Modernism in the literature of the 20th century. Avant-garde movements of modernism. Modernism as a direction in literature

13.04.2019

Modernism is an ideological movement in literature and art of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which is characterized by a departure from classical standards, the search for new, radical literary forms and the creation of a completely new style of writing works. This direction replaced realism and became the predecessor of postmodernism, the final stage of its development dates back to the 30s of the twentieth century.

The main feature of this direction is a complete change in the classical perception of the picture of the world: the authors are no longer bearers of absolute truth and ready-made concepts, but, on the contrary, demonstrate their relativity. The linearity of the narrative disappears, replaced by a chaotic, fragmentary plot, fragmented into parts and episodes, often presented on behalf of several characters at once, who may have completely opposite views on the events taking place.

Directions of modernism in literature

Modernism, in turn, branched into several directions, such as:

Symbolism

(Somov Konstantin Andreevich "Two ladies in the park")

It originated in France in the 70-80s of the 19th century and reached the peak of its development at the beginning of the 20th century, and was most widespread in France. Belgium and Russia. Symbolist authors embodied the main ideas of their works, using the multifaceted and polysemantic associative aesthetics of symbols and images; they were often full of mystery, enigma and understatement. Prominent representatives of this trend: Charles Baudelaire, Paul Verlaine, Arthur Rimbaud, Lautreamont (France), Maurice Maeterlinck, Emile Verhaerne (Belgium), Valery Bryusov, Alexander Blok, Fyodor Sologub, Maximilian Voloshin, Andrei Bely, Konstantin Balmont (Russia).. .

Acmeism

(Alexander Bogomazov "Flour peddlers")

It emerged as a separate movement of modernism at the beginning of the twentieth century in Russia, Acmeist authors, in contrast to the symbolists, insisted on clear materiality and objectivity of the themes and images described, defended the use of precise and clear words, and advocated distinct and definite images. Central figures of Russian acmeism: Anna Akhmatova, Nikolai Gumilyov, Sergei Gorodetsky...

Futurism

(Fortunato Depero "Me and my wife")

An avant-garde movement that emerged in the 10-20s of the 20th century and developed in Russia and Italy. The main feature of futurological authors is their interest not so much in the content of their works, but more in the form of versification. For this purpose, new word forms were invented, vulgar, common vocabulary, professional jargon, and the language of documents, posters and posters were used. The founder of futurism is considered to be the Italian poet Filippo Marinetti, who wrote the poem “Red Sugar,” and his associates Balla, Boccioni, Carra, Severini and others. Russian futurists: Vladimir Mayakovsky, Velimir Khlebnikov, Boris Pasternak...

Imagism

(Georgy Bogdanovich Yakulov - set design for J. Offenbach's operetta "The Beautiful Helen")

It emerged as a literary movement of Russian poetry in 1918, its founders were Anatoly Mariengof, Vadim Shershenevich and Sergei Yesenin. The goal of the Imagists’ creativity was to create images, and the main means of expression was declared to be metaphor and metaphorical chains, with the help of which direct and figurative images were compared...

Expressionism

(Erich Heckel" street scene at the bridge")

The current of modernism, which developed in Germany and Austria in the first decade of the twentieth century, as a painful reaction of society to the horrors of current events (revolutions, the First world war). This direction sought not so much to reproduce reality as to convey the emotional state of the author; images of pain and screams are very common in works. The following people worked in the style of expressionism: Alfred Döblin, Gottfried Benn, Ivan Goll, Albert Ehrenstein (Germany), Franz Kafka, Paul Adler (Czech Republic), T. Michinsky (Poland), L. Andreev (Russia)...

Surrealism

(Salvador Dali "The Persistence of Memory")

It emerged as a movement in literature and art in the 20s of the twentieth century. Surrealist works are distinguished by the use of allusions (stylistic figures that give a hint or indication of specific historical or mythological cult events) and a paradoxical combination various forms. Founder of surrealism - French writer and the poet Andre Breton, famous writers of this movement - Paul Eluard and Louis Aragon...

Modernism in Russian literature of the twentieth century

The last decade of the 19th century was marked by the emergence of new trends in Russian literature, the task of which was a complete rethinking of old means of expression and the revival of poetic art. This period (1982-1922) went down in the history of literature under the name “ Silver Age"Russian poetry. Writers and poets united in various modernist groups and movements that played artistic culture a huge role at that time.

(Kandinsky Vasily Vasilievich "Winter Landscape")

Russian symbolism appeared at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, its founders were the poets Dmitry Merezhkovsky, Fyodor Sologub, Konstantin Balmont, Valery Bryusov, later they were joined by Alexander Blok, Andrei Bely, Vyacheslav Ivanov. They publish the artistic and journalistic organ of the Symbolists, the magazine Libra (1904-1909), and support the idealistic philosophy of Vladimir Solovyov about the Third Testament and the coming of Eternal Femininity. The works of symbolist poets are filled with complex, mystical images and associations, mystery and understatement, abstraction and irrationality.

Symbolism is being replaced by acmeism, which appeared in Russian literature in 1910, the founders of the trend: Nikolai Gumilyov, Anna Akhmatova, Sergei Gorodetsky, this group of poets also included O. Mandelstam, M. Zenkevich, M. Kuzmin, M. Voloshin. The Acmeists, unlike the Symbolists, proclaimed the cult of real earthly life, a clear and confident view of reality, the affirmation of the aesthetic-hedonistic function of art, without touching on social problems. The poetry collection “Hyperborea”, released in 1912, announced the emergence of a new literary movement called acmeism (from “acme” - the highest degree of something, the time to flourish). The Acmeists tried to make the images concrete and objective, to get rid of the mystical confusion inherent in the Symbolist movement.

(Vladimir Mayakovsky "Roulette")

Futurism in Russian literature arose simultaneously with Acmeism in 1910-1912, like others literary trends in modernism it was full of internal contradictions. One of the most significant futurist groups called Cubo-Futurists included such outstanding poets Silver Age like V. Khlebnikov, V. Mayakovsky, I. Severyanin, A. Kruchenykh, V. Kamensky and others. Futurists proclaimed a revolution of forms, absolutely independent of content, freedom poetic word and giving up the old ones literary traditions. Interesting experiments were carried out in the field of words, new forms were created and outdated ones were denounced. literary norms and rules. The first collection of futurist poets, “A Slap in the Face of Public Taste,” declared the basic concepts of futurism and established it as the only truthful exponent of its era.

(Kazimir Malevich "The Lady at the Tram Stop")

In the early 20s of the twentieth century, on the basis of futurism, a new modernist direction was formed - imagism. Its founders were the poets S. Yesenin, A. Mariengof, V. Shershenevich, R. Ivnev. In 1919, they held the first Imagist evening and created a declaration that proclaimed the main principles of Imagism: the primacy of the image “as such,” poetic expression through the use of metaphors and epithets, a poetic work should be a “catalog of images,” read the same as from the beginning, so from the end. Creative differences between the Imagists led to the division of the movement into left and right wings; after Sergei Yesenin left its ranks in 1924, the group gradually disintegrated.

Modernism in foreign literature of the twentieth century

(Gino Severini "Still Life")

Modernism as a literary movement began in the late 19th and early 19th centuries on the eve of the First World War, its heyday occurred in the 20-30s of the 20th century, it developed almost simultaneously in the countries of Europe and America and is an international phenomenon consisting of various literary movements, such as imagism, dadaism, expressionism, surrealism, etc.

Modernism arose in France, its prominent representatives belonging to the Symbolist movement were the poets Paul Verlaine, Arthur Rimbaud, and Charles Baudelaire. Symbolism quickly became popular in other European countries, in England it was represented by Oscar Wilde, in Germany by Stefan George, in Belgium by Emil Verhaeren and Maurice Metterlinck, in Norway by Henrik Ibsen.

(Umberto Boccioni "The street enters the house")

Among the expressionists were G. Trakl and F. Kafka in Belgium, the French school - A. France, the German school - J. Becher. The founders of such a modernist movement in literature as Imagism, which existed since the beginning of the 20th century in English-speaking European countries, were the English poets Thomas Hume and Ezra Pound, they were later joined by the American poet Amy Lowell, the young English poet Herbert Read, and the American John Fletcher.

The most famous modernist writers of the early twentieth century are considered to be the Irish prose writer James Joyce, who created the immortal stream-of-consciousness novel Ulysses (1922), the French author of the seven-volume epic novel In Search of Lost Time, Marcel Proust, and the German-speaking master of modernism Franz Kafka, who wrote the story “The Metamorphosis” (1912), which became a classic of the absurd in all world literature.

Modernism in the characteristics of Western literature of the twentieth century

Although modernism is divided into large number currents, their common feature is the search for new forms and determination of man’s place in the world. The literature of modernism, which arose at the junction of two eras and between two world wars, in a society tired and exhausted of old ideas, is distinguished by its cosmopolitanism and expresses the feelings of authors lost in an ever-evolving, growing urban environment.

(Alfredo Gauro Ambrosi "Airportrait of the Duce")

Writers and poets who worked in in this direction, constantly experimented with new words, forms, techniques and techniques in order to create a new, fresh sound, although the themes remained old and eternal. Usually it was a theme about the loneliness of a person in a huge and colorful world, about the discrepancy between the rhythms of his life and the surrounding reality.

Modernism is a kind of literary revolution; writers and poets took part in it, declaring their complete denial of realistic verisimilitude and all cultural and literary traditions in general. They had to live and create in difficult times, when the values of traditional humanistic culture were outdated, when the concept of freedom in different countries had a very ambiguous meaning when the blood and horrors of the First World War devalued human life, and the surrounding world appeared before man in all its cruelty and coldness. Early modernism symbolized the time when faith in the power of reason was destroyed, and the time came for the triumph of irrationality, mysticism and the absurdity of all existence.

Modernism is a movement in art characterized by a departure from previous historical experience artistic creativity up to its complete denial. Modernism appeared at the end of the 19th century, and its heyday occurred at the beginning of the 20th century. The development of modernism was accompanied by significant changes in literature, fine arts and architecture. Culture and art are not always amenable to spontaneous change, but the need for modernism as a means of change was already felt at the beginning of the 20th century. Basically, the process of renewal proceeded calmly, but sometimes modernism took militant forms, as was the case with the young artist Salvador Dali, who tried to elevate surrealism to the rank of art without delay. However, culture and art have the property of timeliness, so no one can speed up or slow down the process.

The evolution of modernism

The paradigm of modernism became dominant in the first half of the 20th century, but then the desire for radical changes in art began to decline, and the French Art Nouveau, German Jugendstil and Russian Art Nouveau, which preceded modernism as a revolutionary phenomenon, took a calmer form .

Modernism in art or the art of modernism?

It was up to writers, artists and architects from the entire civilized world to understand the priority of these formulations. Some representatives of the elite in the field of art believed that modernism was a long-awaited change, and it should be placed at the forefront of the further development of the entire civilization, others assigned modernism the role of updating certain trends in the field of art and nothing more. The debate continued; no one was able to prove that they were right. Nevertheless, modernism has arrived in art, and this has become an incentive for its further development in all directions. The changes were not immediately noticeable, the inertia of society affected, as is usually the case, discussions began on new trends, some were for the changes, others did not accept them. Then the art of modernism came to the fore, directors, famous writers, musicians, everyone who thought progressively, began to promote everything new, and gradually modernism was recognized.

Modernism in the visual arts

The main directions of modernism in natural painting, portrait drawing, sculpture and others were formed in the second half of the nineteenth century. It began in 1863, when the so-called “Salon of the Rejected” was opened in Paris, where avant-garde artists gathered and presented their works. The name of the salon spoke for itself; the public did not accept abstract painting and rejected it. Nevertheless, the very fact of the appearance of the “Salon of the Rejected” indicated that the art of modernism was already awaiting recognition.

Directions of modernism

Soon modernist trends took concrete forms, the following directions in art:

- a special style of painting, when the artist spends a minimum amount of time on his creativity, scatters paints on the canvas, randomly touches the painting with brushes, and randomly applies strokes.
Dadaism is works of art in the style of collage, the arrangement of several fragments of the same theme on canvas. The images are usually imbued with the idea of denial, a cynical approach to the topic. The style arose immediately after the end of the First World War and became a reflection of the feeling of hopelessness that reigned in society.
Cubism - chaotically arranged geometric figures. The style itself is highly artistic; Pablo Picasso created true masterpieces in the Cubist style. The artist approached his work somewhat differently - his canvases are also included in the treasury of world art.
Post-Impressionism - rejection of visible reality and replacement real images decorative stylization. A style with enormous potential, but only Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin fully realized it.

Surrealism, one of the main strongholds of modernism

Surrealism is a dream and reality, true fine art, reflecting the most extraordinary thoughts of the artist. The most notable surrealist artists were Salvador Dali, Ernst Fuchs and Arno Brecker, who together made up the "Golden Triangle of Surrealism".

Painting style with extreme shade

Fauvism is a special style that evokes a feeling of passion and energy, characterized by exaltation of color and “wild” expressiveness of colors. The plot of the film is also in most cases on the verge of extreme. The leaders of this direction were Henri Matisse and Andre Derain.

Organics in art

Futurism is an organic combination of the artistic principles of cubism and fomism, a riot of colors mixed with the intersections of straight lines, triangles and angles. The dynamics of the image are all-consuming, everything in the picture is in motion, energy can be traced in every stroke.

Style of Georgian artist Niko Pirosmani

Primitivism - artistic image in the style of conscious and deliberate simplification, resulting in a primitive drawing akin to the creativity of a child or wall paintings in the caves of primitive tribes. The primitive style of a painting does not at all reduce its artistic level if it was painted by a true artist. A prominent representative of primitivism was Niko Pirosmani.

Literary modernism

Modernism in literature has replaced the established classical canons of storytelling. The style of writing novels, novellas and short stories that emerged at the beginning of the 20th century gradually began to show signs of stagnation, and some monotony of presentation forms appeared. Then writers began to turn to other, previously unused interpretations of the artistic concept. The reader was offered psychological and philosophical concepts. This is how a style emerged that was defined as “Stream of Consciousness”, based on a deep penetration into the psychology of the characters. Most a shining example modernism in literature is the novel by the American writer William Faulkner called "The Sound and the Fury".

Each of the novel's heroes is analyzed from the point of view of his life principles, moral qualities and aspirations. Faulkner's method is justified because it is precisely because of a conscientious and in-depth analysis of the character's character that most interesting story. Thanks to his research style of writing, William Faulkner is one of the “golden five” of US writers, as well as two other writers - and Scott Fitzgerald, who in their work try to follow the rule of deep analysis.

Representatives of modernism in literature:

Walt Whitman, best known for his collection of poetry Leaves of Grass.
Charles Baudelaire - collection of poetry "Flowers of Evil".
Arthur Rambo - poetic works"Illuminations", "One Summer in Hell".
Fyodor Dostoevsky with the works "The Brothers Karamazov" and "Crime and Punishment", this is Russian modernism in literature.

The role of guiding vector forces influencing the writers - the founders of modernism, was played by philosophers: Henri Bergson, William James, Friedrich Nietzsche and others. Sigmund Freud did not stand aside either.

Thanks to modernism, the first thirty years of the 20th century were radically changed literary forms.

The era of modernism, writers and poets

Among the most famous writers of the modernist period, the following writers and poets stand out:

Anna Akhmatova (1889-1966) - Russian poetess with a tragic fate, who lost her family during the years. She is the author of several poetry collections, as well as the famous poem "Requiem".
Franz Kafka (1883-1924) is an extremely controversial Austrian writer whose works were considered absurd. During the writer's lifetime, his novels were not published. After Kafka's death, all of his works were published, despite the fact that he himself categorically objected to this and, during his lifetime, conjured his executors to burn the novels immediately after his death. The writer could not destroy the manuscripts himself, since they were distributed among different hands, and none of his admirers was going to return them to the author.
(1898-1962) - laureate Nobel Prize on literature in 1949, who became famous for creating an entire fictional county in the American outback called Yoknapatawpha, populating it with characters and began to describe their lives. Faulkner's works are incredibly complex structurally, but if the reader manages to grasp the thread of the narrative, then it is no longer possible to tear him away from the novel, short story or tale of the famous American writer.
Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) is one of the most faithful followers of modernism in literature. His novels and stories amaze with their life-affirming power. All his life, the writer was an irritant to the American authorities, he was bothered by absurd suspicions, the methods that the CIA officers used to attract Hemingway to their side were absurd. It all ended with the writer’s nervous breakdown and temporary placement in a psychiatric clinic. The writer had only one love in his life - his hunting rifle. On July 2, 1961, Hemingway committed suicide by shooting himself with this gun.
Thomas Mann (1875-1955) - German writer, essayist, one of the most active political authors in Germany. All his works are permeated with politics, but artistic value they don't lose from it. Erotica is also no stranger to Mann’s work; an example of this is the novel “Confession of the Adventurer Felix Krull.” The main character of the work resembles Oscar Wilde's character, Dorian Gray. The signs of modernism in the works of Thomas Mann are obvious.
(1871-1922) - author of the seven-volume work “In Search of Lost Time,” which is rightfully considered one of the most significant examples of literature of the 20th century. Proust is a convinced follower of modernism as the most promising path of literary development.
Virginia Woolf (1882-1942) - English writer, is considered the most reliable follower of the "Stream of Consciousness". Modernism was the meaning of her whole life for the writer; in addition to numerous novels, Virginia Woolf has several film adaptations of her works.

Literary modernism has had significant influence on the creativity of writers and poets in terms of improvement and development.

Architectural modernism

The phrase “modernism in architecture” refers us to the term “modern architecture”, since there is a logical connection here. But the concept of modernism does not always mean “modern”; the word “modern” is more suitable here. Modernism and modernism are two different concepts.

The architecture of modernism implies the beginning of the creativity of the pioneers of modern architecture and their activities over a certain period of time, from the 20s to the 70s of the last century. Modern architecture dates from later dates. The designated fifty years are the period of modernism in architecture, the time of the emergence of new trends.

Directions in architectural modernism

Architectural modernism is a separate direction of architecture, such as the European functional construction of the 1920s-30s or the immutable rationalism of Russian architecture of the twenties, when houses were built in the thousands according to one design. This is the German “Bauhaus”, “Art Deco” in France, the international style, brutalism. All of the above are branches of one tree - architectural modernism.

Representatives of modernism in architecture are: Le Corbusier, Richard Neutra, Walter Gropius, Frank Lloyd Wright and others.

Modernism in music

Modernism is a replacement of styles in principle, and in the field of music changes primarily depend on general directions ethnographic culture of society. Progressive trends in cultural segments are inevitably accompanied by transformations in the world of music. Modernity dictates its terms to musical institutions circulating in society. At the same time, the culture of modernism does not imply changes in classical musical forms.

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Introduction

1. Literature of the first half of the 20th century

2. Modernism as a direction in literature

3. “Stream of Consciousness” technique

Conclusion

List of used literature

Introduction

The main direction of literature of the twentieth century is modernism, covering not only the sphere of literature, but also art and culture of the past century. Within the framework of modernism, such literary schools, such as surrealism, dadaism, expressionism, which have a significant influence on romance, drama, and poetry.

The innovative reform of the novel genre is expressed in the formation of “stream of consciousness” literature, which changes the very concept of the genre, the categories of time and space in the novel, the interaction of the hero and the author, and the style of narration.

D. Joyce, W. Wolfe and M. Proust are the creators and theorists of this literature, but the narrative strategy of the “stream of consciousness” influences the entire literary process generally.

Philosophical prose at the beginning of the twentieth century acquires the features of a “novel of culture”; such novels combine in their genre modifications essays, history of personality development, confession, journalism. T. Mann will define this type of prose as an “intellectual novel.”

Aestheticization of artistic consciousness in modernist and intellectual novel talks about the formation of “elite literature”, where the writer’s goal becomes the problem spiritual search, a “supertask”, the impossibility of solving which leads to the abandonment of the annoying, straightforward didactics of the 19th century novel.

The literature of the “lost generation” and psychological prose retain relevant historical and social themes. This literature poses a research problem modern society and a modern hero. In general, the literary process of the first half of the twentieth century is characterized by the diversity and breadth of innovative phenomena, bright names, and represents rich material for study.

1. Literature of the first halfXXcentury

The advent of the 21st century makes the 20th century the previous one, just as quite recently the 19th century was the past in relation to the 20th. The change of centuries has always produced summing up and the emergence of predictive assumptions about the future. The assumption that the 20th century would be something different from the 19th began even before it began. The crisis of civilization, which the romantics intuitively foresaw, was fully realized by the passing century: it opens with the Anglo-Boer War, then plunges into two world wars, the threat of atomic entropy, and a huge number of military local conflicts.

The belief that the flourishing of natural sciences and new discoveries will certainly change people's lives for the better is destroyed by historical practice. The chronology of the 20th century has revealed a bitter truth: in the path of improving technology, the humanistic content of human existence is being lost. This idea is already becoming tautological at the end of the twentieth century. But philosophers and artists had a premonition of the wrong path taken even earlier, when the 19th century was ending and the new century was beginning. F. Nietzsche wrote that civilization is a thin layer of gilding on the animal essence of man, and O. Spengler in his work “Causality and Fate. The Decline of Europe” (1923) spoke about the fatal and inevitable death of European culture.

The First World War, having destroyed fairly stable social and state relations of the 19th century, confronted people with the inexorable urgency of revising previous values, searching for their own place in a changed reality, and understanding that outside world hostile and aggressive. The result of rethinking the phenomenon of modern life was that most European writers, especially the younger generation who came to literature after the First World War, were skeptical about the primacy of social practice over the spiritual microcosm of man. Having lost illusions in assessing the world that nurtured them and recoiling from the well-fed philistinism, the intelligentsia perceived the crisis state of society as a collapse European civilization at all. This gave rise to pessimism and mistrust of young authors (O. Huxley, D. Lawrence, A. Barbusse, E. Hemingway). The same loss of stable guidelines shook the optimistic perception of writers of the older generation (H. Wells, D. Galsworthy, A. France).

The First World War, which the young generation of writers went through, became for them a difficult test and an insight into the falsity of false patriotic slogans, which further strengthened the need to search for new authorities and moral values and led many of them to flee into the world of intimate experiences. This was a kind of escape from the influence of external realities. At the same time, writers who knew fear and pain, the horror of close violent death, could not remain the same aesthetes who looked down on the repulsive aspects of life. The dead and returning authors (R. Aldington, A. Barbusse, E. Hemingway, Z. Sassoon, F.S. Fitzgerald) were classified by critics as the so-called " lost generation Although the term does not do justice to the significant imprint these artists left on national literatures, literary scholars nevertheless continue to emphasize their heightened understanding of man in war and after war. It can be said that the "Lost Worship" writers were the first authors to attract attention readers to that phenomenon, which in the second half of the twentieth century was called the “war syndrome”.

The most powerful aesthetic system emerging in the first half of the century was modernism, which analyzed the private life of a person, the intrinsic value of his individual destiny in the process of “moments of being” (W. Wolfe, M. Proust, T. S. Eliot, D. Joyce, F. Kafka).

From the point of view of modernists, external reality is hostile to the individual; it produces the tragedy of his existence. Writers believed that the study of spirituality is a kind of return to origins and the discovery of the true “I”, because a person first realizes himself as a subject and then creates subject-object relationships with the world.

M. Proust's psychological novel, focused on the analysis of different personality states at different stages of life, had an undoubted influence on the development of prose of the twentieth century. D. Joyce's experiment in the field of the novel, his attempt to create a modern odyssey gave rise to a lot of discussions and imitations. In poetry of the first half of the twentieth century, the same processes took place as in prose. Just like prose, poetry is characterized by a critical attitude towards technogenic civilization and its results.

Poetic experiments by T. Tzar, A. Breton, G. Lorca, P. Eluard, T.S. Eliot contributed to the transformation of poetic language. The changes concerned both the artistic form, which became more sophisticated (a synthesis of different types of art was obviously evident) and the essential side, when poets sought to penetrate the subconscious. Poetry, more than before, gravitates toward subjectivism, symbolism, and encrypted nature; free form of verse (free verse) is actively used.

The realistic trend in literature expanded the boundaries of the traditional experience of artistic exploration of the world, established in the 19th century. B. Brecht questioned the thesis about “life-likeness,” that is, the imitation of realistic art as its indispensable and immutable property. Balzac's and Tolstoy's experience was important from the point of view of preserving tradition and understanding intertextual connections. But the writer believed that any aesthetic phenomenon, even the pinnacle, cannot be artificially “canned,” otherwise it turns into a dogma that interferes with the organic development of literature.

It should be especially emphasized that realism quite freely used the principles of non-realistic aesthetics. Realistic art of the twentieth century is so different from the classical versions of the previous century that most often it is necessary to study the work of each individual writer.

The problems of humanistic development of man and society, the search for truth, which, in the words of the British author of the second half of the century, W. Golding, is “always the same,” worried both modernists and non-modernists equally. The 20th century was so complex and contradictory, so multi-dimensional that writers of modernist and non-modernist orientation, understanding the global nature of the processes taking place in the world and often solving the same problems, drew directly opposite conclusions. The analytical fragmentation of phenomena undertaken by modernists in search of hidden meanings is combined in the general flow of literature of the first half of the century with the quest of realists seeking to synthesize efforts to understand the general principles of the artistic reflection of the world in order to stop the decay of values and the destruction of tradition, so as not to interrupt the connection of times.

2. Modernism as a direction in literature

Modernism is a general term applied in retrospect to a broad area of experimental and avant-garde movements in literature and other arts in the early twentieth century. This includes such movements as symbolism, futurism, expressionism, imagism, vorticism, dadaism and surrealism, as well as other innovations of the masters of their craft.

Modernism (Italian modernismo - “modern movement”; from Latin modernus - “modern, recent”) is a direction in the art and literature of the 20th century, characterized by a break with the previous historical experience of artistic creativity, the desire to establish new non-traditional principles in art , continuous renewal of artistic forms, as well as the conventionality (schematization, abstraction) of style.

If we approach the description of modernism seriously and thoughtfully, it will become clear that the authors classified as modernism actually set themselves completely different goals and objectives, wrote in different manners, saw people differently, and what often united them was that they simply lived and wrote at the same time. For example, modernism includes Joseph Conrad and David Gerberg Lawrence, Virginia Woolf and Thomas Stearns Eliot, Guillaume Apollinaire and Marcel Proust, James Joyce and Paul Eluard, futurists and dadaists, surrealists and symbolists, without thinking about whether there is anything between them. something in common, except for the era in which they lived. The literary critics who are most honest with themselves and with their readers admit the fact that the very term “modernism” is vague. modernism literature conscious unconscious

Modernist literature is characterized, first of all, by the rejection of the traditions of the nineteenth century, their consensus between the author and the reader. The conventions of realism, for example, were rejected by Franz Kafka and other novelists, including expressionist drama, and poets abandoned the traditional metric system in favor of free verse.

Modernist writers saw themselves as an avant-garde that challenged bourgeois values and challenged the reader to think by employing complex new literary forms and styles. In fiction, the accepted trend chronological development events were turned on their heads by Joseph Conrad, Marcel Proust and William Faulkner, while James Joyce and Virginia Woolf introduced new ways of tracking the flow of their characters' thoughts using a stream-of-consciousness style.

The beginning of the 20th century was accompanied by both social changes and the development of scientific thought, old world changed before our eyes, and the changes often outpaced the possibility of their rational explanation, which led to disappointment in rationalism. To understand them, new techniques and principles for generalizing the perception of reality, a new understanding of man’s place in the universe (or “Cosmos”) were needed. It is no coincidence that the majority of representatives of modernism sought ideological support in popular philosophical and psychological concepts that paid attention to the problems of individuality: in Freudianism and Nietzscheanism. The variety of initial concepts of worldview, by the way, largely determined the diversity of movements and literary manifestos: from surrealism to Dadaism, from symbolism to futurism, etc. But the glorification of art as a type of secret mystical knowledge, which is opposed to the absurdity of the world, and the question of the place of the individual with his individual consciousness in the Cosmos, the tendency to create his own new myths allow us to consider modernism as a single literary movement.

The favorite character of modern prose writers is the “little man,” most often the image of an average employee (typical are the broker Bloom in Joyce’s Ulysses or Gregor in Kafka’s Reincarnation), since the one who suffers is an unprotected person, a toy higher powers. The life path of the characters is a series of situations, personal behavior is a series of acts of choice, and the real choice is realized in “borderline”, often unrealistic situations. Modernist heroes live as if outside of real time; society, government or the state for them are some kind of enemy phenomena of an irrational, if not downright mystical nature. Camus equates, for example, between life and plague. In general, in the depiction of modern prose writers, evil, as usual, surrounds the heroes on all sides. But despite the external unreality of the plots and circumstances that are depicted, through the authenticity of the details, a feeling of reality or even the everyday life of these mythical situations is created. Authors often experience the loneliness of these heroes in front of the enemy light as their own. Refusal of the position of “omniscience” allows writers to get closer to the characters they depict, and sometimes to identify themselves with them. Special attention should be paid to the discovery of such a new method of presenting an internal monologue as a “stream of consciousness”, in which both the feeling of the hero, and what he sees, and thoughts with associations caused by the images that arise, along with the very process of their emergence, are mixed, as if in "unedited" form.

3. “Stream of Consciousness” Technique

Stream of consciousness is a technique in the literature of the 20th century, predominantly of the modernist direction, directly reproducing mental life, experiences, associations, claiming to directly reproduce the mental life of consciousness through the cohesion of all of the above, as well as often non-linearity and brokenness of syntax.

The term “stream of consciousness” belongs to the American idealist philosopher William James: consciousness is a stream, a river in which thoughts, sensations, memories, sudden associations constantly interrupt each other and intertwine in a bizarre, “illogical” way (“Foundations of Psychology”, 1890) . “Stream of consciousness” often represents an extreme degree, an extreme form of “internal monologue”; in it, objective connections with the real environment are often difficult to restore.

Stream of consciousness creates the impression that the reader is eavesdropping on his experience in the minds of the characters, which gives him direct intimate access to their thoughts. Also includes the representation in written text of that which is neither purely verbal nor purely textual.

This is achieved mainly through two ways of narration and quotation, and internal monologue. At the same time, sensations, experiences, associations often interrupt and intertwine each other, just as it happens in a dream, which is often what our life actually is, according to the author - after waking up from sleep, we are still sleeping.

The possibilities of this technique were truly revealed in the novels of M. Proust, W. Woolf and J. Joyce. It is from them light hand, in the novel the concept of a “central image” disappeared and was replaced by the concept of a “central consciousness”.

J. Joyce was the first to use the total “stream of consciousness”. The central work of the “stream of consciousness” is rightly considered to be “Ulysses”, which demonstrated both the peak and exhaustion of the possibilities of this method: research inner life of a person is combined in it with a blurring of the boundaries of character.

Stephen Dedalus is a cold intellectual whose mind is constantly occupied with unusual thoughts:

...The irrevocable modality of the visible. At least this, if not more, is what my eyes say to my thoughts. I'm here to read the marks of the essence of things: all this algae, the fry, the rising tide, that rusty boot over there. Snot green, silver blue, rusty: colored markings. Limits of transparency. But he adds: in bodies. This means that he learned that bodies were earlier than that they were colored. How? And hitting your head on them, how else. Carefully. He was bald and a millionaire, maestro di color che sanno [teacher of those who know (Italian Dante. Inferno, IV, 131)].

Limit of transparent... Why...? Transparent, opaque. Where all five fingers can fit through, this is a gate, where not, it is a door. Close your eyes and look.

Leopold Bloom - everyman, an average person whose ideas about the world are contently limited:

Mr. Bloom looked with good-natured interest at the black flexible creature.

Looks good: the fur is smooth and shiny, there is a white button under the tail, the eyes are green and glowing. He bent over to her, resting his palms on his knees. “Milk to the pussy!”

Mrrau! - she meowed loudly.

They say they are stupid. They understand what we say better than we understand them. This one will understand everything she wants. And vindictive. I wonder what I seem like to her. As tall as a tower? No, she can jump on me.” “But she’s afraid of chickens,” he teased her.

Afraid of chicks. I've never seen such a stupid pussy in my life. Cruel. It's in their nature. It's strange that the mice don't squeak. It's like they like it.

Mgrrau! - she meowed louder. Her eyes, greedy, half-lidded with shame, blinked, and, mewing pitifully and protractedly, she exposed her milky-white teeth. He saw how the black slits of her pupils narrowed with greed, turning her eyes into green pebbles. Going to the cupboard, he took the jug freshly filled from Hanlon's delivery man, poured the warm, bubbly milk into the saucer, and carefully placed the saucer on the floor.

Meow! - she squealed, rushing towards the food.

He watched how her mustache gleamed metallic in the dim light and how, after trying it on three times, she easily began to lap. Is it true or not that if you trim your mustache, you won't be able to hunt. Why not? Maybe the tips glow in the dark. Or serve as palps, perhaps.

Now let’s enjoy the female “stream of consciousness” of Molly Bloom, in which Joyce, according to many, revealed the true essence of the female soul:

...it’s for you that the sun shines,” he said that day when we were lying among the rhododendrons on Cape Howth; he is in a gray tweed suit and a straw hat, on the day when I got him to propose to me, and first I let him bite a piece of cumin cookies from my lips - it was a leap year like now and 16 years ago. My God, after that long kiss I almost suffocated, yes he said - I am a mountain flower, yes it is true, we are flowers, the whole female body, yes this is the only truth that he said in his entire life and the sun is shining for you today , and that’s why I liked him, because I saw that he understood or felt what a woman was, and I knew that I could always do what I wanted with him, and I gave him as much pleasure as I could, and kept getting started turned him on until he asked me to say yes, and I didn’t answer first, just looked at the sea and the sky and remembered everything he didn’t know: Mulvey, and Mr. Stanhope, and Hester, and father, and old Captain Grove , and sailors on the pier playing birds in flight, and standing still and washing dishes, as they called it, and a sentry in front of the governor’s house in a white helmet with a band - the poor guy almost melted, and laughing Spanish girls in shawls with high combs in the hair, and the morning market of Greeks, Jews, Arabs and the devil himself can’t tell who else from all over Europe, and Duke Street, and the clucking bird market not far from Sharon’s Larbi, and poor donkeys trudged half-asleep, and unknown tramps in raincoats , dozing on the steps in the shade, and the huge wheels of oxcarts, and the ancient thousand-year-old castle, and the handsome Moors in white robes and turbans, like kings inviting you to sit down in their tiny shops, and Ronda where the posadas [inns (Spanish) )] with ancient windows where the fan hid the flashing glance, and the gentleman kisses the window bars, and wine cellars half open at night and castanets and the night when we missed the ship in Algeciras, and the night watchman walked calmly with his lantern, and... Oh that terrible stream boiling below, Oh and the sea, the sea scarlet like fire, and luxurious sunsets, and fig trees in the gardens of Alameda, and all the quaint streets, and pink yellow blue houses, rose alleys, and jasmine, geraniums, cacti, and Gibraltar, where I was a girl, and the Mountain Flower, and when I pinned a rose in my hair, as Andalusian girls do, or pinned a scarlet..., yes..., and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall, and I wondered if he cared or another, and then I told him with my eyes that he should ask again... and then he asked me, - would I like... yes... to say yes, my mountain flower... and first I wrapped my arms around him, yes... and drew him to me so he felt my breasts, their scent... yes, and his heart was beating madly and... yes... I said yes... I want... Yes.

As you can see, we learned the essence of the characters not because the author told us about it - the author is dead - we learned this because we ourselves penetrated into their thoughts.

Of course, the “stream of consciousness” is the best known method of conveying psychologism, but it is by no means ideal, as Vladimir Nabokov notes:

“The “stream of consciousness” technique undeservedly shakes the imagination of readers. I would like to present the following thoughts. First, this technique is no more “realistic” or more “scientific” than any other. The fact is that the “stream of consciousness” is a stylistic convention, since, obviously, we do not think only in words - we also think in images, but the transition from words to images can be recorded directly in words only if there is no description. Secondly, some of our thoughts come and go, others remain; they sort of settle, sloppy and sluggish, and it takes some time for the current thoughts and thoughts to go around these reefs. The disadvantage of the written reproduction of thoughts is the blurring of the temporary element and the too large role assigned to the typographic sign.”

Conclusion

The literature of the 20th century in its stylistic and ideological diversity is incomparable with the literature of the 19th century, where only three or four leading trends could be distinguished. At the same time, modern literature has produced no more great talents than the literature of the 19th century.

European literature of the first half of the 20th century was influenced by modernism, which, first of all, manifests itself in poetry. Thus, the French poets P. Eluard (1895-1952) and L. Aragon (1897-1982) were leading figures of surrealism.

However, the most significant in the Art Nouveau style was not poetry, but prose - the novels of M. Proust (“In Search of Lost Time”), J. Joyce (“Ulysses”), F. Kafka (“The Castle”). These novels were a response to the events of the First World War, which gave birth to a generation that was called “lost” in literature. They analyze the spiritual, mental, and pathological manifestations of a person. What they have in common is a methodological technique - the use of the method of analyzing the “stream of consciousness”, discovered by the French philosopher, representative of intuitionism and “philosophy of life” Henri Bergson (1859-1941), which consists in describing the continuous flow of human thoughts, impressions and feelings. He described human consciousness as a continuously changing creative reality, as a flow in which thinking is only a superficial layer, subject to the needs of practice and social life.

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Features of modernism in literature:

denial of classical art
heritage;
recited discrepancy with theory and
practice of realism;
focus on the individual person,
not social;
increased attention to spiritual rather than
social sphere of human life;
focus on form at the expense of content.

Representatives of modernism in literature in Russia:

Borii s Leoniidovich Pasternai (January 29, 1890, Moscow - May 30, 1960,
Peredelkino, Moscow region) -
Russian writer, poet, translator; one of
greatest poets of the 20th century.
In 1955, Pasternak wrote the novel
"Doctor Zhivago". Three years later the writer
was awarded the Nobel Prize for
literature, after this he was
subjected to bullying and persecution from outside
BLOCK
Alexander
Alexandrovich
Soviet
government.
, Russian poet.

BUNIN Ivan Alekseevich (1870-1953), Russian writer and poet,
Nobel Prize winner in
literature (1933).
AKHMATOVA (real name Gorenko)
Anna Andreevna (June 11 (23), 1889
- March 5, 1966) Russian poetess,
translator and literary critic,
one of the most significant figures
Russian literature of the 20th century.
Nobel Prize nominee
according to literature.

ESENIN Sergey Alexandrovich
(1895-1925), Russian poet,
representative of the new peasant
poetry and lyrics, and more
late period of creativity -
imagism.
MAYAKOVSKY Vladimir
Vladimirovich (7 (19) July 1893-
April 14, 1930), Russian poet,
one of the brightest representatives
avant-garde art of the 1910-1920s. One of the largest
poets of the 20th century.
In addition to poetry, he clearly showed himself
as a playwright, screenwriter,
film director, film actor,
artist, magazine editor.

Gumilyov treated them the same way,
Khlebnikov, Klyuev, Severyanin, Bely,
Sologub, Balmont, Bryusov, Voloshin,
Ivanovs (Vyacheslav and Georgy), Kuzmin,
Tsvetaeva, Khodasevich, Gippius,
Mandelstam is just the most
noticeable, and even then not all.

The birth of modernism.

The first modernist periodical in
Russia became the magazine "World of Art",
organized by young artists A.N. Benois,
K.A. Somov, L. S. Bakst, E. E. Lansere,
S.P. Diaghilev in 1899, writers (Zinaida
Gippius and Dmitry Merezhkovsky) were
invited to lead the literary department of the magazine,
whose main purpose was to promote a new
painting. On the pages of the magazine "World of Art"
printed their first works Blok, Gippius,
Rozanov, Merezhkovsky, Bryusov, Bely, Sologub. IN
Korney Chukovsky acted as a critic.

The split of modernism.

Russian literature after the revolution of 1917
shared the tragic fate of the country and
further developed in three directions:
Literature of Russian Abroad - I. Bunin,
V. Nabokov, I. Shmelev; literature, not
officially recognized in its time in the USSR
not published - M. Bulgakov, A. Akhmatova,
A. Platonov and others; Russian Soviet
literature (mostly
socialist realism) - M. Gorky,
V. Mayakovsky, M. Sholokhov.

Representatives of modernism in foreign literature:

Anne de Noailles (November 15, 1876- 30
April 1933) - French
poetess, mistress of literary
salon
Paul Eluair (December 14, 1895-
November 18, 1952) - French
poet who has published more than a hundred
poetry collections.

Guilloit m Apollineir (August 26, 1880
- November 9, 1918) - French
poet, one of the most
influential figures
European avant-garde of the early 20th century
century.
Jacques Prévert (4 February 1900- 11
April 1977) - French poet
and film playwright.

Modernism in the fine arts.

Modernism - a totality artistic directions V
art of the second half of the 19th - mid-20th centuries.
The most significant modernist trends were
impressionism, expressionism, neo- and post-impressionism,
Fauvism, Cubism, Futurism. And also later movements -
abstract art, dadaism, surrealism. In the narrow sense
modernism is considered as an early stage of avant-gardeism,
start of revision classical traditions. Date of birth
Modernism is often referred to as 1863 - the year of its opening in Paris
“Salon of the Rejected”, where works of artists were accepted.
IN in a broad sense modernism - “another art”, the main
whose purpose is to create original works,
based on inner freedom and a special vision of the world
author and carrying new means of expression
figurative language, often accompanied by shocking
and a certain challenge to established canons.

Directions of modernism.

Abstract expressionism is a special style of painting when the artist
spends a minimum amount of time on his creativity, scatters
paint on the canvas, randomly touches the painting with brushes, randomly
applies strokes.
Dadaism - works of art in the style of collage, layout on
canvas of several fragments of the same theme. Images are usually
imbued with the idea of denial, a cynical approach to the topic. The style arose
immediately after the end of the First World War and became a reflection of the feeling
hopelessness reigning in society.
Cubism - chaotically arranged geometric figures. The style itself
highly artistic, created genuine masterpieces in the Cubist style
Pablo Picasso. The artist Paul approached his work somewhat differently
Cezanne - his paintings are also included in the treasury of world art.
Post-Impressionism - rejection of visible reality and replacement of real
images with decorative stylization. A style with great potential
but it was fully realized only by Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin.

Representatives of modernism in art:

Kazimir Severinovich Malevich–
great Russian artist.
Painting styles: Avant-garde,
Cubism, Suprematism, etc. (11
February 1878 – May 15, 1935).
Kazimir Malevich is
an iconic figure not only in
Russian art, but also in
world history of painting. IN
in particular he was
the founder of a new species
art - Suprematism,
marking his appearance
a picture that is known in
all over the world as – Black
Square. Painting Black
Square was painted in 1915
year and called the real one
a sensation among connoisseurs and
critics. Existed

"Black Square"
"An Englishman in Moscow"

"Argentine polka"
Self-portrait

"Laundry on the fence"
"Boulevard"

Fu"lla Ludovit Slovak painter
"The Boy in the Hat"
M. Pashteka: Artist and
sitters.

M. A. Bazovsky: Farmers.
E. Shimerova: Still life with a newspaper.

Modernism in architecture.

Wide open spaces for modernist architecture
opened as a result of the consequences of the Second World War.
Many European cities were destroyed. Was planned
the world of a new formation. A fundamental
the ability to design entire neighborhoods without special
connections to the “old” architectural ensemble cities.
The largest buildings in the modernist style
occurred in cities with the greatest destruction -
Berlin and Le Havre. On these giant construction sites
large international teams worked
famous modernist architects - Hans Scharoun,
Walter Gropius, Le Corbusier, Alvar Aalto, Oscar Niemeyer,
Pier Luigi Nervi, Marcel Breuer, Auguste Perret, Bernard
Zehrfuss and many others.

Basic principles of architectural modernism:

use of the most modern
building materials and structures,
rational approach to solution
internal spaces (functional
approach),
lack of decoration trends,
fundamental rejection of historical
reminiscences in the appearance of buildings,
their “international” character.

House of Vicens (1883-1888) Barcelona.

House of Vicens (18831888) Barcelona.
Architect Antonio Gaudi
(1852-1926). House of Vicens
develops the theme of Arabic
fairy tales "A Thousand and One Nights".
Rounded towers, graceful
metal ornaments in
in the form of palm leaves
rhythmically alternating belts
arches, blind windows with wrought iron
bars... Creativity of A.
Gaudi threw
a kind of bridge from

Casa Batllo (1904-1906) Barcelona.

Casa Batllo (19041906) Barcelona.
Bluish-green facade of the House
Batllo resembles something foamed
sea wave, then splashes
volcanic lava, then skin
strange animals.

Sagrada Familia (1883-1926) Barcelona.

Gaudi's main creation is the cathedral
Sagrada Familia (St.
family), which he did not have time
complete during your lifetime. By design
he was supposed to be
architectural embodiment
stories of the New Testament. Facade
The cathedral consists of three portals,
symbolizing Faith, Hope
and Love. Middle represents
a deep grotto of Bethlehem; He

House of Tassel (1892-1893) Luxembourg.

House of Tassel (18921893) Luxembourg.
Architect Victor Orta. (1861-1947). "A perfect architect
art modernism" is called a Belgian architect
Victor Orta. Tassel's house is rightfully considered the first example of "
pure modernism", which brought worldwide fame and glory
aspiring architect.

Skyscrapers in Chicago, USA.

Architect Louis
Sullivan. (18561924).
Chicago architect Louis's first skyscraper
Sullivan in the city of St. Louis produced
a real revolution in architecture. Steel
frames with vertical structures,
stuffed with high-speed elevators and other
technology, clearly challenged the classics.

Museum of Modern Art, New York (1943-1959).

Architect
Frank Lloyd
Wright.
The Museum of Modern Art in New York is one of the
the first museums of modern art in the world. Now this
the museum, located in Manhattan, enjoys
deserved fame and is very popular among visitors.

Residential buildings in the modernist style. France.

Architect Le
Corbusier (18871965)

House of the Singer company (1902-1904) St. Petersburg.

House of the Singer Company (1902
-1904) St. Petersburg.
Architect Pavel Yulievich Syuzor. In Russia one of the most
notable and typical monuments of Art Nouveau is the Company House
"Singer" (now "House of Books") on Nevsky Prospekt in St. Petersburg. On the one hand, the building is not connected with its surroundings
ensemble, which is considered a town planning error, on the other hand
On the other hand, this is an example of successful planning in difficult conditions

Kazansky railway station building. Moscow. (1902-1904)

Kazansky building
station. Moscow. (19021904)
Architect A.V.
Shchusev