Introduction to the 20th Century & Modernism

Modernism (1890s–1940s)—literary, cultural, and artistic movement that provided a radical

break with traditional modes of Western art, thought, religion, social conventions, and morality.

Major themes of this period include:

⦁ an attack on notions of hierarchy

⦁ experimentation in new forms of narrative

⦁ doubt about the existence of knowable, objective reality

⦁ increased attention to alternative viewpoints and modes of thinking

Modernism rebelled against Victorian values. In fact, Modernists blamed Victorianism for such

evils as slavery, racism, and imperialism—and later for World War I.

⦁ Victorian culture emphasized nationalism and cultural absolutism.

⦁ Modernists emphasized humanism over nationalism, and argued for cultural relativism.

⦁ Victorians placed humans over and outside of nature.

⦁ Modernists emphasized the ways in which humans were part of and responsible to nature.

⦁ Victorians believed in a single way of looking at the world, and in absolute and clear-cut

dichotomies between right/wrong, good/bad, and hero/villain.

⦁ Modernists argued for multiple ways of looking at the world, and blurred the Victorian

dichotomies by presenting antiheroes and anti-art movements.

⦁ Victorians saw the world as being governed by God’s will, and that each person and thing in

this world had a specific use.

⦁ Modernists challenged the idea that God played an active role in the world, as well as the

Victorian assumption that there was meaning and purpose behind world events. Instead,

Modernists argued that no thing/person was born for a specific use; instead, individuals

found/made their own meaning in the world.

⦁ Victorians saw the world as neatly divided between “civilized” and “savage” peoples.

The “civilized” were those from: The “savage” were those from:

⦁ industrialized nations ⦁ agrarian or hunter-gatherer tribes

⦁ cash-based economies ⦁ barter-based economies

⦁ Protestant Christian traditions ⦁ “pagan” traditions

⦁ patriarchal societies ⦁ matriarchal (or at least “unmanly” societies)

Challenging the Victorian dichotomy between “civilized” and “savage,” Modernists reversed the

values associated with each kind of culture. Modernists presented the Victorian “civilized” as:

⦁ greedy and war-mongering (instead of being industrialized nations and cash-based economies)

⦁ hypocrites (rather than Christians)

⦁ enemies of freedom and self-realization (instead of good patriarchs)

Those that the Victorians had dismissed (and subjugated) as “savages” the Modernists saw as

being the truly civilized—responsible users of their environments, unselfish and family-oriented,

generous, creative, mystical and full of wonder, and egalitarian

These “savages,” post-WWI Modernists pointed out, did not kill millions with mustard gas,

machine-guns, barbed wire, and genocidal starvation.

—adapted from Professor Catherine Lavender, CUNY

World War I

Global war is one of the defining features of 20th

-century experience, and the first global war is a

major subject of this period. Masses of dead bodies strewn upon the ground, plumes of poison

gas drifting through the air, hundreds of miles of trenches infested with rats—these are but some

of the indelible images that have come to be associated with World War I (1914-18). It was a

war that unleashed death, loss, and suffering on an unprecedented scale.

Location: Europe, Africa, the Middle East (primarily)

Allied Powers Central Powers

Soldiers: 43,000,000 Soldiers: 25,000,000

Dead: 5,500,000

Wounded: 12,800,000

Missing: 4,100,000

Dead: 4,400,000

Wounded: 8,400,000

Missing: 3,600,000

France

United Kingdom

Russia (1914–17)

Italy (1915–18)

United States (1917–18)

Romania (1916–18)

Japan

Serbia

Belgium

Greece (1917–18)

Portugal (1916–18)

Montenegro (1914–16)

Germany

Austria-Hungary

Ottoman Empire

Bulgaria (1915-18)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4f/WWI-re.png

Today we know it as World War I, but those who lived through it called it “The Great War.” At

first, the war was predicted to last only a few months and to result in a resounding success for the

British Empire and its allies. But as the years passed and the casualties mounted into the

millions, it became clear that this conflict was quite different from its predecessors. With nearly

9,000,000 soldiers killed (one in five of those who fought) and survivors afflicted with prolonged

physical and mental suffering, the war marked a change in the course of military and political

history.

It also represented a challenge to anyone wishing to give meaning to the enormity of the death

toll and the futility of trench warfare. Soldiers living in rat-infested and water-saturated trenches

fired machine-guns at unseen soldiers in other trenches; when they went “over the top” into no-

man’s-land, they became completely vulnerable.

President Wilson before Congress, announcing the break in official relations with Germany in February 1917.

Modern Postmodern

rational irrational

scientific anti-scientific or unscientific

utopian, elitist, belief in universal values populist claim, local values only

democratic feminist and minority hegemony

hierarchical anarchical

organized non-totalized, chaotic, fragmented

centered dispersed

European, Western “multicultural”

generalizing non-generalizing

determinate indeterminate

objective subjective

objectivist values, masterpieces values determined socially and individually

formal disciplines informal, undisciplined

purposeful, meaningful meaningless or purely subjective meaning

construction destruction (pomos prefer the euphemism “deconstruction”)

belief in progress no progress possible

theoretical concrete, non-theorizing

analytical & synthetic non-analytical, rhetorical, based on belief

simplicity, elegance, spartan, streamlined decoration, elaboration, convoluted, evasive

logical, scientific illogical, superstitious, opinion based

cause-effect chance

linear haphazard, “nonlinear”

harmonious, integrated non-integrated

permanence transience

abstract concrete

communicative, prefer to be understood prefer to be arcane

unified, coherent eclectic, incoherent

objective truth truth is socially constructed

apolitical to occasionally political politicizes everything

disciplines primarily indifferent to power struggles political power is of primary concern

reality is not anthropocentric reality is socially constructed and anthropocentric