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The Modernist Revolution
Cisilino Stefano
The Modernist Revolution
In the first decade of the 20° century all of the forms of art were influenced
by the new theories developed by Sigmund Freud in psychology, Albert
Einstein in physic, and Henry Bergson.
The new theories
Sigmund Freud: Drew attention to the significance of unconscious
processes and the demands of libido. He analyzed also the
power of unconscious and how it influences the human
behaviour.
Albert Einstein: published the “Theory of Relativity” in General Theory
of Relativity: time and space are subjective dimensions. The
theory compromised the idea of an objective reality. So
science acquired a hypothetical nature.
Henry Bergson: he changed the idea of time. He distinguished two kind of
time: a time influenced by the idea of space and therefore
it’s a flow of chronological events and a consciousness time
where present, past an future exist at the same time.
The modernist revolution
in literature
With the crisis of the idea of an objective reality, there was no set of values
to which modernist writers could refer to. The consequences are:
characters speak for themselves without any narrator’s interviewing to
offer the reader an alternative point of view; the subjective is more
important than objectivity. Therefore writers developed new narrative
technique to better represent the characters’ interiority.
Examples are the new narrative techniques developed by James Joyce and
Virginia Woolf.
James Joyce - Virginia Woolf
(1882 – 1941)
New narrative technique used by J. Joyce and Virginia Woolf:
Stream of conscious
Representation
of the thoughts
as they come to
the mind without
logical order.
Epiphany
Moment when an
object, a person or
an event reveals
the true mean of
life.
Mythic method
Organising principle of the
Ulysses. Joyce use it to
compare the main character
Leopold with Ulysses and
therefore Joyce compare the
modernist society with society
of the past.
James Joyce - Virginia Woolf
(1882 – 1941)
Interior Monologue
Interior dialogue of the
character to himself
Use of different semantic field
To underline the
relationship between the
objects and the facts
Literature
Modernism vs Victorian Age
Victorian Age
Modernism
Absolute view of reality
Variety of points of view and of reality
More attention to the events
More attention to feelings
Omniscient and external narrator
First person narrator
Realism/Objectivity
Subjectivity
Chronological time
Relative time
(coexisting of present and
past)
Objective space
The space reflects the interior crisis
Dialogue
Interior monologue and stream of
consciousness
Plot
The plot doesn’t exist