Explain Postmodernism in Literature
Chief features of Metaphysical Poetry
Poststructuralism
Discipline as a Source of Knowledge
Modernism is a cover term for certain tendencies in
early twentieth century art and literature. It was a movement that rejected
traditional values and techniques, and emphasized the importance of individual
experience. This appeared as a reaction against the Victorian Age. The
motivating slogan behind this was ‘make it new’. And, the heyday of Modernism
was a period between 1910 and 1930.
Modernists did not view ethics as superior to art,
seeing the latter instead as the highest form of human achievement. They
introduced a new openness. In other words, modern literature is characterised
by a process of cross-fertilisation of ideas, images, experience and experimentation.
With shifts in technology creating new materials and techniques in art-making,
experimentation became easy and gave the resulting work a wider reach. On
literature, the effect was profound. Printing advances in the late 1800s
resulted in the publication of books with astonishing rapidity. In view of the developments, novel became the
dominant literary form in English. Like the novelists, most of the important
dramatists were chiefly concerned with the contemporary social scene; as a
result towards the end of the period, there are signs of revival of poetic
drama. In poetry, for the first time experiments are less sensational.
Chief Features of Modernism
·
Experimentation:
Modernist
writers were marked by a strong and intentional break with tradition. They
employed a number of different experimental writing techniques like imagery,
themes, absurdism, non-linear narratives and stream of consciousness. They
evolved new forms to sustain the new demand.
·
Individualism:
They focused more on individual rather than society. Stories followed
characters as they adapt to changing world, often dealing with realistic
themes. They presented a humanitarian and democratic note.
·
Pessimism:
The destruction caused by two World Wars profoundly affected writers of the
period. Pessimism and disillusionment developed due to pettiness of human life,
tragedy and suffering of the poor. Instead of progress they saw a deadline of
civilization.
·
Literary devices:
The modernist writers preferred for simple and direct expression. They opted
for free verse which lacks the rhyming scheme and metrical pattern. There was
wide use of Symbolism and Imagery. Though this was not a new concept in
literature but the use of symbols was an innovation. They found inspiration
even from trains, scissors, telephone and things of common place interest. Much
more was left to the reader’s imagination.
·
Plot: The
modernist writers did not use plots with sudden climatic turning points and
clear resolutions. Instead they used plots with open unresolved endings.
Modernist
writers
The
modern moment in English diction as argued was brought by the writings of Joseph
Conrad especially by Lord Jim(1900) and Heart of
Darkness (1902). In the latter one we find, when he writes about
Marlow, he is a modern man and not simply an Englishman.
E.M.Forster’s
best known work is A Passage to India (1924) where he wave
through the thread of cultural differences with dexterity. His views regarding
India have been controversial.
D.H.Lawrence
explores
the disillusionment that came with the aftermath of industrialization. His
novels Sons and Lovers (1913), Women in Love (1920)
and Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1928) focussed on the themes that
challenged the moral of the time.
Virginia
Woolf readdresses the issue of genre in Mrs.Dalloway
(1925) and To The Lighthouse (!927) by suggesting that external
structuring of events through the frame of novel was not adequate to justify
the complexities of modern experience. As such she incorporated stream of
consciousness style in her works.
James
Joyce is best known for implementing stream of
consciousness technique in his novels A Portrait of Artist as a Young Man
(1916) and Ulysses (1922).
Ezra
Pound is considered as one of the first modernist poet to
use imagism (a style that conveyed imagery in sharp free verse). In a
Station of the Metro (1913) and The Return (1917) are her
notable works.
T.S.Eliot’s
the
most significant poem The Wasteland (1922) provides a dark and
introspective look at human nature.
G.B.Shaw
exploited
the resources of theatrical conditioning in his dramatic experiments in plays
like Androcles and the Lion (1913) and Pygmalion
(1914).
J.M.Synge
left
a mark on modern stage by The Shadow of the Glen (1903), Riders
to the Sea (1904) and The Playboy of the Western World
(1907). These plays move through terrains of heightened pessimism.
William
Faulkner is best known for his Southern Gothic tales
that incorporate unreliable narrators, multiple perspectives, symbolism and
nonlinear narratives in As I Lay Dying (1929) and The Sound
and the Fury (1930).
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