...Traditional views vs. Modernism The 1920’s were a time of great change in the United States of America. There were many new idea on how things should work socially, politically and economically. Many of these ideas created conflicts between modern and traditional views. Traditional views included of having a strong faith, did not believe science over faith, in support of the prohibition, and found jazz music and the flapper culture distasteful. On the other side modern views included of favoring science over faith, disagreed with the prohibition, and was in favor of jazz music and the flapper culture. The 1920’s was an exciting time in America, however there was a immense clash between modern and traditional views. One of the most contradicting views that these two groups had was whether to believe religion over science or vice versa. Traditionalist favored religion while modernist favored science. In a Tennessee high school in the year of 1925, John Scopes; a substitute teacher, was accused of teaching evolution to a state funded school. This went against Tennessee’s Butler Act, which stated that it was unlawful to teach...
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...new technology helped to create a new economic boom. However, the change in politics would unite Americans that was looking for positive changes. Even though most Americans felt modernism was best for America they were meet with opposition from the traditionalist. The roaring twenties opened the door for women who began to enter the work force, gained the right to vote, and a freer lifestyle. In 1920 the 19th amendment passed which grants suffrage to women. Other social changes for women included the way they thought, dressed, and danced. Women began to wear shorter hair, shorter dresses, and some were known as flappers. Whereas, women had many social changes so did the younger generation (U.S History, Para 1). Moreover, the roaring twenties brought tremendous change to society as a whole. With the emergence of modern radio programs and motion pictures they entertained and influence the younger generation. As the new generation began to change there was a clash of values. Values changed from traditional to modern. As more motion pictures were made that depicted a more modern dress, thoughts, and style the younger generation formulated their style to match. Furthermore, while some Americans wanted to modernize others wanted to stay traditional, and the roaring twenties had a division of modernism and traditionalism. One way the traditionalist fought back was prohibition. Congress ratified the 18th amendment that made it illegal to consume, sale, transport, or the manufacturing...
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...Humanity is forever changing, growing and transforming, and so is the concept of modernism. It was only in the latter half of the nineteenth century, namely, when society first witnessed or gave theory to this multifaceted change. Multifaceted because it effected a diverse range of innovative and experimental practices in the visual arts, literature, design and architecture. New genres and styles were being invented and combined to push preconceived ideas and traditions. As society started to accept these changes, the world saw a rapid growth in urbanisation and industrialisation. In fact Wallace. J, wrote ‘ in examine the spaces of modernism, the city is an almost obligatory starting point’ (2011). The many new technologies that were were being invented during the early 20th Century increased the development and manufacturing of cities sevenfold. Changing cities meant changing cultures. People were living like never before. The modern city was a exceptional space for its facilitation of new forms of culture. After the second world war, the art world witnessed the styles and creative practices of European culture shift to America. American modernism like modernism in most areas of the world is a trend of thought that humans have the power to create, shape and improve their environment. Foster, .R did state ‘What distinguishes American modernism is the unifying theme of a conscious search for identity” (2003). Meaning artists and architectures searched for what it meant to...
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...Modern Art or Modernism is the loose term given to the succession of styles and movements in art and architecture which dominated Western culture from 19th Century up until the 1960’s. Movements associated with Modern art include Impressionism, Cubism, Bauhaus, Surrealism, Futurism, Pop Art and Op Art. Modern Art rejects the past as a model for the art of the present and is characterized by constant innovation. Modern Art grew out of the Impressionist's rejection of the 'imitation of life' school of art. Their emphasis on the act of painting, on the paint itself, can be seen in the Expressionist and Cubist art of the turn-of-the-century. Modern art was also often driven by various social and political agendas. These were often utopian, and modernism was in general associated with ideal visions of human life and society and a belief in progress. From the 1970’s artists and movements began to react against Modernism and post-modernism was formed. Some different types of the movements in art are: abstract, action art, American realism, architecture, art deco, and art nouveau, Asian, Bauhaus, black and white, celebrity, cityscape, colorful, comic book art, conceptual art, contemporary art, cubism, cuisine, exclusive, expressionism, fauvism, figurative, floral, framed prints, Modern art and many more. There were a lot of movements in the art industry ever since the beginning of Modern art which started in the 19th Century. Surrealism is a style of art and literature developed principally...
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...The Roaring Twenties and Modernism 7 F. Scott Fitzgerald “Bernice Bobs Her Hair” (1920) A. Characterisation - Comment on the characters with regard to the final chapters and the end. B. Narration and Language - What sort of narrator narrates “Bernice Bobs Her Hair”? Compare with Hemingway. - Characterise Fitzgerald’s language; you may find the adjectives below helpful. Compare with Hemingway; who is the more experimental? metaphorical – religious – humoristic – serious – playful – matter-of-fact – straightforward - | - What function do the passages of dialogue have? - Does Fitzgerald mainly ‘tell’ or ‘show’? telling – the narrator tells the readers what the characters feel: | showing – the narrator shows the readers what the characters feel: | When the teacher asked the students if they had done their homework, they felt very embarrassed. | When the teacher asked the students if they had done their homework, they looked down. | C. Structure - How has the short story been structured? (exposition and presentation of main conflict, subordinate conflicts, climax, coda) - What function does each chapter have, or how does chapter contribute to deepening or relaxing the conflict(s)? D. List the ten most important words of advice that would necessarily be included in a guidebook for a society vampire of the 1920s. E. Modernism In Life and Literature, Christensen writes about F. Scott Fitzgerald that * his works often...
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...The Great Gatsby’s third chapter mainly focuses on Nick’s first encounter, with the shrouded character of Jay Gatsby. Nick meets Gatsby at one of his gaudy parties; at which Nick seems to be “one of the few guests who had actually been invited”. Nick, of course, is employed by Fitzgerald and used to frame this chapter. Our established retrospective narrator writes in the subjective first person, meaning we only get his point of view of events; this peripheral style of narration generates intrigue within the reader, as Fitzgerald deliberately doesn’t want us guessing everything .In Jay McInerney’s article on ‘Gatsby’, he writes “Fitzgerald’s best narrators always seem to be partaking of the festivities even as they shiver outside with their noses pressed up against the glass.” I have to concur with McInerney here, as this quote sums up Nick’s narrative style completely. Nick is “within and without”, constantly on the outskirts of events, observing. From this it would be easy to conclude that Nick is a very dull narrator, whose appearance in the novel is only to mask Fitzgerald; so that Fitzgerald can get his opinions and views on this hedonistic lifestyle across. However, that is not the case, as Nick accommodates many aspects which pair with a good narrator. Nick is undoubtedly “one of the few honest people that I have ever known” and through his powerful quality of reservation, Fitzgerald allows other characters to express themselves and develop. This makes the novel more accessible...
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...ASSIGNMENT MODERNIST SHORT STORY Submitted By: Steffy Johnson 11/PELA/026 INTRODUCTION Modernist literature is the literary expression of the tendencies of Modernism, especially High modernism. Modernistic art and literature normally revolved around the idea of individualism, mistrust of institutions mainly government and religion, and the disbelief of any absolute truths. Modernism as a literary movement reached its height in Europe between 1900 and the middle 1920s. Modernist literature addressed to aesthetic problems and can be viewed largely in terms of its formal, stylistic and semantic movement away from Romanticism, examining subject matter that is traditionally mundane. It often features a marked pessimism, a clear rejection of the optimism apparent in Victorian literature. It attempted to move from the bonds of Realist literature and to introduce concepts such as disjointed timelines. Modernism as a literary movement is seen, in large part, as a reaction to the emergence of city life as a central force in society. Furthermore, an early attention to the object as freestanding became in later Modernism a preoccupation with form. Modernist writers were more acutely conscious of the objectivity of their surroundings. The most prominent modernist authors are: T. S. Eliot, W. B. Yeats, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Ernest Hemingway, Joseph Conrad, Franz Kafka, Knut Hamsun, Gertrude Stein, Mikhail Bulgakov, MarcelProust, John Steinbeck...
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...The dominant artistic movement from about 1900 to 1940, modernism was characterized by the reexamination of existence from every possible angle. Modernist writers sought to leave the traditions of nineteenth-century literature behind in terms of form, content, and expression. They realized that a new industrial age—full of machines, buildings, and technology—had ushered out rural living forever, and the result was often a pessimistic view of what lay before humankind. Frequent themes in modernist works are loneliness and isolation (even in cities teeming with people), and a significant number of writers tried to capture that sense of solitude by engaging in stream-of-consciousness writing, which captures the thought process of a single character as it happens without interruption. Some of the most famous modernist authors include Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Virginia Woolf, and James Joyce. 1. Open form and free verse are distinguishing characteristics of modernist poetry. Though commonplace now, this style was quite a break from nineteenth-century rules about meter and rhyme. 2. The moniker “The Lost Generation” was coined by Gertrude Stein and refers to those artists of the 1920s who had become disillusioned with America and found themselves living as ex-patriots in Europe, chiefly in France. 3. An example of stream-of-consciousness (also called “interior monologue”) from Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway: “She felt somehow very like him—the young man who...
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...significant. When you look at the film in the context of the 1920’s, it is possible to see why it has been considered so significant. In the US, the 1920’s were the beginnings of the modernist movement. The younger generation began a new age of art, music, and fashion, as well as a new set of values and cultural behaviors. Young people were attracted to the fast-paced and independent lifestyle of the city, and women especially became more attracted to that idea of independence. As many people joined the modernist movement, others resisted it just as much. Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans is a film that deals very much with the struggle between modernist and anti-modernist values, represented by The Man’s (George O’Brien) struggle over his choice between The Woman from The City (Margaret Livingston), and his wife (Janet Gaynor). The way in which this struggle presents itself, however, is pretty problematic; after a bit of thought, it is fairly obvious that the film condemns the modernist lifestyle, including the independence that women were developing. This much becomes evident to some people, but even then, very few people have fully realized the values that Sunrise is promoting, due to the excessive tenderness and emotion of the film, in the themes of forgiveness and rekindled affection. Thus, Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans may be one of the most effective conservative films of its time in that its messages about anti-modernism and women are heavily concealed in the kind of romantic...
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...Running head: Aaron Douglas. Aspects of Negro Life. ( Modernism Period) 2 Initial reactions Aspects of Negro Life: From Slavery to Reconstruction (1934) is an art piece painted by Aaron Douglas. He was an African-American painter during the Harlem Renaissance movement. As the title suggests, the painting is a description of the history of African-Americans from slavery through reconstruction time. The art piece is divided up into different sections and highlights the racism toward African-Americans. On the left side of the painting you see black people with drums and a crop growing in the background. This section of the painting shows a time where Africans were free and not slaves. Moving a little to the right, we see oppression and slavery through the black people being hunched over in the painting. Towards the middle of the art piece we see a person standing up pointing and showing the desire to fight against slavery and to the right of him you see people with their fists up and ready to fight against the oppression and slavery. This piece of art explores Negro heritage from left to right. I like this piece of art because of the soft colors and the neutral appearance of the silhouettes of people. This painting describes African-American culture and their struggle to end slavery. Everything in this painting describes life of African-American and their struggle in the 1900’s. Historical Context Douglas’s painting Aspects of Negro...
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...MODERN BRITISH LITERATURE (c. 1900 to 1950) READING LIST Please note that there are two lists below. The first is the full list with the core readings in bold; the second is the core list separated out. You are responsible for all core readings and may incorporate readings from the full list into your tailored list. Unless otherwise noted, selections separated by commas indicate all works students should know. A. FICTION Beckett, Samuel. One of the following: Murphy, Watt, Molloy Bennett, Arnold. Clayhanger Bowen, Elizabeth. The Heat of the Day Butler, Samuel. The Way of All Flesh Chesterton, G.K. The Man Who Was Thursday Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness AND one of: Lord Jim, The Secret Agent, Nostromo, Under Western Eyes Ford, Ford Madox. The Good Soldier Forster, E. M. Howards End, A Passage to India (plus the essays “What I Believe” and “The Challenge of Our Times” in Two Cheers for Democracy) Galsworthy, John. The Man of Property Greene, Graham. One of: Brighton Rock, The Power and the Glory, The Heart of the Matter Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World Joyce, James. Dubliners, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Ulysses Kipling, Rudyard. Kim Lawrence, D. H. Two of: Sons and Lovers, Women in Love, The Rainbow, The Plumed Serpent Lewis, Wyndham. Tarr, manifestos in BLAST 1 Mansfield, Katherine. “Prelude,” “At the Bay,” “The Garden Party,” “The Daughters of the Late Colonel” (in Collected Stories) Orwell, George. 1984 (or Aldous Huxley, Brave New World) Wells, H. G. One of the...
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...Abby Delamotte Mrs. Di Somma American Cultures P.1 24 April 2011 To create something brilliant, there must be truth and reason. Artists hiding behind paper and art only kept the truth hidden. In the 1920’s Art and Literature revolutionized American Society by turning away from the traditional ways and exposing the reality of American life. Art that was being published in the twenties was a representation of a new and wide variety of the movements, forms and points of view. This decade was one that “produced many great works of art, music [and] literature” (Mintz). In the early twenties American culture stood in Europe’s shadow and towards the end Americans were leading the struggle to liberate the arts. Artists were ready to develop new structures, tastes and styles. Poets like E.E Cummings, Langston Hughes, and Wallace Stevens were experimenting with new writing styles and format. Artists were doing the same, Charles Demuth, Georgia O’Keefe, and Joseph Stella, by challenging the dominant and realist traditions in American art. Not only did the techniques change but as did the genres. The 1920’s era was also an era of the Harlem Renaissance “a golden age in American Literature and significant developments” in other arts such as painting and music (Burg). Creativity exploded in Harlem and jazz came into being. Photographers captured the essence of Charles Demuth’s art work by pioneering expressionist art forms. Even as college enrollment doubled during this time period...
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...In the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, the role of women began to change drastically. Woman began to rally for rights, and suffrage became more popular. Woman became more independent, and they weren’t afraid or ashamed to even go so far as to be jailed for their protests. It wasn’t until 1920 when the Nineteenth Amendment that is finally became unlawful for individual states or the government to deny women the right to vote. Along with these political changes came overall changes in the way that woman were reflected. Writers began to endorse women’s liberation and equality. Literature and plays during the modernism era were often considered scandalous. Marriage was one subject of writers of the period. A Doll’s House, by Henrik Ibsen, was a play about a woman who was treated childishly by her husband and father, and in the end she leaves her husband. It was so controversial, that the play had to be rewritten to include and ending where she stayed for the sake of her children. It is considered to be the first feminist play. Other writers helped society accept the role of women outside of the home. Women no longer wanted to be viewed as domestic, but instead wanted do things that showed their intelligence and skills. The Yellow Wallpaper, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, was written during this time. It was a satirical story that symbolized the oppression of women. Art and literature during this time depicted the changes in women, addressing marriage, divorce, rights...
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...Alex Dos Santos Ryan Fenton ENGL 1102 3/24/2014 The Complexity behind Love Literary Modernism can be argued as one of the most innovated movements in literature there has been so far. Beginning around early 1920’s, modernism of literature started as artists started to break down the traditional styles and become more creative and unrestricted with their works. One major change from this movement is how poetry became more intricate and open for different interpretations to the readers. One poet of this movement is Marianne Moore who wrote many of her popular pieces in this era. Many of her works included modernists’ techniques that became more common such as allusions and irony which aided in the complexity of her poems. Despite common interpretations, in Marianne Moore’s poem “Poetry”, Marianne uses the description of natural reactions and complex imagery to describe her input on love in that time instead of addressing what constructs poetry. First of all, probably the most notable, is the complexity of Marianne’s imagery. In this poem, Marianne uses imagery of human reactions, unusual human and animal actions, and objects to convey her message. Such as in lines 6 and 7, “Hands that can grasp, eyes that can dilate, hair that can stand if it must.” Maureen claims that these lines create a fearful image that based upon an unlikely assumption that Marianne talks about the fear of bad poetry (Mills 1710). By using the more consistent viewpoint, love, Marianne uses these...
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...The era of the 1920’s sparked new ideas and perspectives in American people. Some considered this to be a development that would help to shape the nation; while others were concerned that traditional ideals and values would be lost with the changing times. The post – war time period in America was one of great controversy, with modernism on one side and conventionalism on the other. As America journeyed through the 1920’s, a power struggle between conservatives and liberals came to light due to the past events of World War I, the Progressive Era, and the Industrial Revolution. This tension was shown with a shift in viewpoints about immigration, foreign diplomacy, women’s role in the country, and the social aspects of American life. World War I had been a war unlike any other that America had been involved in thus far. It shed the archaic beliefs of isolationism and put the nation in a global spotlight as a major world super power. However, a portion of America still believed in seclusion, as shown when America chose not to join the League of Nations after much controversy in the Senate over the ratification of the post – war Treaty of Versailles in 1919. This was the first strike of tension in America due to the war effort. Additionally, the “Red Scare”, caused by Communism in Russia during the “Great War”, changed citizens’ ideas about immigrants. The once open - minded, diversified nation now began to adopt the theory of “Americanism.” Many wanted majority of Americans to...
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