SHYNTESIS ABOUT  MODERNISM

Modernism is a cosmopolitan movement developed since 1910 to 1930 as a reaction to Victorian age that had the objective to teach moral principles, also by art.

Modernism, in opposition, is characterized by crisis of values, consequent the hard destabilization caused by the first World War and new scientific discoveries: people didn't focus their attention on form and particulars, but on things' subjectivity;

The point of view of life started to change.

The crisis:

C. Darwin' s evolutionary theory lifted the absolute certainly that men derived from God and this created a crisis in people that lost all their landmarks, their faithful in future and God...

F. Nietzsche said: "God is dead. God remains dead .And we have killed him."

Man has no more need of him because he is growing up.

...these facts had repercussions on philosophy and literature.

Philosophy

People are almost obliged to reflect about time: Albert Einstein demonstrated his Theory of Relativity and conception about space and time started to change and became more confused (especially for common people).

Time was not linear: past and future coexist in the present and present is a sum of our past memories and experiences and expectations of our future life.

Literature

Narrative techniques changed too: omniscient narrator wasn't credible (because absolute values are lost and no man could possess them), so he was substituted by shift of point of view, that permits to the narrator to get into characters' minds and register interior monologue.

Protagonists are usually middle-aged people (which have experiences but not yet too much regrets); the story is often concentrated in very little time: it usually ends in one day that represents life's metaphor.

The most relevant writers of Modernism were V. Woolf and J. Joyce ("Ulysses", 1914-1922) as for novel and S. Butler and T.S. Elliot ("Murder in the Cathedral" 1935) as for poetry.