Life and Nature - Scf - State College of Florida

Modernism
Because Modernism expands all over the world, its range of dates can be skewed. To
keep the movement as small as possible, the main focus will be on Western Modernism
approximately between 1915 to the late 1940s. Modernism has a few key, defining points
that separate it from other movements. According to Paul P. Reuben on his “Perspectives in
American Literature” website, Modernists tend to center around “stylistic innovations –
disruption of traditional syntax and form; artist‟s self-consciousness about questions of form
and structure; obsession with primitive material and attitudes; [and] international
perspectives on cultural matters” (“American Modernism”). Artists, poets, and generally all
workers of the time dealt with matters such as WWI, and it changed their way of thinking. As
acknowledged by Professor Glanville from State College of Florida, after WWI, “life
began to be viewed as mechanized and dehumanizing, and war and economic constraints led
people to be alienated from each other, society, and God” (“Literary Movement Lecture -
Modernism”). It was a rough time to live in, so poets found a way to take their frustration and
disappointment and artistry and blend it all together to produce poems unlike anything else.
A few literary achievements were sparked during this time as well. Reuben explains
that “dramatization of the plight of women; creation of a literature of the urban experience;
continuation of the pastoral or rural spirit; [and] continuation of regionalism and local color”
were some of the life-changing events in literature as well as the people (“American
Modernism”). A few examples of themes that relate to these achievements include: The
Jazz Age, Harlem Renaissance, women‟s rights - specifically to vote, and the economic
downfalls from prohibition and the stock-market crash of 1929.