MODERNISM

Modernism developed in Europe during the first three decades of the 20ieth century.

It refused the Victorian idea that art should be useful and that it should teach morals. As a matter of fact, in this period men lost all their points of reference because the new century brought many fundamental changes in economy, politic, science, religion and philosophy.

Just to provide some examples, as for economy, the industrial revolution caused the distrust on progress because people realised that technology had not improved their lives.

In science, Darwin’s discovery discarded the faith in God as it demonstrates that man is a figment of natural selection. Moreover, Einstein’s theory of relativity put into questions basic principles: it asserted that space and time do not exist as separate.

This theory induced Bergson to formulate the theory that present does not exist in itself but it is the summing up of past memories and future expectations.

As for politic, Britain lost its supremacy because of the two new world powers: the USA and Russia.

In literature we can see a change in the style: narrators started using the shift of the point of view in order to let the reader make up his/her own mind. Furthermore, novelists use the technique of the interior monologue and the stream of consciousness.