Class Notes

Modernism and Postmodernism are two cultural movements developed in the 20^th century. The former belongs to the first three decades and the latter to the second half of the century and it is still going on. Although they have some different aspects, both Modernism and Postmodernism refuse the 19^th century idea of Realism, a period when people still believed in the concept of a stable truth and that there was a clear difference between good and evil.

In the 19^th century people believed also in the possibilities offered by the results of the Industrial Revolution that is industry and progress would  produce wellbeing.

According to tradition  time was linear and could be arranged chronologically. At the end of 19^th and beginning of 20^th century all such visions and values entered  a total  crisis because people realized that progress had  not produced what it had promised for the whole population and therefore people started to suspect the concept of truth and all traditional values and beliefs.

The collapse influenced also culture and artistic production as one can see in P. Picasso's new painting style: Cubism; A. Einstein's Theory of Relativity that changed the perception of the world.

F. Nietzsche's statement "God is dead"  questionioned  the existence of God. Therefore, literature changed, there was no point in writing according to the model of  realistic novels and the narrative techniques of Romanticism. On the contrary there was a search for new narrative techniques like the exploration of consciousness, the abscence of a chronological arrangement of time in narratiuve production, the reduction of plot to the minimum, the eclipse of the narrator, the shift of the point of view, the adoption of the interior monologue or the technique of the stream of consciousness, etc.

An additional feature of Modernism is the quest for truth because they still believed a meaning could be found, one that could provide a sense for one's own living

 Another characteristic was the strict distinction between "high" and "low" culture since people and artists  still believed in the concept of authority.

Postmodernism  developed as a reaction to Modernist culture. The name  Post-Modernsim itself, including some aspects of Modernism at the same time going beyond it. Postmodern culture does not believe anymore in the concept of authority and there is no longer any distinction beetween low and high culture, there are no authors but there is only the production of novelists and  writer and so on.

All that  is accelerated by the new technologies, because Postmodernism coincides with globalism, so culture becomes of easier access. But the most important Postmodern characteristic is that not only no search of truth can be recorde but that they dio not even believe it exists.

It follows that for example, in the Postmodern novel the reader will not find a linear sequences of events, a clear signified, an intrusive omniscient narrator but rather the reader is asked to attribute a meaning and a personal interpretation to texts.

An Introduction to Modernism & Postmodernism

Every literary movement and period sees itself as modern. Also we call "modern" literary work of our period, because it is too difficult to define it.

In period we live in there were many important events influencing our society and our life:the Two World Wars; changes in industrial and technological sector and rise in power of some corporations; more easily intercommunication and cultural exchanges in the world and "Westernization" (adopting of Western culture and values)

The literature of modern period is a reaction to Realism and Naturalism, and as its result there are four literary movements inside Modernism: impressionism,expressionism,surrealism,absurdism. While Realism focused mostly on external object and the importance of rationalness and reason, the four movements have different vision of them: impressionism focused on their psychological effects on character giving importance to the individual perception; expressionism is mostly focused on inner nature of objects; surrealism did not accept authority of rationality, so its writers prefer portraying the object as they seem rather then as they are; abusrdism tried to transform in literature the absurd conditions of contemporary life.

Although they present many different vision of the world both Modernism and Realism focus on the psychology of the individual and see the work of art worthy of study.

The most considerable characteristic of Modernist literature is its use of language: use of colloquial language; its use in a self-conscious way as pieces creating the art work; uses symbols and images and in that way form and structure become as important as content. Its role is also to influence the literary work, and the writers use it to change reader's vision of world and language.

There are also many differences between Modernist and Postmodernist literature: Postmodernism rejects Western values and beliefs and its "being profound". So it prefers exterior image without concluding interior meanings of objects.Therefore, Postmodernism sees human experience as ambiguous, discontinuous, unstable and the vision of the world coincides with this instability. In Postmodernist literature the reader is asked to give his own interpretation.