack of spiritual progress, with the recurrent theme of carnal love unattained. Critical opinion is divided

52、as to whether the narrator even leaves his own residence during the course of the narration. The locations described can be interpreted either as actual physical experiences, mental recollections or even as symbolic images from the sub-conscious mind, as, for example, in the refrain “In the room the

53、 women come and go.” The poems structure was heavily influenced by Eliots extensive reading of Dantes Alighieri (in the Italian). References to Shakespeares Hamlet and other literary works are present in the poem: this technique of allusion and quotation was developed in Eliots subsequent poetry. Th

54、e Love Song of J. Alfred PrufrockSio credesse che mia risposta fosse A persona che mai tornasse al mondo, Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse. Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo Non torno vivo alcun, siodo il vero, Senza tema dinfamia ti rispondo Sio credesseti rispondo: Its English version may

55、 run as follows, “If I believed my answer were being made / to one who could ever return / to the world, this flame would gleam no more; / but since, if what I hear is true, never from this abyss did living man return, / I answer thee without fear of infamy.” In Dantes Divine Comedy (Inferno 27. 616

56、6), Guido de Montefeltro, shut up in the flame (punishment for giving false counsel), tells the shame of his evil life to Dante because he believes Dante will never return to earth to report it. Eliot suggests that Prufrock is also making a confession in this poem.Let us go then, you and I you and I

57、: The explanation greatly diverges. Some critics believe they are the two selves of Prufrocka person who outwardly is a “proper” member of the “best” society, but who inwardly is lost, lonely, and suffering. The poet declared that “you” indicates an “unidentified male companion.” Still some others r

58、egard “you” as a general reference to the reader.,When the evening is spread out against the skyLike a patient etherized upon a table;Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets, 5The muttering retreats muttering retreats: the isolated places where people are gossiping in a low unclear voice.Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels one-night cheap hotels: hotels of poor condition where one would stay for only one night.And sawdust sawdust: used to absorb spilled beverages and food, making it easy to sweep