Modernist Changing Content of Literature - Essay Example

Modernism Changing the Content of Literature by Modernism was meant to be a fresh and new start for the world of art because of the transformations and changes of the civilization and society. World War I very deeply influenced the concept of Modernism and in a huge way encouraged its progress. The main principle of Modernism differs from any kind of approach towards art that has been before it. If we look closely to probably the most major and experimental literature work of the first half of the twentieth century we will clearly see that by mixing all the styles that have been before modernism exposed its trues and innovative nature.

The work I mean is “Ulysses” by James Joyce. In this novel each chapter is written in different style and these mixed styles represent different symbols, emotions and conditions of the human mind. Another example of modernism and its principles is Gertruda Steine’s approach towards the concept of Modernism. Stein offered her reader tremendously new view on the literature because she wanted the reader to understand and admire words as words only and not words as representatives of things or ideas.

Her approach is very poetic and poetry of modernism is one of the greatest literature discoveries of the twentieth century. Works of William Butler Yeats, Ezra Paund and Thomas Eliot are considered to be the most sensational and spectacular poetic heritage of that time. Modernist changed the purpose, approach and aim of the literature because what they saw around themselves could no longer be described by old means of art. First World War, industrial and technological progress, Great Depression, Second World War, Holocaust, nuclear weapons and all other disastrous and epic changes of the world shocked and horrified people.

All this led to the development of a totally new and before unknown feeling about the place of each human person in the life and in the world. The sense and senselessness of human life and the reason of historical catastrophes were what modernists tried to depict and explain. Because modernism was new in almost all the ways it was difficult to differ what was modernism and what was not. That is why a lot of movements were created because of modernism but nevertheless they were self-sufficing by themselves.

For example surrealism stated that real perception of thing lies in an unconsciousness and what was done by surrealists is not a modernism itself but technically it is. Apoliner wrote some of his poems (Calligrammes) in a way so the verses formed pictures. That is a classic example and it seems so easy yet nobody before him has not done anything like that (Sheppard, 2000). Futurism and Dadaism as well as all other avangard and abstract artistic methods were encouraged by the strategy and methods which modernism used to provide artistic vision.

Modernism provided more freedom and acted as the door for the original individual and his self-expression. The principles of Modernism and their unrestricted and liberal ability to show true feeling and emotions provided seeds for a lot of different artistic movements each of which were independent but at the same time part of a wholesome structure. ReferencesSheppard, R. (2000). Modernism – Dada – Postmodernism. Northwestern Univ. Press