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Skepticism in the Efficacy of Belief in Modernist Literature
- Conor Ryan
“The starting point of modernism is the crisis of belief that pervades twentieth-century culture: loss of faith, experience of fragmentation and disintegration, and shattering of cultural symbols and norms” (Susan Stanford Friedman). This paper will discuss the skepticism about the efficacy of belief in Modernist literature."
What is Modernism?
Modernism as a literary movement presents some difficulties in terms of categorization; there were a series of movements with similar ideas and themes rather than any singular interpretation. It was a series of reactions in art and literature following modernity: the period of time that saw rapid development of technology, and unprecedented growth of cities around industry. “In poetry modernism is associated with moves to break from the iambic pentameter as the basic unit of verse, to introduce vers libre, symbolism, and other new forms of writing. In prose it is associated with attempts to render human subjectivity in ways more real than realism: to represent consciousness, perception, emotion, meaning and the individual’s relation to society through interior monologue, stream of consciousness, tunnelling, defamiliarization, rhythm, irresolution” (Childs, 3). Both Ford Maddox Ford and T.S. Eliot were influential figures associated with literary modernism, and their own disillusionment with the direction of society following changes brought on by the wider cultural and technological development was reflected in their work. It is less bound by convention than many literary movements and perhaps even more philosophical in nature than simply literary per se. The starting point for this movement was the crisis of belief that individuals experienced.
Modernism requires context to understand, being characterized by breaks away from previous literary tradition for its inadequacy to capture aspects of experience. Ford is famous for his fiction, but we should also remember that he was an editor, essayist and critic in his own right- being an influential figure on 20th Century literature. He associated with many other writers in London and Paris, being a publisher for many of those with whom he shared a vision, and also influenced. T.S. Eliot was also a prominent figure, writing his own prose and discussing poetry with Ezra Pound- who played no small role in getting Eliot’s poems published and discussing how to break away from tradition to newer forms of poetry. We can see the influence of countless ideas such as imagism or the direct treatment of the image – and the depiction of subjects which were a consequence of, or symptomatic rather, of modernity.“The starting point of modernism is the crisis of belief that pervades twentieth-century culture: loss of faith, experience of fragmentation and disintegration, and shattering of cultural symbols and norms” (Susan Stanford Friedman)
One of the important events that affected literature and art in the western world was World War 1, or as it was known at the time: The Great War. It was fought over ideals and originally expected to last a fraction of the length of time that it did. This was a cumulation in an already deepening crisis in belief expressing concerns in the direction modernity was taking society at the turn of the century. Both Eliot and Ford wrote before the war, but their style and subject choice changed drastically during and after the war years. Ford worked in the British war propaganda industry, and fought in the war- it was only after he returned that he began writing The Good Soldier, which was set shortly before the war. The title was accidental, allegedly misconstrued after Ford attempted an ironic reply to a publisher’s suggestion to change the name to be more in line with postwar marketing “…To my horror six months later the