The Modern Period (ca. 1914 – 1945)
Ahmed: Ugh, I think I’m getting sick of travelling through time.
Sophie: If I’m correct then we’re almost done.
Christopher: Yes, my lovely students. After the modern period we only have post-modernism left.
Ahmed: See, how he calls us lovely now?
Sophie: That’s because we are lovely.
Christopher: Well, I had my doubts in the beginning, I must admit, but you both seem to learn fast.
Ahmed: So, where have you taken us now?
Sophie: Look out!
Ahmed: Was that gunfire?
Christopher: Do not worry. Nothing can happen to you.
Sophie: We’re in the middle of a war zone!
Christopher: Precisely! The first world war. This is how the modern period starts.
Ahmed: So, we are talking about events that influenced modern literature, am I right?
Christopher: Right, again. The first world war is one of these events. With the modern period lasting until around the end of the second world war, you can guess, how the people must have felt.
Sophie: Not happy?
Christopher: Well, they surely understood that anything could happen at any moment. There were no set rules to life anymore – humans were complex beings with chaotic minds, capable of anything and everything, which is why modern literature is known for experimenting with literature styles.
Sophie: So, because the rules of the world didn’t make sense anymore, they tried to break the rules in writing as well?
Christopher: Exactly! Modernist writers wanted to break the norms and find new ways of writing.
Ahmed: And what is a new way of writing?
Christopher: Well, for example, leaving out punctuation. If you look at works of James Joyce, like Ulysses and Finnegans Wake, you will find how difficult and incoherent they are without punctuation. An experimental style, indeed.
Sophie: I wouldn’t want to read that. I even hate books where they leave out quotation marks.
Ahmed: Same.
Christopher: Perhaps, the works of Virginia Woolf will suit you more. Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse are also popular modernist works, portraying another characteristic of modernism that is the stream of conciousness. A narrative that follows the flow of the human mind with all its twists and turns. Think of when you try to sleep at night, doesn’t your brain sometimes ramble on?
Sophie: Yes, every night. I cannot get it to shut up unless I listen to music.
Christopher: And this flow of words is how the stream of conciousness reflects itself in modern literature.
Sophie: Okay, so modernist literature is about experimenting with writing and using different styles in the narrative.
Christopher: Yes. And avant-garde is a word that means exactly that: experimenting and going a new direction.
Ahmed: But what did they write about?
Christopher: A good question, difficult to answer. A multitude of topics: the impact of war, the distortion of reality, trying to find meaning in this post-war world, the human mind… All woven into stories.
Sophie: The human mind, again.
Christopher: Yes, modern literature often dealt with individualism. Seeing how the mind of a character dealt with the world. You should know that authors of that time were influenced by works of philosophers or even doctors like Freud about the psyche of humans.
Sophie: I’ve heard of him! Our art teacher mentioned him once and something about dreams and analysing them…
Christopher: Just remember that the human mind is very complex and chaotic. Modern literature made the goal to showcase exactly this.
Ahmed: Okay, so experiments, new style of writing and the human mind and individualism.
Christopher: Yes, but then again, no.
Sophie: No?
Christopher: One should not forget the famous modernist T.S. Eliot and his essay “Tradition and the Individual Talent”, in which he advocated that poetry should not be about individual feelings but rather create a space for writers to engage with older works and show off how intellectual they are.
Ahmed: In short?
Christopher: Modern literature tends to be very difficult and full of allusions, meaning references to events, people or other works of literature outside of the text.
Sophie: Okay, so showing off how well-read and educated one is?
Christopher: Exactly.
Ahmed: I think I get it.
Sophie: Well, I’m educated enough on this one now, let’s move on to the last period.
For this one, I had to check multiple websites and watched a lot of Youtube videos. I wholeheartily recommend a video by Jen Chan called “Understanding Modernist Literature: Context & Concepts”. She explains really well! 🙂
Yours,
Tanniyan