For Eliot, such obscurantism was necessary to halt the erosion of art in the age of commodity circulation and a literature adjusted to the lowest common denominator.
It could be argued that the achievements of the Modernists have made little impact on the practices of reading and writing as those terms and activities are generally understood.
The opening of Finnegans Wake , "riverrun, past Eve's and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodious vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs," seems scarcely less strange and new than when it was first published in Little wonder, then, that it is probably the least read of the acknowledged "masterpieces" of English literature.
In looking to carry on many of the aesthetic goals of the Modernist project, hypertext fiction must confront again the politics of its achievements in order to position itself anew with regard to reader. With its reliance on expensive technology and its interest in re-thinking the linear nature of The Book , hypertext fiction may find itself accused of the same elitism as its modernist predecessors.
Specifically, modernist writers were fascinated with how the individual adapted to the changing world. In some cases, the individual triumphed over obstacles. For the most part, Modernist literature featured characters who just kept their heads above water. Writers presented the world or society as a challenge to the integrity of their characters.
Ernest Hemingway is especially remembered for vivid characters who accepted their circumstances at face value and persevered. Modernist writers broke free of old forms and techniques. Poets abandoned traditional rhyme schemes and wrote in free verse. Novelists defied all expectations. Writers mixed images from the past with modern languages and themes, creating a collage of styles. The inner workings of consciousness were a common subject for modernists.
This preoccupation led to a form of narration called stream of consciousness, where the point of view of the novel meanders in a pattern resembling human thought. Eliot and Ezra Pound, are well known for their experimental Modernist works.
The carnage of two World Wars profoundly affected writers of the period. Several great English poets died or were wounded in WWI. At the same time, global capitalism was reorganizing society at every level. When William dies, her focus turns to Paul, and the rest of the novel follows his failure to maintain relationships with other women due to his bond with his mother.
Sons and Lovers has, of course, been read alongside Freud as a classic example of the Oedipus complex, but it is also interesting for its discussion of education as a means of escape from poverty at least for men , and of industrialisation and the impact that has on the countryside and on traditional ways of life. It depicts the vibrant nightlife of the era; the heady mix of music, sex, and echoes of an African past, and picks up on many themes surrounding racial identity.
In his privileging of more natural interactions between people, McKay draws on the influences of his contemporaries, such as D. Lawrence, who viewed industrial modernity with great mistrust and questioned its impact on humanity. Jake is contrasted with Ray, a Haitian intellectual and a waiter working on the same train as Jake. In many ways Ray and Jake represent two sides of the same personality, two ways of confronting the African-American situation.
The first describes the childhood experiences and memories of Marcel, particularly his time in the French town of Combray. It also touches on homosexuality, the intellectual life, and explorations of human emotions and drives such as love, jealousy, and egotism.
Though Nina is deeply in love with Adam, she refuses to marry him unless he is wealthy enough to keep her in the manner to which she is accustomed, and Adam spends the length of the novel trying to make enough money to be able to marry her.
Like F. Not only does this lifestyle drain all depth and meaning from romantic and social relationships, it also causes problems for the physical and mental wellbeing of the individual characters. There is a strong sense that this whirling sequined mass of society is spinning out of control, moving too fast for anyone to keep up with.
This idea is captured in the demise of Lady Agatha Runcible, who dies in a mental hospital after taking a race car and crashing it in a moment of madness that borders on clarity, wherein she sees through the constant parties to the realities of life.
Published in , To the Lighthouse tells the story of Mr and Mrs Ramsey and their eight children through the time they spend on holiday in their summer home on the Isle of Skye.
Between the initial promise and its delivery, the family has changed irrevocably, the eventual journey marking both a return to an old promise and the beginning of a new relationship between the father and his remaining children. This middle section sees many other deaths, including some of the Ramsey children, as it summarises the events that occurred over the course of the first world war. The loss of life is not a grand moment in the narrative but a distant event that is felt mainly in the subsequent absences.
This sense of distance and detachment reflects the experiences of those who lost loved ones in the fighting overseas.
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