Modern Literary Movements (The -Isms)
• Modernism—a conscious attempt to exploit new perspectives; modernist
writers react to the confusion of current history by seeking fresh ways
of grasping human experience; they rework conventional modes of
expression in order to create a radically new controlling vision; their
impulse is innovative and oriented toward the future; they display a
highly self-conscious use of language and aim literally to transform
the way we see the world; the usual term for the change in attitudes
and artistic strategy occurring at the beginning of the century; a
group of Anglo-American writers who favored clear, precise images and
“common speech” and thought of the work as an art object produced by
consummate craft rather than as a statement of emotion; an attempt to
construct a new view of the world and of human nature through the
self-conscious manipulation of form.
• Existentialism—a philosophic attempt to recover clear vision and a
basis for action in a confused and meaningless world.
• Impressionism—the representation of reality through impressions.
• Expressionism—Writers express an inner vision, emotion, or spiritual
reality to assert their alienation from an industrial society whose
inhumanity repels them; they subordinate conventional (rational) style
and let emotion dictate the structure of their works, emphasizing
rhythm, disrupted narrative line and broken syntax, and distorted
imagery.
• Futurism—proclaims its enthusiasm for the dynamic new machine age
through experiments in typography, free association, rapid shifts and
breaks of syntax, and manipulations of sounds and world placement for
special effects apart from semantic meaning; the vision is harsh and
stark; began with Marinetti’s Futurist Manifesto in 1908.
• Dadaism—subverts authority and breaks all the rules hoping to
liberate the creative imagination; Dada creations were attacks on the
mind and emotions; began in Zurich in 1916.
• Surrealism—aimed to bring about a fuller awareness of human
experience, including both conscious and unconscious states; a means of
expressing “the actual functioning of thought,” “the total recuperation
of our psychic force by a means that is nothing else than the dizzying
descent into ourselves”; led by André Breton; dream-writing,
automatic writing, riddle games, interruption and collage, and chiefly
the creation of startling images opened the mind to new possibilities.