MODERNISM
Modernism is a cultural movement that developed during the first three decades of the Twentieth century. It marks a cultural revolution aimed at subverting the traditional assumptions about human life and the universe. People lost all the traditional points of reference that assured them a sense in real life. The traditional points of reference collapsed as a result of the studies of philosohpers like: Nietzsche, whose famous metaphor “God is dead” very well synthesize the absurdity of any metaphysical principle on which on which traditional western culture had based its reason of being. In addition Freud in his Interpretation of Dreams showed how most of people behaviour is determined not by his rational control but rather by his instincts that is the unconscious part of the mind over which human beings have no control. What’s more Jung also contributed studies about the way human unconscious works adding to Freud’s discovery a reflection on memory.
In 1910 Albert Einstein in his theory of relativity demonstrated that space and time are no longer to be conceived of separated phenomena, but they change according to the position of the viewer thus making the vision of reality relative, not definitely defined. Besides all this implies there are as many realities as the number of viewer ion it. It follows that the position of the human beings must necessarily become decentred and the human being what so ever is and feel dis-placed and dis-located. Therefore he desperately needs to grasps to somebody or something which may compensate at least partly to the sense of void left by the collapse of certainties on which all traditional western culture was rooted in.
Not even time could be conceived and perceived of according to traditional standards: in a linear way which implies conceiving of one’s life as a sequencing of events. Time is now a quasi-psychological concept disrupting linearity standards in favour of simultaneous concept of time embodying all chronological time. Now past and future are included in the present in one’s stream of consciousness. In a few words, according to the Bergson’s concept of time the present results from our memories of the past and our future expectations.
All this considered one can easily understand the reason why QUEST is the keyword of Modernism. Quest means a search for a meaning in existence. At the same time implying that Modernism thought still looks forward some form of meaning, a possible order on which to organize one’s existence. And this explain also why modernist art beside displaying its meta-artistic nature, is and has always been considered high and elitarian addressed to a cultural few people thus creating a somehow cultural divided between popular culture and culture that is high culture.
In 1925 in an essay called “The Narrow Bridge of Modern Art” Virginia Woolf had defined the novel “that, the novel that will devour all other genres”. In her personal case the genre to be mainly devoured was poetry in that her fiction creates the fact of poetry: it has got a rhythm of its own modernist fiction:
-Reduces plot to the minimum (storyline generally covers one day)
-Uses third person omniscient narrator who, even if apparently eclipsed, adopts the point of view of one or more characters in what goes under the name of the shift of the point of view.
