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1. MODERNISM
Presenter :
H.Basheer Ahmad
Submitted to :
Ma`am Rida srfaraz

2. OUTLINE
 Definition
 Historical background
 Major Influences
 Themes of Modern Literature
 Woman Right
Characteristic
 Major Writers

3. DEFINITION
• Modernism is a literary and cultural international movement which be
successful in the first years of the 20th century. Modernism is not a term
to which a single meaning can be qualified. It may be applied both to
the content and to the form of a work, or to also in isolation. It reflects a
sense of cultural crisis which was both moving and disquieting, in that
it opened up a whole new vista of human possibilities at the same
time as putting into question any before accepted means of grounding
and evaluating new ideas. Modernism is marked by experimentation,
particularly manipulation of form, and by the understanding that
knowledge is not absolute.

4. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
1901- The End of the Reign of Queen Victoria
1903- Ford Motor Company Founded
1905- Einstein Unveils the Theory of Special Relativity
1914-18- WWI
1916- Easter Rising in Dublin
1920- League of Nations Formed
1929- Stock Market Crash
1933- Hitler Rises to Power
1939-45- WWII
1945- Atomic Bomb Dropped on Japan
1969- Apollo Lands on the Moon

5. MAJOR INFLUENCES
Physicist Einstein on Relativity (1905)
Physicist Planck on Important Theory (1900)
Philosopher Nietzsche on the Will of Power
Philosopher Bergson on the Concept of Time
Psychologist William James on Feelings and Internal Time
Psychologist Freud on the Lifeless (The Interpretation of Dreams, 1900)
Psychologist Jung on United Lifeless
Linguist De Saussure on Language
Anthropologist Frazer on Primitive Cultures

6. WOMAN RIGHT
The right to vote (19th am.
Flapper= “an emancipated young woman who embraced new fashions and urban
attitudes of the day”
More women working

7. THEMES OF MODERN LITERATURE
Collectivism versus individualism
Disillusionment
Violence and alienation
Decadence and decay
Loss and despair
Breakdown of social norms and cultural sureties
Race and gender relations
The American Dream

8. CHARACTERISTIC`S
Open and Experimental Form
Discontinuity
Juxtaposition
Intertextuality
Classical Allusions
Borrowings From Other Cultures and Texts

9. MAJOR WRITERS
 Virginia Woolf 1882 – 1941
 Thomas Stern Eliot 1888 – 1965
 James Joyce 1882-1941
 D. H. Lawrence 1885-1930
 W. H. Auden 1907-1973