“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
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.