Various Emerging Literary Genres During the 1900's Essay

Modernist literature began between 1915-1935, writers mainly wrote fiction this is because they started to question what the future was going to bring since they were living through both World War. Modernists wrote their stories in first person which made their stories seem like a stream of consciousness, irony and satires. This type of literature was mainly written in English and became well known due to the increase of globalization, which was more about how the people felt about the events going on and how the people were affected in other words it spoke from the inner self of the writer. Many famous writers including Ernest Hemingway, Langston Hughes, and F. Scott Fitzgerald believed that the increase in new technology was leading to the decrease in civilization which was making individuals lonely.

Authors wanted to revolutionize arts and audience worldwide. This was done by the creation of tools that helped excel the “American Dream”. Some of the major authors in this time included T.S. Eliot, James Joyce, Ezra Pound, and Gertrude Stein (Modernism). There are two different groupings of modernism, which are modernism and post modernism. In the beginning, “early modernists used elements of experimentation, freedom, radicalism, and utopianism” (Modernism). After the war, “post-modernists, however, rebelled against many modernist elements and instead depicted disillusionment and elements of dystopian ideas—dehumanized and fearful lives” (Modernism). Many different historical aspects influenced the upcoming of the modernist movement such as publications of scientific theories, technological inventions that globalized society, Sigmund Freud’s change in the discipline of psychology, new concepts of ethics, morality, and ideals, and artistic movements (Modernism).

Modernism is when writers proclaimed a new "subject matter" for literature and the writer feels that its new way of looking at life required a new form, a new way of writing. The writers of this period tend to pursue more experimental and usually more highly individualistic forms of

The Modernist movement began as America began to divulge from the ideals of the Victorian Period. Modernism was provided as a response to the ongoing WWI. New artists divulged into the new writings about rationalism and individualism. Modern artists Wrote about struggles and the conflict between fragmentation and order. As time progressed the modernist movement changed, one subsection of the modernist movement was the Harlem Renaissance. The Harlem Renaissance was influenced by the political, social and economic change of the United States during the early twentieth century and left an everlasting impact on African American culture.

Modernistic authors can be described as ones who embraced the nontraditional ideas being introduced into American society during the twentieth century, challenging long standing traditions concerning racism and socioeconomic status determining an individual’s future or success. Emancipation: freedom from restraint, control, power of another, or from any controlling influence was a major theme of the modernistic era. Another term commonly associated with modernism is juxtaposition: defined as two images that are otherwise not commonly brought together appear side by side or structurally close together, thereby forcing the reader to stop and reconsider them meaning of images, ideas, motifs and common practices or expectations associated with society. (There are many other terms associated with modernism.) Two authors, Ralph Ellison and Harper Lee both demonstrate many examples associated with emancipation and juxtaposition.

Reading was a very popular thing to do back during the 1920’s. Before radio and television existed almost all people gained knowledge of the wider world and current events through books and literature. Literature contributed to society a lot more in the 1920’s than it did today. Many authors contributed to the learning and shaping of minds young and old by writing books that would define the time period. Some of these authors were F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and T.S. Elliot. They defined and shaped the 1920’s by their writings and literature.

The literary modernism time period was a movement in literature that started in the early 1890s and was very eventful. During this era there were many considerable events taking place such as The Great War (also known as “World War One”), which started in 1914. This War lasted for four years and finally ended in 1918, but its effects lasted much longer. The financial instability of Europe and death caused by this First World War gave people a sense of patriotism that unified them. It made people think of not only the society as a whole, but themselves as individuals ("Modernism."). This new individualist mindset made people think more about their thoughts and actions than they had ever previously done before. Because individuals thought

The birth of the modernist movement in American literature was the result of the post-World War I social breakdown. Writers adopted a disjointed fragmented style of writing that rebelled against traditional literature. One such writer is William Faulkner, whose individual style is characterized by his use of “stream of consciousness” and writing from multiple points of view.

Experimentation and Individualism became more of an asset, where as before it was looked down upon. Modernism really started with big cultural shocks.Starting with World War 1. And ending around World War 2. Artists of the newer generation pursued more of a democratic, diverse mode for poetry and novels.

American literature 1865-1914 is an American literary time period that began in 1865 and ended in 1914. This time period was flourished by three distinct features and the first of these features is: The Aftermath of the Civil War. It is estimated that a total of 620,000 Americans were killed in the Civil War, and for what? At the time, we were an America that was divided by one huge issue that ran supreme and it was slavery and the unequal treatment of African Americans. At this time the nation needed to figure a way to unite the North who were against slavery and the South who were for slavery. As Abraham Lincoln says in our Bedford Anthology of American Literature: “No one man has authority to give up the rebellion for any other man, we simply must begin with, and mould from, disorganized and discordant elements,” (4). He is saying that we must not start a new, but rather we need to start from what we had and mould and shape our country into one. Prior to the Civil War, America was not a whole, it was ruled by states’ rights and was divided on countless issues, and when referring to America, people said the United States are… It wasn’t until under President Lincoln, and concluding the Civil War that the United States began to be referred to as the United States is.. Honest Abe, brought our nation together as one, but the racial tension that remained was something one man can never fix. The literature around this time period was dominated by ideas and feelings circled

Rolling into the late 19th and early 20th century, modernistic literature became the style of writing. Modernistic thinking was a rebellion against realism, in which the literature was very abstract. The writers of that time period were experimental and used unusual techniques. There were four sub-categories of modernism: surrealism, cubism, existentialism, and dadaism. Surrealism and existentialism were the most popular of the four. Surrealism was very dreamy-like writing, such as the work done by an artist named Daly. Existentialism dealt with the belief that the human existence had free will- there were no gods and humans had control of there own philosophy. Writers such as Camus were existentialists. The final literary movement that will be discussed is postmodernism. Postmodernism was an attempt by many artists to arrive at a united, global culture. Postmodernists had optimistic views that things could get better. Instead of concentrating on the fragments of destruction, they gathered all of the fragments together and made an optimistic outlook.

There was no single forerunner of modernism, but many famous authors emerged from this movement, such as James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, T.S. Eliot, and D.H. Lawrence.

Before the 20th Century, literature was pretty straightforward; the narrators were reliable, the timelines were linear, and the perspective was clear, but then somebody got the idea to mix it up. This is how we got books such as The Great Gatsby and one of our class texts, Orlando. For some, this was a startling and uncomfortable transition from what used to be considered the, “normal” format which was very up front in terms of structure and voice. Others found it to be more exciting and, while it was still weird and unsettling for those people, it forced people to think more about what the books were trying to communicate, instead of just being handed the message; they had to work for it. This has become one of the leading reasons that societies are encouraged to read; if you read a book that forces you to think, your mind becomes stronger and this promotes an increase in intelligence and creativity.

Modernism is defined in Merriam-Webster's Dictionary as "a self-conscious break with the past and a search for new forms of expression." While this explanation does relate what modernism means, the intricacies of the term go much deeper. Modernism began around 1890 and waned around 1922. Virginia Wolf once wrote, "In or about December, 1910, human character changed." (Hurt and Wilkie 1443). D.H. Lawrence wrote a similar statement about 1915: "It was 1915 the old world ended." (Hurt and Wilkie 1444). The importance of the exact dates of the Modernist period are not so relevant as the fact that new ideas were implemented in the era. Ideas that had never before been approached in the world of literature suddenly began emerging

What further contributed to the rise of modernism was the First World War, which shell-shocked many. People lost their sense of certainty and it made them change their points of views. It made modernists question civilisation. This is seen in T.S Eliot’s poem “The Wasteland” which questions