Modernism
Modernism is a trend that developed in the arts at the beginning of the XXth century striving to break away from tradition and innovate. In literature, modernists opposed realism and sought to represent human reality in a freer way, with such elements as stream of consciousness (the transcription of thoughts as they arise in the human consciousness, without imposing an order on them), fragmentarism, multiplicity of points of view within a narration, a different approach to time (a long book may narrate events that happened in just a few hours, for example), a narrator that is unreliable or is the voice of multiple characters... In essence, modernism was about breaking free from the constraints that existed in nineteenth century literature.
Modernism was influenced by the ideas of such thinkers as Sigmund Freud, Nietzsche, Marx... and by the rest of avant-garde art movements (expressionism, impressionism and cubism in painting and atonalism in music, for example).
A modernist writer: James Joyce
James Joyce (Dublin, 1882 - Zurich, 1941) is the quintessential modernist writer. Born in Ireland and educated in Catholic schools, soon he felt he had to leave for other countries in search of creative freedom. He settled first in Croatia, then in the Italian city of Trieste with his Irish wife, Nora Barnacle, earning his living as an English teacher. He is especially famous for four books, which also chronicle his journey into an increasingly free and obscure style:
- Dubliners. A book of short stories with main characters from his native city.
- Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. A veiled biographical account of his childhood and youth, protagonised by his alter ego Stephen Dedalus.
- Ulysses. A long book whose action happens in just one day in Dublin. The characters are two alter egos of Joyce (Dedalus and Leopold Bloom) and one of his wife (Molly).
- Finnegan's Wake, written already in a hardly comprehensible language.
This is the beginning of Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Read it and do the task below.
Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow
coming
down along the road and this moocow that was coming down along the
road
met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo
His father told him that story: his father looked at him through a
glass: he had a hairy face.
He was baby tuckoo. The moocow came down the road where Betty Byrne
lived: she sold lemon platt.
O, the wild rose blossoms
On the little green place.
He sang that song. That was his song.
O, the green wothe botheth.
When you wet the bed first it is warm then it gets cold. His mother
put
on the oilsheet. That had the queer smell.
His mother had a nicer smell than his father. She played on the piano
the sailor’s hornpipe for him to dance. He danced:
Tralala lala,
Tralala tralaladdy,
Tralala lala,
Tralala lala.
Uncle Charles and Dante clapped. They were older than his father and
mother but uncle Charles was older than Dante.
Dante had two brushes in her press. The brush with the maroon velvet
back was for Michael Davitt and the brush with the green velvet back
was for Parnell. Dante gave him a cachou every time he brought her a
piece of tissue paper.
The Vances lived in number seven. They had a different father and
mother. They were Eileen’s father and mother. When they were grown
up
he was going to marry Eileen. He hid under the table. His mother
said:
–O, Stephen will apologize.
Dante said:
–O, if not, the eagles will come and pull out his eyes.–
Pull out his eyes,
Apologize,
Apologize,
Pull out his eyes.
Apologize,
Pull out his eyes,
Pull out his eyes,
Apologize.
Your turn! Try to identify what is happening in this text and why the way the narrator speaks is so peculiar.
