The Beginning of the XX Century. Modernist literature.

Modernist literature is the literary form of Modernism and especially High modernism;[1] it should not be confused with modern literature, which is the history of the modern novel and modern poetry as one. There is a separate section on modernist poetry.

Modernism as a literary movement reached its height in Europe between 1910 and 1920, and addressed aesthetic problems similar to those found in non-literary forms of contemporaneous Modernist art, such as painting. Gertrude Stein's abstract writings, for example, have often been compared to the fragmentary and multi-perspectival Cubism of her friend Pablo Picasso.

The general thematic concerns of Modernist literature are well-summarized by the sociologist George Simmel:

"The deepest problems of modern life derive from the claim of the individual to preserve the autonomy and individuality of his existence in the face of overwhelming social forces, of historical heritage, of external culture, and of the technique of life."

"Art in its execution and direction is dependent on the time in which it lives, and artists are creatures of their epoch. The highest art will be that which in its conscious content presents the thousandfold problems of the day, the art which has been visibly shattered by the explosions of last week... The best and most extraordinary artists will be those who every hour snatch the tatters of their bodies out of the frenzied cataract of life, who, with bleeding hands and hearts, hold fast to the intelligence of their time."

The Modernist re-contextualization of the individual within the fabric of a received social heritage can be seen in the "mythic method" which T.S. Eliot expounded in his discussion of James Joyce's Ulysses:

"In using the myth, in manipulating a continuous parallel between contemporaneity and antiquity, Mr. Joyce is pursuing a method which others must pursue after him... It is simply a way of controlling, of ordering, of giving a shape and a significance to the immense panorama of futility and anarchy which is contemporary history."

Through an aesthetic examination of these and related concerns, Modernist literature developed a style that can be characterized by a preoccupation with stylistic novelty, formal fragmentation, multiple perspectives, and alternatives to traditional narrative forms.

 

Modernist literature can be viewed largely in terms of its formal, stylistic and semantic movement away from Romanticism, examining subject matter that is traditionally mundane--a prime example being The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Eliot. Modernist literature often features a marked pessimism, a clear rejection of the optimism apparent in Victorian literature. In fact, "a common motif in Modernist fiction is that of an alienated individual--a dysfunctional individual trying in vain to make sense of a predominantly urban and fragmented society".

The 20th century

Writing from 1914 to 1945

Important movements in drama, poetry, fiction, and criticism took form in the years before, during, and after World War I. The eventful period that followed the war left its imprint upon books of all kinds. Literary forms of the period were extraordinarily varied, and in drama, poetry, and fiction leading authors tended toward radical technical experiments. Experiments in drama. Although drama had not been a major art form in the 19th century, no type of writing was more experimental than a new drama that arose in rebellion against the glib commercial stage. In the early years of the 20th century, Americans traveling in Europe encountered a vital, flourishing theatre; returning home, some of them became active in founding the Little Theatre movement throughout the country. Freed from commercial limitations, playwrights experimented with dramatic forms and methods of production, and in time producers, actors, and dramatists appeared who had been trained in college classrooms and community playhouses. Some Little Theatre groups became commercial producers--for example, the Washington Square Players, founded in 1915, which became the Theatre Guild (first production in 1919). The resulting drama was marked by a spirit of innovation and by a new seriousness and maturity. Eugene O'Neill, the most admired dramatist of the period, was a product of this movement. He worked with the Provincetown Players before his plays were commercially produced. His dramas were remarkable for their range. Beyond the Horizon (first performed 1920), Anna Christie (1921), Desire Under the Elms (1924), and The Iceman Cometh (1946) were naturalistic works, while The Emperor Jones (1920) and The Hairy Ape (1922) made use of the Expressionistic techniques developed in German drama in the period 1914-24. He also employed a stream-of-consciousness form in Strange Interlude (1928) and produced a work that combined myth, family drama, and psychological analysis in Mourning Becomes Electra (1931).No other dramatist was as generally praised as O'Neill, but many others wrote plays that reflected the growth of a serious and varied drama, including Maxwell Anderson, whose verse dramas have dated badly, and Robert E. Sherwood, a Broadway professional who wrote both comedy (Reunion in Vienna [1931]) and tragedy (There Shall Be No Night [1940]). Marc Connelly wrote touching fantasy in a Negro folk biblical play, The Green Pastures (1930). Like O'Neill, Elmer Rice made use of both Expressionistic techniques (The Adding Machine [1923]) and naturalism (Street Scene [1929]). Lillian Hellman wrote powerful, well-crafted melodramas in The Children's Hour (1934) and The Little Foxes (1939). Radical theatre experiments included Marc Blitzstein's savagely satiric musical The Cradle Will Rock (1937) and the work of Orson Welles and John Houseman for the government-sponsored Works Progress Administration (WPA) Federal Theatre Project. The premier radical theatre of the decade was the Group Theatre (1931-41) under Harold Clurman and Lee Strasberg, which became best known for presenting the work of Clifford Odets. In Waiting for Lefty (1935), a stirring plea for labour unionism, Odets roused the audience to an intense pitch of fervour, and in Awake and Sing (1935), perhaps the best play of the decade, he created a lyrical work of family conflict and youthful yearning. Other important plays by Odets for the Group Theatre were Paradise Lost (1935), Golden Boy (1937), and Rocket to the Moon (1938). Thornton Wilder used stylized settings and poetic dialogue in Our Town (1938) and turned to fantasy in The Skin of Our Teeth (1942). William Saroyan shifted his lighthearted, anarchic vision from fiction to drama with My Heart's in the Highlands and The Time of Your Life (both 1939).

AMERICAN LITERATURE OF THE SECOND HALF OF THE XX-TH CENTURY MIXTURE OF REALISM AND FANTASY

Writers in the United States today can look at a rich heritage of their own. Contemporary readers are well aware of such novelists as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, short story writers Edgar Allan Poe, Willa Gather, Eudora Welty, poets Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, Langston Hughes, and playwrights Eugene O’Neill and Thornton Wilder.

Among the highly acclaimed novelists of the time is Saul Bellow who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1976. His novel Herzog, about an average man seeking truth in a world that overwhelms him, shows clear parallels with James Joyce’s Ulysses. Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, about a young black man searching for identity, parallels Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

Other contemporary novelists of stature include Carson McCullers, Robert Penn Warren, Norman Mailer, Bernard Malamud, John Updike, Flannery O’Connor, Joyce Carol Oates, Anne Tyler, and Alice Walker. Many of these novelists have written short stories as well. John Cheever (1912-1982), a respected novelist, won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1979 for his collected short stories, many of which concern suburban life. Cheever’s major story collections are The Way Some People Live (1943), The Enormous Radio (1953), The Housebreaker of Shady Hill (1958), Some People, Places, and Things That Will Not Appear in My Next Novel (1961), The Brigadier and the Golf Widow (1964), and The World of Apples (1973). These collections of stories comprise a running social history of suburbia. Cheever won the National Book Award for The Wapshot Chronicle (1957), a comic saga of a New England family. His other novels, which show less attention to realism and more to the fantastic, include The Wapshot Scandal (1964), Bullet Park (1969), and Falconer (1977).

One of the most well-known political fiction writers is Gore Vidal (b.1925), the author of political novels Washington DC (1967), Burr (1973), and 1876 (1985). Just as realism and romanticism have tended to merge in recent literature, so have fiction and non-fiction. Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood used fictional techniques to analyse a real and seemingly senseless crime. E.L.Doctorow in his novel Ragtime combined historical figures with purely fictional characters.

Increasing attention has been paid recently to the place of non-fiction in the literary hierarchy. The essay has always been considered an important literary form. James Baldwin and John McPhee are accomplished essayists. Among the many notable longer works of non-fiction are Paul Theroux’s The Great Railway Bazaar, N.Scott Momaday’s The Names, and Barry Lopez’s Arctic Dreams.

A number of the famous prewar poets continued to publish extensively after the war. Robert Frost, Marianne Moore, Wallace Stevens, E.E.Cummings, William Carlos Williams, and Ezra Pound all produced major collections of their works.

One of the most respected contemporary poets is Robert Lowell, a great nephew of the poet James Russell Lowell. Robert Lowell’s poetry is traditional in form, but its range in theme, method, and tone is breathtaking. Theodore Roethke is a master of poetic rhythm and James Dickey is a poet and novelist whose southern heritage is of great importance in his work. The other poets of note are Elizabeth Dishop and Gwendolyn Brooks.

A number of small literary movements have developed since World War II. These movements are often referred to as Postmodernism. Some writers have continued to develop the fragmentary approach of the Modernists. Others have tried blending realism and fantasy in their works, and still others have experimented with radically different fictional forms and techniques. The poetry has varied dramatically in form, style, and content. Free verse has remained a dominant poetic form.