Learning Paths » 5A Interacting
Modernism - a cosmopolitan movement
To better understand the cultural movement of Modernism a brief discussion of what is happened earlier is useful. Medieval culture was based on a religious worldview. Following thanks to the Enlightenment or Neoclassicism, during the 17th and 18th centuries, that brought to several social progresses, logical productions and to rationality. Romanticism developed consequently in the early 19th century and it put reason in question. Romanticism followed different themes like Sehnsucht (man's dissatisfaction), individualism, concept of nation and love in relation with death. In the second half of the 19th century a new movement developed it is called Realism that in England developed under the Victorian age that thanks to the Industrial Revolution believed in progress, optimism and in moralism.
During the Victorian age the cultural movement of Modernism started to develop thanks to some evolutionary cultural processes in the late 19th century:
Einstein's General theory of Relativity
Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams
Jung's The Psychology of the unconscious
One of the first reaction was the Religious crisis:
Charles Darwin - Men are not a creation of God
Friedrich Nietzsche - "God is dead"
Man feels isolated
Modernism's economy changed too:
End of European domination
Changing class structure
Failure of Capitalism
As a consequence some social changes come to surface:
No more faith in Liberalism and Democracy
World War I (1914 - 1918)
Men were dehumanised
Rejection of old Victorian standards
Insecurity about the future but people belief in progress
These changes were generally anticipated in literary productions. Modernists novel adopted some new features and techniques:
Subjectivity and reflexivity in writing
Shift of the point of view
Plot is reduced to the minimum
Use of interior monologue
Use of stream of consciousness (the reader is free to make his personal idea)
In addition art produced new movements like Cubism or Expressionism that goes beyond the traditional artistically movement. In conclusion Modernism break with the traditional Victorian age and its way of thinking. Modernism is a cultural movement based on quest of progress and a new truth.