/lit/ - Literature

>>19974089
Modernists were conservative and hated the surrealists/dada who won in the culture war because of capitalism.

>>19974089
Modernism is still the dominant movement in literature, you seem to be fixating on the extreme examples and viewing them as representative of the movement.

>>19974115
The only people still alive who I regard as “modernist” are Don DeLillo who others pretend is postmodern. And admittedly there is a moment of postmodernism that everyone talks about even if there’s no consensus what it is.

stylistically much of it is still around, from stream of consciousness to extreme compression, all those elements are now part and parcel of modern thinking we don't really consider it anymore, and one could say the same for Freud's influence. What's gone is much of the basic craft that formed the bedrock of the best modernist works. With younger writers showing little interest, and even less awareness, of the basic root and branch skill's of writing. A little unfair, but modernist writing with no historical awareness is basically what postmodernism is, and the results are thus very uneven.

Also the Cantos fizzled out for other reasons to do with Pounds mental state and much of the middle not being very good, but people still write in that style. A kind of mock sophistication, overplayed even in Pounds case, that shelters in it's incomprehensibility.

>>19974122
Postmodernism is Modernism, there is absolutely no conceptual break. More so there is no conceptual break between modernism (and by extension "postmodernism") and the Enlightenment. It is all entirely one thing.

Read pic related.

>>19974089
>Yeats, Joyce and Eliot end with a rounded off artistic life, a complete triumph of intention
>Op conveniently skids them to the side for some reason mentioning that they were doing something different to nationalism (because you need to be an ultra nationalist to be a hero of national literature? as if Yeats wasn't an ultra nationalist and Joyce didn't see Ireland as the source of his art)

>>19974188
Joyce was internationalist and loathed Irish sentimentalism. Eliot was also insufferably depressed and hated spending time in England, and it’s pretty easy to see Eliot didn’t take himself or anyone else that seriously; he even jokingly said Ezra Pound reinvented Chinese poetry, which is preposterous given Pound didn’t even know Chinese.

>>19974089
Modernism totally failed in all of the arts. Next question?

>>19974179
that's like saying new criticism is still relevant

>>19974149
>stylistically much of it is still around, from stream of consciousness to extreme compression, all those elements are now part and parcel of modern thinking we don't really consider it anymore
That’s interesting but I wonder how much that has been commodified and codified by capitalism, in a monochrome product that we consume and internalise as ideology. And I fail to see how people merely making a pastiche of content or form isn’t dancing on Modernism’s grave; it seems more like killing it further to me.

>>19974214
medication

>>19974221

>>19974214
There is something disgustingly democratic in postmodernism. In a way socialist artists never could, it truly is an art for the people. Modernism was supposed to be the opposite, difficult, snobbish and open to extensive study, in a way, say the Victorian novel, never was. Manny of the modernist greats were anticapitalists and conservatives who hoped to find their escape in pedagogy.

What i think then proved unexpected was that pedagogy itself would become democratic and ahistorical. We live in a funny world where socialist 'scientific' thinking finds it's home within the worst excesses of capitalism.

>>19974089
[spoiler/]It’s a pp with cummies[/spoiler]

The Cantos fizzle out sure, but they weren't a complete failure. (if anything it's very moving the way they falter at the end) Joyce and Eliot both have excellent bodies of work, Joyce especially has a pretty much perfect career from start to finish. Wyndham Lewis wrote plenty of good stuff, and his paintings hold up better than most of the futurists in my opinion.
Obviously that's only the early crop of them, but I'd say they did a pretty good job. Once you get into Proust, Kafka, all of the french avant-garde poetry and theatre, it's hard to say that modernism "failed." (unless you're one of the people who gets upset that they didn't prevent the holocaust and all of that)

>>19974214
Muh capitalism! Will you trannies shut up for one second?

>>19974089
Modernism itself was a swan song, it could not be said to fail in any real sense because it itself was a symptom of the severe crisis and dissolving into nothingness of the western tradition rather than being something of an impasse to outwit.

>>19974089
Pound is great, I like HD better
Beckett sucks
Joyce sux
Yeats, Yeats who? Oh him? He's ok

>>19974198
You clearly have developed an opinion independent of the facts and will not change it.

But I reiterate, this is irrelevant as to whether modernism was a success or not.

>>19974198
>Joyce was internationalist and loathed Irish sentimentalism
The only bad thing about Finnegan's wake, and it is a major thing, is it is too Irish. He was too trying to give Irish lit epic it's competition with Italy, Germany and england.

>>19975425
I don't even think that with Finnegans Wake he was attempting an epic to "compete" with Dante.

>>19975341
>>19975155
Modernism was a vision that after a long history of more and less tradition, more or less top down, it seemed there was a vision and space to see a totally new possible future of human living. Even with sci fi starts and dreams of futuristic robotic world. As opposed to romanticisms acceptance of part and parcel with nature, modernism appears as man urgeing himself toward garden keeper of Eden, to plant seeds and trim hedges in his own image, whatever that could be.

Through out history there has been a terribly a lot of modem art, the Mayans, the Egyptians, the stone age societies, ancient Persian and Indian societies, the designs of some of their temples and such.

Recall cubism was inspired by ancient and primitive art, it was a reshuffling, a shaking off constraints of the times, seen as overly stilted and claustrophobic as far as taste goes, victorian prim and proper manners, art nouveau and art deco sleekness. Is that pretty the modernism I meant earlier, thoughts of future sleekness, away from baroque fancy and follyful ornament, no longer the craftsman and craft consumer need escape their limited lot in life by appreciating endless wiggling lines and detail, but now the human body mind and spirit was the baroque wiggling lines, so the world itself ought be made sleek and simple, for it to more ably writhe off of.

With ornate art and architecture this humbles the spirit, lessens and limits it, makes it smaller and timid, with bahaus and brutulism the raw wrought simplicity establishes and primed canvas for the soul to arise as the rococo agent with which to dance across the face of earth.

>>19975486
It seems like you have your own concept of modernism.

>>19975435
The main point of my response was to say that it seems he was heavily Irish sentimental with that work as opposed to anons suggestion.

The minor point you respond to I believe if not purposefully for Dante, for the rich history of a nationals language art richness in general. He certainly was proclaiming a grand Irish pride with that book and it certainly is epic. It is just that in my opinion, where as blasphemous as may be, Italian and German can be translated, the Irish drawl if out of any poetic text in history can not.

We see the desired claim of the anti translationists, when imagining if Italian am German poetry are anything like fin wake , then yes a translation cannot be anything like, but then we imagine no possible work of Germany and Italy can be anything like fin wake

>>19975508
It seems like I would appreciate your input and correction

Modernism was drowned by jazz and Hollywood.

>>19975530
Modernism is still largely alive and well, the masses have always done their own thing, one isn't going to change all farmers carpenter ranch cottages into modern marvels overnight

>>19974089
Modernism criticized the one thing that criticizing will actually get you snuffed for. Predictably, it was not allowed to continue. The death of art means nothing to those people.

>>19974089
Modernism was a failuire both in literature and general. It ruined everything.

>>19975486
Modernism is an entire zeitgeist, just because Fascism didn't succeed doesn't mean it was artistically a failure.

It's not as simple or unified as you think it is.

>>19975636
Then help me understand more clearly, if course there are things I missed, I attempted to aim in relevant directions, of course I didn't capture every aspect of a new novel cutting edge era of human history in a few paragraphs.

Describe this zeitgeist you speak ot

>>19975516
I think that's how you personally view FW, not how Joyce viewed. Again, he wasn't trying to make an epic for his people. FW is not an epic in any way, shape or form.

>>19974112
Dada was against the surrealists

>>19976072
>Describe this zeitgeist you speak ot
In the general sense that's too difficult so I wont try.

But, for example, Joyce wasn't a Futurist who wanted to see new and exciting ways of living, or controlling nature. His role may be summed up better with Eliot's description, 'he refuted the 19th century', Ulysses is 'the epic of the mediocre', and the Wake is 'the great myth of everyday life'.

You're certainly on the right track with getting an idea of modernism, but it still feels like you've got your knowledge from stereotypical descriptions and summaries rather than a genuine interaction with it. If you have any more specific questions, I'd be happy to answer as I can.

>>19976079
>wasn't trying to make an epic for his people. FW is not an epic in any way, shape or form.
My point was not a matter of it being an epic for his people, or for his people, simply that someone said Joyce was not sentimentally Irish, and that fin wake is one of the most irishly things ever written.

Define; an epic

>>19977293
Might Joyce be just classified as a romantic then?

And we must keep in mind we are only talking about classifying large swaths of time and space and material history cramming them into this or that little word.

It's not so important what and what cannot be crammed into the word. If it ultimately boils down to aesthetic ideals and technological desires.

Politics being just one means of bringing these things about

>>19975174
Modernism was a response to globalisation and the opening of markets of kitsch, though.

>>19977460
>aesthetic ideals and technological desires.
Here's a book title if anyone knows a good enough writer to do it justice

>>19974112
Don't listen to this kid. He's a little special.

>>19978337
>though

>>19978479
What are you doing today, anon?

>>19977293
A specific question would be, what might a genuine interaction with modernism look like? A few different examples would be appreciated.

>>19978637
>>19977293

>>19977293
Where you at bruv

Ages often start with architecture and technology.

The state of an areas buildings, the public sphere of vision, imposes a spirit on its people, just as the natural architecture of nature has; trees plants mountains rocks climate etc.

Clothing, another public visual expression of idea, then also dictates the soul of an era.

Technology, improvements, coupled with that ethereal thing called taste, ables the abilities of architecture, and clothing.

The style of cars, the increased ableness of machines, glass and metal buildings, novel human abilities generated a novel human public sphere which generated a novel human spirit which generated novel relations between the self, others, nature, and the man made world

Poo, just read the Op header for the first time, did literary modernism fail... Let me get back to you on that one after I have a thinksy it over

Did literary modernism fail.. compared to what? What was it trying to achieve?

Also I didn't write Poo above, I write Ooo and it autocorrected without my noticing

>>19983254
Hey lill answer in a bit

>>19976079
FW is an epic, but in the same ironic sense that Ulysses was an epic