James Joyce is hailed as the “Priest of Modernism”

Modernism in the arts, a radical break with the past and concurrent search for new forns if expressuin. Modernism fostered a period of experimentation in the arts from the late 19th to the mid-20th century. More specifically, it is not wrong to assume that it emerged in England around 1910 as a reaction against Romanticism in the wake of the First World War.

The time when modernism came in vogue was the era characterised by industrialisation, rapid social change. Modernists felt a growing alienation incompatible with Victorian morality, optimism, and convention. The followers of modernism wanted to find a new way of authentic response to a much-changed world.

Modernism in literature is characterised by stream of consciousness narration, a focus on psychological investigation as opposed to plot, and a blend of high and low language. The leading figures of modernist movement include Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, and T.S. Eliot.

“Modernism, rebelling against the
ornament of the 19th century, limited
the vocabulary of the designer. Modernism emphasized straight lines, eliminating the expressive S curve. This made it harder to communicate emotions through design.”
–Eva Zeisel