MODERNISM AT A GLANCE
To aver that one’s art, literature, architecture and everything else that encompasses his cultural identity will not be let out of his grip, but instead will be moulded and rehashed to suit the changing landscape is what Modernism is all about. After the monstrosity of the First World War, followed by rapid industrialisation and technological developments becoming the carnal desires of mankind, Ezra Pound’s “Make it new” was a dire cry that was ringing in everyone’s ears. Modernists changed the course of history; and yet held on to their past. The drive to preserve the obsolete revolutionized language in various forms for it was felt that language could not convey the complete meaning-
“That’s not all, that’s not what I meant at all”
- The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot.
Writers such as Eliot, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, W.B Yeats, Ezra Pound and so on were among the money who spurned the idea of realism and hence introduced a variety of literary tactic and devices. The Modernists drowned the Victorian bourgeois morality and plummeted a blazing rock on the 19th century optimism of ‘change’ , for it was believed that art and change where progressive in nature .
MODERNISM OPENING THE DOOR TO FEMINISM
Modernism is “A general term used to refer to changes, developments, and tendencies which have taken place in literature, art, music etc since the 1940s or 1950s” (The Penguin Reference Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory). It also constitutes of the feminism aspect that made a huge mark in history.
The age old tradition of women being defined by men came to an abrupt halt during the period of Modernism. The misogynistic and chauvinistic society was kicked like a fur ball for the Modernists’ version of change was uncalled for. The status and value of a woman has been an important element of literature and hence gender had a major share of the limelight during