modernism
ively to a particular *form or *genre. Examples are the "satiric mode.
the "ironic, the "comic, the "pastoral, and the *didactic.
modernism,
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. including *Symbolism. "Futurism, *Expressionism, *Imagism. *Vorticism. "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 reestablish a coherence of meaning from fragmentary forms. In English.
its major landmarks are Joyce's Ulysses and Eliot's The Waste Land
(both 1922). In Hispanic literature the term has a special sense:
modernismo denotes the new style of poetry in Spanish from 1888 to
c.1910. strongly influenced by the French *Symbolists and "Parnassians and introduced by the Nicaraguan poet Ruben Dario and the
Mexican poet Manuel Gutierrez Najera.
monodrama,
a play or dramatic scene in which only one character
speaks; or a sequence of *dramatic monologues all spoken by the same
single character. The second sense is rarely used. except of Tennyson's
Maud (1855). to which the author attached the subtitle A Monodrama
in 1875. In the first sense. some German playwrights of the late 18th
century wrote monodramas that had musical accompaniment. notably
J. C. Brandes's Ariadne auf Naxos (1774). Modem writers of monodramas include Samuel Beckett in Krapp's Last Tape (1958) and Alan Bennett. who has written several monodramas for television. See also
monologue.
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