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Cambridge Introductions to Literature
The Cambridge Introduction to Modernism (Cambridge Introductions to Literature) by Pericles Lewis
More than a century after its beginnings, modernism still has the power to shock, alienate or challenge readers. Modernist art and literature remain thought of as complex and difficult. This introduction explains in a readable, lively style how modernism emerged, how it is defined, and how it developed in different forms and genres. Pericles Lewis offers students a survey of literature and art in England, Ireland and Europe at the beginning of the twentieth century. He also provides an overview of critical thought on modernism and its continuing influence on the arts today, reflecting the interests of current scholarship in the social and cultural contexts of modernism. The comparative perspective on Anglo-American and European modernism shows how European movements have influenced the development of English-language modernism. Illustrated with works of art and featuring suggestions for further study, this is the ideal introduction to understanding and enjoying modernist literature and art.
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First published May 1, 2007
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February 28, 2021
The Cambridge Introduction to Modernism is a dazzling introduction to Modernism which focuses largely on literary modernism, with scattered discussions of modernism in the visual arts. It charts and analyses the development of literary modernism chronologically, thematically, and by literary genre, in a clear and accessible, but erudite and insightful manner.
Lewis' succinct yet comprehensive thesis is that modernism in the arts was a response to the following crises that surfaced in the latter half of the 19th century: the crisis of representation (what and how to represent; subject matter and form/technique), the crisis of liberalism (betrayal of 1848, assassination of Charles Parnell, WWI, rise of communism and fascism), and the crisis of reason (that human beings are essentially biological beings motivated by subconscious instincts).
He also observes a critical distinction between Modernism with philosophical modernity (Descartes) and sociological modernisation (e.g. Haussmannisation of Paris).
So when did literary modernism begin? It began, writes Lewis, with Flaubert's Madame Bovary and Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du Mal, both seminal works of French literature. While Flaubert's Realism then inspired Zola's Naturalism, with their willingness to break taboos about subject matter and their intent in describing the objective world in detail, Baudelaire's experiments inspired the Decadent and Symbolist movements which would characterise the fin-de-siecle. Arguably, Symbolism would prove to be the more influential strand of modernism; its singular emphasis on the invisible, the subconscious, and hermetic meanings that are available only to the poet or the skilled reader, undoubtedly sowed the seeds for the stream-of-consciousness novels that such prominent writers as James Joyce and Virginia Woolf are known for.
The rise of Decadence in the late 18th century was also symptomatic of a pervasive fear of Western civilisational decline and this fear arguably contributed to the many avant-garde movements of the early 20th century, such as Primitivism and Futurism; while the former looked to the past as a way of infusing civilisation with energy, the latter worshipped technological advancements to the point of fanaticism (indeed, it is hard to detach Futurism from right-wing politics). Interestingly, but catastrophically, these two tendencies manifested themselves in the modern-barbaric WWI and WWII wherein societies possessed the thought (and power) of the modern and the energy of the cave-man. In the chapter on poetry, Lewis writes, "the modernists [have an] eschatological view of the world" and "the capacity to judge a civilisation that teeters on the edge of chaos was highly prized by the modernists"; think, for example, of W.B. Yeats' "widening gyre", Joyce's ominous Flying Dutchman, Eliot's "falling towers".
In navigating the early 20th century, Virginia Woolf arguably comes the closest to being modernism's biographer.
First, she remarks, "On or about December 1910 human nature changed... all human relations have shifted -- those between masters and servants, husbands and wives, parents and children." This marvelous statement encapsulates modernism not simply as a literary movement, but as an epoch-making movement that not only responded to but also provoked changes in the human condition.
Second, Woolf asserts that 'The world broke in two in 1922 or thereabouts". 1922: the year The Waste Land and Ulysses were published. Indeed, the interwar years were shaped by High Modernism, a period best embodied by the two major figures of literary modernism -- T.S. Eliot and James Joyce. Yet, while both poem and novel are superficially different in terms of genre, both share overarching similarities such as the concern with myth and tradition, the tendency to incorporate fragmentary experiments into a style that preserved enough of traditional syntax and plot, and the unfulfilled search for a moment of total insight. In both texts, the use of allusion and quotation is a response to the dilemma of coming at the end of a great tradition -- how should one address modern concerns while participating in the literary tradition? Second, even though High Modernism is often associated with elitism, the very fact that their texts remain readable and analys-able puts the lie to that notion of insularity. Lastly, modernism is very much concerned with the search for a moment of epiphany, for Truth with a capital T. Whereas the naturalists' approach was one of objective depiction of the objective world, the symbolists (and high modernists), inspired by philosophers and scientists like Marx, Freud, and Darwin, looked for Truth in the subconscious. That explains the prevalent use of unconventional diction or imagery in poetry, interior monologue in novels and the rise of metatheatre in drama.
Indeed, one of the most satisfying features of this text is the separate sections dedicated to exploring modern poetry, modern prose fiction, and modern drama. I especially enjoyed learning about The Waste Land (which I hope to read soon) and Ulysses (which I don't think I'll ever come around to reading)! Lewis' discussion on drama also alerted me to my regrettably inadequate knowledge of the genre.
What, then, comes after modernism? With the end of the Second World War, modernism seemed to be on its way out, and postmodernism on its way in. Pinpointing Joyce's Finnegan's Wake (1939) and Samuel Beckett's plays as the origin of postmodernism, Lewis defines postmodernism as either taking the form of a multiplication of meanings or an evacuation of meaning. More importantly, postmodernists abandon the quest for a single, unifying moment of total insight and rejects grand narratives of philosophical modernity associated with scientific, technical, material and social progress. Instead of using free indirect discourse or the stream-of-consciousness, postmodern works tend to use first-person perspective, hence calling on the reader to resolve the conflicts within the text without pretending to provide a truthful way of reading, of understanding. However, there is continuity between modernism and postmodernism. Other than the fact that postmodern works employ such methods as parody, metafiction, metahistory, and intertextuality which were also used by modernists, but to a lesser extent, they also live in the shadow of modernism, which was a total movement devoted to the conception of the greatest art as always original and innovative. Hence, the postmodernists' need to assert their originality can be interpreted as a sign of the continuing modernist impulse to, in Pound's words, "make it new."
I shall end this review with a quote from the text itself.
"Modernism fundamentally reshaped art and literature for the twentieth century and beyond: its rejection of traditional forms and genres, overturning of artistic conventions, emphasis on originality, and demand that artistic styles evolve in response to rapidly changing times all mark a crucial transformation into an era in which the modes of artistic and literary representation remain perpetually in crisis."
Perpetual crisis.
Lewis' succinct yet comprehensive thesis is that modernism in the arts was a response to the following crises that surfaced in the latter half of the 19th century: the crisis of representation (what and how to represent; subject matter and form/technique), the crisis of liberalism (betrayal of 1848, assassination of Charles Parnell, WWI, rise of communism and fascism), and the crisis of reason (that human beings are essentially biological beings motivated by subconscious instincts).
He also observes a critical distinction between Modernism with philosophical modernity (Descartes) and sociological modernisation (e.g. Haussmannisation of Paris).
So when did literary modernism begin? It began, writes Lewis, with Flaubert's Madame Bovary and Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du Mal, both seminal works of French literature. While Flaubert's Realism then inspired Zola's Naturalism, with their willingness to break taboos about subject matter and their intent in describing the objective world in detail, Baudelaire's experiments inspired the Decadent and Symbolist movements which would characterise the fin-de-siecle. Arguably, Symbolism would prove to be the more influential strand of modernism; its singular emphasis on the invisible, the subconscious, and hermetic meanings that are available only to the poet or the skilled reader, undoubtedly sowed the seeds for the stream-of-consciousness novels that such prominent writers as James Joyce and Virginia Woolf are known for.
The rise of Decadence in the late 18th century was also symptomatic of a pervasive fear of Western civilisational decline and this fear arguably contributed to the many avant-garde movements of the early 20th century, such as Primitivism and Futurism; while the former looked to the past as a way of infusing civilisation with energy, the latter worshipped technological advancements to the point of fanaticism (indeed, it is hard to detach Futurism from right-wing politics). Interestingly, but catastrophically, these two tendencies manifested themselves in the modern-barbaric WWI and WWII wherein societies possessed the thought (and power) of the modern and the energy of the cave-man. In the chapter on poetry, Lewis writes, "the modernists [have an] eschatological view of the world" and "the capacity to judge a civilisation that teeters on the edge of chaos was highly prized by the modernists"; think, for example, of W.B. Yeats' "widening gyre", Joyce's ominous Flying Dutchman, Eliot's "falling towers".
In navigating the early 20th century, Virginia Woolf arguably comes the closest to being modernism's biographer.
First, she remarks, "On or about December 1910 human nature changed... all human relations have shifted -- those between masters and servants, husbands and wives, parents and children." This marvelous statement encapsulates modernism not simply as a literary movement, but as an epoch-making movement that not only responded to but also provoked changes in the human condition.
Second, Woolf asserts that 'The world broke in two in 1922 or thereabouts". 1922: the year The Waste Land and Ulysses were published. Indeed, the interwar years were shaped by High Modernism, a period best embodied by the two major figures of literary modernism -- T.S. Eliot and James Joyce. Yet, while both poem and novel are superficially different in terms of genre, both share overarching similarities such as the concern with myth and tradition, the tendency to incorporate fragmentary experiments into a style that preserved enough of traditional syntax and plot, and the unfulfilled search for a moment of total insight. In both texts, the use of allusion and quotation is a response to the dilemma of coming at the end of a great tradition -- how should one address modern concerns while participating in the literary tradition? Second, even though High Modernism is often associated with elitism, the very fact that their texts remain readable and analys-able puts the lie to that notion of insularity. Lastly, modernism is very much concerned with the search for a moment of epiphany, for Truth with a capital T. Whereas the naturalists' approach was one of objective depiction of the objective world, the symbolists (and high modernists), inspired by philosophers and scientists like Marx, Freud, and Darwin, looked for Truth in the subconscious. That explains the prevalent use of unconventional diction or imagery in poetry, interior monologue in novels and the rise of metatheatre in drama.
Indeed, one of the most satisfying features of this text is the separate sections dedicated to exploring modern poetry, modern prose fiction, and modern drama. I especially enjoyed learning about The Waste Land (which I hope to read soon) and Ulysses (which I don't think I'll ever come around to reading)! Lewis' discussion on drama also alerted me to my regrettably inadequate knowledge of the genre.
What, then, comes after modernism? With the end of the Second World War, modernism seemed to be on its way out, and postmodernism on its way in. Pinpointing Joyce's Finnegan's Wake (1939) and Samuel Beckett's plays as the origin of postmodernism, Lewis defines postmodernism as either taking the form of a multiplication of meanings or an evacuation of meaning. More importantly, postmodernists abandon the quest for a single, unifying moment of total insight and rejects grand narratives of philosophical modernity associated with scientific, technical, material and social progress. Instead of using free indirect discourse or the stream-of-consciousness, postmodern works tend to use first-person perspective, hence calling on the reader to resolve the conflicts within the text without pretending to provide a truthful way of reading, of understanding. However, there is continuity between modernism and postmodernism. Other than the fact that postmodern works employ such methods as parody, metafiction, metahistory, and intertextuality which were also used by modernists, but to a lesser extent, they also live in the shadow of modernism, which was a total movement devoted to the conception of the greatest art as always original and innovative. Hence, the postmodernists' need to assert their originality can be interpreted as a sign of the continuing modernist impulse to, in Pound's words, "make it new."
I shall end this review with a quote from the text itself.
"Modernism fundamentally reshaped art and literature for the twentieth century and beyond: its rejection of traditional forms and genres, overturning of artistic conventions, emphasis on originality, and demand that artistic styles evolve in response to rapidly changing times all mark a crucial transformation into an era in which the modes of artistic and literary representation remain perpetually in crisis."
Perpetual crisis.
September 16, 2019
beautiful
June 2, 2025
Generally, a very good intro to modernist movements in literature, poetry, theatre and art which illustrates the interplay between media how it manifested geographically. I liked the historical and political contexts which I wasn't so familiar with, but which help us to interpret modernist works.
I was reading it mostly with a literature interest, and was a bit disappointed that most of this chapter focussed on Ulysses, when I would have liked a wider range of authors and books to have been compared and contrasted.
I was reading it mostly with a literature interest, and was a bit disappointed that most of this chapter focussed on Ulysses, when I would have liked a wider range of authors and books to have been compared and contrasted.
February 1, 2022
An interesting manual that explains with a language that can be understand by everyone what is this complex literature current of XX century.
March 18, 2022
Read not all but most of the relevant chapters, fairly good book, analyses bring out key points which often come up in FA-Lit questions
May 31, 2014
A fairly decent introduction to literary English (and some Irish) Modernism, with many references to Italian and French literary and non-literary artistic movements. He focuses his discussion of Modernism around the modernist "crisis of representation." The book is really meant for undergraduates, though I wouldn't be surprised if undergraduates were overwhelmed by the number of references to artists, paintings, composers, poets, novelists, dramatists, and movements surveyed in this work.
April 4, 2010
I was not able to read the entire book, but what I did read I really liked, as a good introduction to try to start to get my poor brain around what constitutes "modernism."
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews