MODERNISM

The term “Modernism” indicates the cultural revolution of 20 th century and the literary production
of this period. Modern literature infact expressed first of all the reaction against all the ideas, the
conventions and the tradition of 19th century.
Here the most important and significant features of this revolutionary and innovative literary
movement:
- the breakdown of traditional literary genres;
- the fragmentation of traditional ideas of time, place, plot;
- the new use of syntax, grammar, punctuation;
- the emphasis on unconscious and psychology;
- the use of myth, classical literature, oriental philosophy;
- the use of free verse.

There are two generation of Modernists, so, the novelists and the poets of this period are divided
into two different groups characterized by different features and interests.
The poets that belong to the first generation of Modernists are Ezra Pound, William Butler Yeats
and Thomas Stearns Eliot. They expressed, through the new themes and techniques intruduced by
Modernism, a realistic and symbolical description of the western civilization during the difficult
years that followed the World War I. As for the fiction, we have to remember James Joyce and
Virginia Woolf. Through their psychologycal novels, they explored and analyse the unconscious and
the mental processes.
The main aspects of the Second Generation of Modernists are the involvement in the World War II
and the interest in politics and social problems. They also promoted a return to the traditional forms
and the use of a less obscure language.With the first generation they shared the use of myth and
classical tradition. Wystan Hugh Auden and George Orwell are the most important members of this
second group.

MODERN POETRY
In the 20th century the English poetry changed profundly and was deeply influenced by two literary
and artistic movements: Imagism and Vorticism.
Imagism was an anti-romantic Anglo-American literary movement which flourished in 1909. it was
started by the English philosopher T.E.Hume, who advocated the use of precise poetic imagery,
indipendence from traditional conventions and experimentation in free verse. Inspired by French
Symbolism, Chinese and Japanese poetry, Imagism was a reaction not only against the pastoralism
of the Georgians but against Romanticism in general. It aimed at a truthful and concrete
presentation of the world according to principles which may be summed as follows:
- use of a common language and of precise and exact words;
- creation of new rhythms to express new moods;
- absolute freedom in the choice of subject;
- presentation of precise images, not vague and generalized;
- creation of hard and clear poetry, never indefinite but magnificent and sonorous;
- search of concentration, as the very essence of poetry.
The term “Imagists” was coined by Ezra Pound, the second leading exponent of the movement. He
set down an imagist creed which forms the first modernist manifesto.
Voricism was a literary and artistic movement that developed as an offshot of Cubism, and more
particularly of Italian Futurism. It was launched in 1922 by Wyndham Lewis, an american writer.
Together with Ezra Pound he edited “Blast, The Review of the Great English Vortex”. The
movement extolled the beauties of the machines; in literature it was a reaction against Imagism. But
like Imagism, also Vorticism was an anti-romantic movement. It violently attacked Romanticism
and middle class values. In its aggressivenes and celebration of energy, speed, dynamism, visual
and verbal violence, it closely resembled Futurism and other avant-garde movements.