Chapter15美国文学童明版1.pptVIP

Chapter 15 Modernism in the American Grain Topics A Characteristics of American modernism B Historical, Philosophical, Formal dimensions of American modernism Definition of Modernism The term modernism is widely used to identify new and distinctive features in the subjects, forms, concepts, and styles of literature and the other arts in the early decades of the present century, but especially after World War I (1914-18). The specific features signified by modernism (or by the adjective modernist) vary with the user, but many critics agree that it involves a deliberate and radical break with some of the traditional bases not only of Western art, but of Western culture in general. P 198 Modernism is the attempt to create something new in the space of modern crisis and change. Characteristics of American modernism International→ First, American modernism is the process of American literature merging into the mainstream of Western modern culture. a more complex view of reality → Second, literary modernists are just as concerned as reality as the realists are. However, the modernist have a more complex view of reality. Modernism are more aware that language is constitutive of reality, not just a transparent (thus unimportant) medium. several paradigms（范式）→ Third, there is the question of paradigm for modernism. The attempt to define modernism only in the terms of Eliot and a small group who shares his vision is to mistake one tree for the whole forest. Characteristics of American modernism Based on the afore-mentioned observations —— that American modernism is less nationalistic but more international and European, that the modernists are more aware of how language constitutes and shapes reality; that modernism includes several paradigms and a whole range of responses to the modern——American modernism should be examined in its various dimensions —— the formal, the historical and the philosophical —— so that we can perceive more clearly the larger picture of modernis