Modernism ( T.S Elliot , James Joyce, Virginia Woolf)

Didascalia alternativa:

now back when she and Leopold got engaged and she said "yes". FIDANZATI THE AIM OF MODERNIST'S WORKS The works of Modernist prose writers attempted to express the instability that characterised the 20th century and the general idea that emerges from Modernist literature is that the human mind is at the centre of the writer's scrutiny: The plots became less important and the stories usually have open endings, moreover The reader is supposed to be an overhearer who casually hears the conversations of the characters and their thoughts. IRER Modernist poetry was also influenced by the Imagist movement, started in 1914, that brings attention to the "thing" and "image”. In particular played a fundamental role in the definition of the style of T.S Eliot. In Britain the main Modernist writers were the poet T.S Eliot and the novelists virginia Woolf and James Joice and Their main works deal with the representation of the unconscious. They formed a group of intellectuals and many of these writers also used the STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS that can be seen as an attempt to use words to describe the new concept of the human mind and its aim main was to render the characters» free flux of the. thoughts without any intervention of the author. Modernist writers use stream of consciousness in two different ways: - with direct interior monologue, where Thoughts are expressed using a first-person point of view without punctuation and the filter of the author (used by Joyce) while with indirect interior monologue, thoughts are expressed using a third-person omniscient narrator, who controls the character's Flux of thoughts and uses grammar rules and punctuation to organize them in a logical way. (used by v. woolf) 1882-1941 Virginia Woolf Virginia Woolf was born in London in 1882 and her life was strongly influenced by her mother's death, that led to woolf's psychological instability. During her life, she started to be around a group of intellectuals and artists, and her most important work is 'Mrs. Dalloway'. Then In 1941 she committed suicide, drowning herself in a river. thinking is ngh mrs. dalloway (1925) The story of Mrs Dalloway is set in London during one single day. The protagonist is clarissa Dalloway, a middle aged woman who is not particularly open-minded. she is complex and frustrated because she lives her being a wife and mother as a limitation to her freedom. fighting The novel follows at the same time the events of another character, septimus smith, a veteran of the war who suffers from post traumatic stress disorder. Woolf follows clarissa and septimus while they are in London on the same day and share the same fears, preoccupations and attractions. Their lives meet but don't touch each other, only at the end this happened but only clarissa is able to survive. when she discovers the news of septimus' suicide, she understands that death is part of life and decides to live on. (1888-1965) Thomas Stearns Eliot T. S Eliot was an American poet born in 1888 and he was one of the leading figures of the Modernist movement. In 1914 he moved to England where he worked as a teacher and then in a bank. RINA UMS SITISENSHIP Eliot renounced his u.s citizenship and became an Anglican and British Citizen. TUODS His early works were particularly pessimistic towards society after the First world war, but then they became more optimistic using sounds and musicality of words. His works are characterized by a wide variety of techniques like juxtaposition and presented many cultural references. Eliot died in London in 1965 but he will forever be remembered thanks to his masterpiece called the wasteland. the waste land (1922) The waste Land was published in 1922 and it is the most important work of Eliot, the title refers to the situation in Europe after the Great war, seen as a cultural and spiritual desert. The poem is composed of five sections, each with a different title and theme It is written in free verse and is characterized by a great experimentation in the use of verse form, lines, punctuation and language. It rejects any kind of narrative structure and contains a huge variety of different and apparently disconnected themes that makes it one of the best examples of modernist poetry. in addition it is full of quotes from ancient and classical sources such as Dante, shakespeare and the Bible which are understandable for the cultured elite. The use of juxtaposition between the contemporary world and the world of classical myths (like the holy grail) represent the historical fragmentation Of western civilation The "OBJECTIVE CORRELATIVE» is a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events that evoke a particular emotion. For example Eliot uses it to produce the idea of "Sterility" in the reader's mind. His purpose is to express a character's emotions by showing rather than by describing them. The Burial of the death The burial of the dead is the begging of The waste Land. The title is a metaphor for the condition of contemporary man, whose life is empty and alienating, similar to death. The passage is pervaded by mystery and confusion. Eliot's poem opens with a declaration that 'April is the cruellest month': This is because during springtime flowers and plants grow out of the dead land. It is recalling the opening line of chaucer's work the canterbury Tales, that talk about the abundance and new life at springtime. He continues by saying that it was winter that made him warm, because during wintertime snow covers the land, making him forget that it is a waste land. The focus is on the opposition between Fertility and sterility, life and death. At the end the speaker walks through London, which seems to be populated by alienated people. Then he recognises a man called stetson because they fought together in the punic war, to reflect the present clashes oF WW1. The passage ends with a famous quote from “fiori del male" of Baudelaire, reminding the reader of sharing the poet's destiny. AN EXPERIMENTAL NOVEL This novel is focuses on one single character (clarissa) on one single day (wednesday) in one single place (London) to underlines the idea that even the most ordinary character on the most ordinary day can be the object of a writer's scrutiny. Actions are disconnected to each other and what gives unity to the novel is the coherence of the mind. THE CONTRAST BETWEEN SUBJECTIVE AND OBJECTIVE TIME moreover, woolf underlines the importance of subjective time, which refers to the time of the mind; in contrast with Objective time, that refers to the real duration of chronological time. Mrs Dalloway said she would buy the flowers This passage represents the opening of the book and the narrator presents Mrs Dalloway, a middle aged woman who is not particularly open-minded. she is complex and frustrated because she lives her being a wife and mother as a limitation to her freedom and The first line underlines Woolf's point of view on female emancipation. Mrs. Dalloway is about to go out and buy some flowers and Afterwards the woman's thoughts flow in correlation of the party she's organizing. 1882-1941 --James Joyce JAMES JOYCE was born in Dublin and he was one of the most important novelists and prose writers of the 20th century. Joyce Started Studying Italian, French and English and then he moved to Trieste for a work as a teacher, and here he worked on Dubliners. In 1914 he moved to zurich where he started working on his masterpiece Ulysses and then he died in 1941. RELATIONSHIP WITH DUBLIN joyce' literary works show his complex relationship with Ireland and Even though he left Dublin, his all works are set in Ireland, which he both loved and hated. His departure from his hometown made him able to represent Ireland with an objective distance. dubliners Dubliners is a collection of 15 Short Stories published in 1914. The Stories talk about the lives of 15 typical inhabitants of the city Of Dublin narrated from the point of view of one of the characters. and represent a portrait of the Irish capital on the 20th century They can be divided into three main groups: • The first three stories talk about the theme of childhood, The second group deals with adulthood; The last group of stories talk about the relationship between Irish citizens and collective institutions like politics and church. The last story is called "The Dead". THE CITY OF DUBLIN one of the major themes contained in Dubliners is the city of Dublin. Joyce portrays dublin as a static and provincial town that influences the lives of its inhabitants, who are imprisoned in a city that doesn't give them the chance to grow. PHYSICAL AND SPIRITUAL PARALYSIS All the characters in Dubliners have a common nature of failure because they don't have the will to transform their desires into action. This condition is called by Joyce as paralysis' And it means spiritual and physical death. EPIPHANY The only way to escape from the universal paralysis is epiphany: the moment in which the character understands his condition of paralysis without lead to a real change but simply makes them more conscious of how dead they are. she was fast asleep The last story of Dubliners is entitled "The Dead". The protagonist of the story is Gabriel conroy, the example of an Irish middle-class man, who lives his life like a dead person. In the final part of the story Gabriel and his wife Gretta have just come back from an after-christmas party, where Gretta heard an Old Irish song which reminded her first love Micheal, a man who she believes died for her. After which, Gabriel asks Gretta why she looks so thoughtful and she tells him about Micheal and then she falls asleep. Gabriel has his own epiphany: he doesn't feel jealousy towards Micheal but sadness because he felt a love that he has never known. He realizes that life is short and seeing the snow at the window, he imagines that michael's tomb is covered by it. The main theme is the intersection of life and death. The snow will make both dead and alive people the same by covering everything. MODERNISM LITERARY BACKGROUND The beginning of the 20th century was marked as one of the most productive, yet shocking literary and artistic revolutions of all time that led to the birth of modernism. S SCIETED All the aspects that were traditionally associated with victorian literature were completely destroyed by the spread of new ideas like Einstein's theory of relativity and Freud's psychoanalysis which BRAUT brought attention to the unconscious, mind and the inner self. Moreover, the First world war (1914-18) contributed to the creation of an atmosphere of anxiety and uncertainty. ANSERTEINTY These trends were reflected in the literary and artistic production of the period, which was characterised by rebellion against the past, new techniques, forms and styles, a great experimentation and the attempt to explore the hidden world of the human modern mind. some of the main movements of Modernism are Futurism; cubism; Expressionism or surrealism MAIN FEAUTURES OF MODERNISM ALTAG Altough the modernist writers" work are quite different from each other, it is possible to mention the common features: ● Fragmentation of narrative point of view and plot ● Multi-layered and complex narration • Redefinition of traditional concepts of time and place, which are now subjective dimensions • Free Flûx of thoughts TUESCION • Rejection of traditional grammar and punctuation • Free verse • Use of complex vocabulary and concepts