*Again, remember of Platypus!
Modernisme er ikke lik Moderne teater
MODERNISME
These definitions that we put on groupings of events/objects/ideas in history are not “real” in the sense that they are, like all aspects of language, made up by people and more-or-less agreed upon for the sake of discussion.
And in the case of Modernism, they are very generally LESS agreed upon.
I take the definition we will use in this class from Peter Child’s book Modernism, which is paret of the New Critical Idiom book series by Routledge Press. (The referencing edition published in 2008).
In bullet points:
- 1890-1930
- “The tradition of the new”
- new technological innovation
- emphasis away from chronological form
- tending toward irony and skepticism
- “dehumanization of art”
- loss of faith
- new language
- intellectual game-playing
- deep introspection
- despair with a dose of humor
- misanthropy
- philosophical ideas
- individual over the social
- self-contained instead of referential
- myth and symbolism instead of history
rejection of:
class systems
monarchies
the eurocentric world view
patriarchies*
(*Ironically, the English Academic Committee that wrote about Modernism in 1910 was made up of men only. These men said that Victorian literature had been too feminine. They proposed a cannon of literature – written exclusively by white men. Since the 1980s academics have included more women and writers of color under the title of “modernists”..)
Obligatorisk lesing: bok kilder – ismene alt i et doc
Modernisme i teateret