Hi Class,
Modernism: [from The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms):
Modernism is a general term applied retrospectively to the wide range of experimental and avant-garde trends in the literature (and other arts) of the early 20th century, [dates: 1890 to the end of WWII – 1945] including Symbolism, Futurism, Expressionism, Imagism, Vorticism, Ultraismo, Dada, and Surrealism, along with the innovations of unaffiliated writers. Modernist literature is characterized chiefly by a rejection of 19th-century traditions and of their consensus between author and reader: the conventions of realism, for instance, were abandoned by Franz Kafka and other novelists, and by expressionist drama, while several poets rejected traditional metres in favour of free verse. Modernist writers tended to see themselves as an avant-garde disengaged from bourgeois values, and disturbed their readers by adopting complex and difficult new forms and styles. In fiction, the accepted continuity of chronological development was upset by Joseph Conrad, Marcel Proust, and William Faulkner, while James Joyce and Virginia Woolf attempted new ways of tracing the flow of characters’ thoughts in their stream-of-consciousness styles. In poetry, Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot replaced the logical exposition of thoughts with collages of fragmentary images and complex allusions. Luigi Pirandello and Bertolt Brecht opened up the theatre to new forms of abstraction in place of realist and naturalist representation.
Modernist writing is predominantly cosmopolitan, and often expresses a sense of urban cultural dislocation, along with an awareness of new anthropological and psychological theories. Its favoured techniques of juxtaposition and multiple point of view challenge the reader to re-establish a coherence of meaning from fragmentary forms. In English, its major landmarks are Joyce’s Ulysses and Eliot’s The Waste Land (both 1922).
Here is the list of questions for “The Veldt”:
1- Who is the narrator? Does the narrator like or dislike the Hadleys?
2- How do the children (Wendy and Peter) act toward the parents? Why?
3- Describe the house. How is like a character?
4- Describe the nursery. Is it believable? Why or why not?
5- What is significant about the screams?
6- What ironies can you find about the Hadley’s house or their behavior or their words?
7- On page 4, George says: “I feel like I don’t belong here. The house is wife and mother now, and nursemaid.” Why is this statement important?
8- What are “telepathic emanations”?
9- Why doesn’t the room respond to George’s commands?
10- Why was the room a “lovely green forest,” when they check on the room later in the story?
11- What is significant about the old wallet that George finds in the room? How did it get there?
12- Who is David McClean and why is he important?
13- What does McClean tell the parents about the room?
14- What is the significance of the bloody scarf they find?
15- What happens when George goes around the house turning off things?
16- What is significant about the Peter’s statement “I wish you were dead”?
17- Why do the screams seem familiar to George and Lydia?
18- Why do you think Wendy says “A cup of tea?” to McClean at the end?
19- Do the parents live or die? How is this possible?
20- Is this story Gothic or Modernist? Support your answer.
 ** The purpose in listing these questions is to help us wrestle with the more interesting questions (such as the one about significance and if this gothic or modern or both)–after clarifying the easier one.Â
Homework:
1—Read “Ferryslip” by John Dos Passos
2—Read the introduction and the first six pages of Tender Buttons by Gertrude Stein (up to “A Red Stamp”)
3—Prepare for Quiz 2 over “The Enormous Radio,” “A Very Short Story,” “The Veldt,” “Ferryslip” “Tender Buttons” and the definition of modernism and its 7 characteristics. The quiz will be posted on Monday and should be completed before 5pm on Monday.
Best wishes,
Prof. Scanlan
