Realism is a literary trend of thought and creative method formed during the specific historical period from the Renaissance to the19th century, and it is also a literary phenomenon when the bourgeoisie in Western Europe stepped onto the historical stage to establish political rule.
Modernist literature, also known as modernist literature or modern literature, is an international literary trend of thought popular in Europe and America from 1890 to 1950. Vertically, it inherited classical literature, romantic literature and realistic literature, and then to post-modernism literature. Horizontally, it includes six schools: symbolism literature, expressionism literature, futurism literature, stream of consciousness literature, imagism literature and surrealism literature.
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Theoretical traceability
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Historical and social evolution
Karl Marx
Around 1880, major western countries entered the stage of rapid economic development and international expansion, especially Britain, France and Germany. The acceleration of industrialization and urbanization has greatly changed people's lives, especially the interpersonal relationship structure in traditional agricultural society. /kloc-before the 0/9th century, the rural scenery was replaced by the giant cities filled with reinforced concrete, and people's values, world outlook and religious beliefs were seriously impacted and challenged. Alienation, strangeness and loneliness are common among individuals in European and American societies. The most important "dehumanization" element of modernist literature comes from this.
The First World War, which took place in1914-1918, had a great influence on modernist literature. The war completely broke the precarious old order and patriarchal clan system in European society. The great disaster brought by the war to the whole of Europe has made sensitive intellectuals, especially literary and art workers, have serious doubts about the capitalist value system and ethical system and bred rebellion.
Events that had a great influence on modernist literature also included the October Revolution in Russia in 19 17. When the capitalist value system was questioned, Marx thought became an important ideological trend, and many modernist writers were directly or indirectly influenced by it.
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Scientific, technical and cultural factors
Throughout the19th century, the European scientific community was dominated by Darwin's theory of evolution and Newton's mechanical system. Under its influence, positivism and rationalism are the mainstream viewpoints guiding the development of literature and art, but at the beginning of the 20th century, the birth of modern physics, especially Einstein's theory of relativity, greatly shook the material world outlook of classical physics, and the scientific world became subtle, complex and difficult to grasp. The emergence of electronic theory, cybernetics and information theory has further destroyed the traditional metaphysical views and even greatly changed the language. The development of science has influenced the development of literature and art to some extent. For example, futurism literature, as one of the important schools of modernism literature, was born under the direct influence of the development of new science and technology.
In the field of philosophy and culture, Nietzsche's extreme proposition of "reassessing everything" has had a far-reaching impact on expressionist literature in the German-speaking world. The psychoanalytic theory of Austrian psychiatrist Freud guided writers to dig deep into the subconscious and unconscious fields, which directly influenced the stream-of-consciousness novels. However, the French philosopher henri bergson had the greatest influence on modernist literature. His intuitionism theory laid the theoretical tone of the whole modernist literature to a certain extent. In addition, Kant's agnosticism, Jung's collective unconsciousness theory and Croce's intuitive aesthetics theory also influenced the development of modernist literature to varying degrees.
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trend of thought in literature and art
From the perspective of the history of European literature, modernist literature can be regarded as the result of the transformation from traditional romantic literature to aestheticism literature and from realistic literature to naturalism literature in the19th century, which has formed a crisis and found another way out.
Aestheticism literature represented by Oscar Wilde is the product of the transformation of Romantic literature with the decline of European national democratic revolution. It inherited the romanticism's dissatisfaction with the social status quo, but lost the romanticism's spirit of criticism and reconstruction, fled into the ivory tower and advocated "art for art's sake". This view directly influenced a large number of modernist writers, especially French symbolist writers.
The naturalistic literature represented by Zola is the product of the transformation of realistic literature prevailing in Europe in the19th century. It emphasizes the imitation of external reality, focusing on depicting the decisive influence of heredity and environment on people, pathological things and complex details. It can be said that naturalism literature is a bridge between realism literature and modernism literature.
In addition, the development of European art in the 20th century kept pace with modernist literature almost everywhere. At the beginning of the 20th century, the first generation of modern masters, represented by Cezanne, Gauguin and Van Gogh, advocated expressing "subjective objectivity" with broad brushstrokes, rough lines and bright colors. Because art and literature are closely related, the development of modernist literature and modern art in the whole 20th century are complementary, and sometimes even twisted into a branch school. For example, surrealism includes painting, sculpture and literature.
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Development track
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Incubation period (1840- 1890)
Charles baudelaire
French poet Charles Baudelaire and American poet Poe are regarded as the distant ancestors of modernist literature. Baudelaire's Flowers of Evil abandoned romanticism's praise of rural life for the first time, and instead exposed the ugliness of the city and the darkness of human nature with a cynical attitude, laying the foundation for the creation of French symbolism literature. On the other hand, Poe advocated the so-called "subliming the beauty of the soul", opposing nature and preaching, and emphasizing formal beauty, suggestibility and musicality, which later became important manifestations of poetry in modernist literature.
However, strictly speaking, the above two men are not real modernist writers, but their theories and creations are the embryonic form of the concept of "modernism" in the history of literature.
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Initial period (1890- 19 10)
From 65438 to 1990s, French symbolism literature spread to European and American countries and became an international literary movement, marking the beginning of modernism literature as an important ideological trend in the history of western literature.
In these 20 years, many important modernist writers and works have appeared. French symbolism continued to develop and produced outstanding poets, such as Malamey and Valery. Expressionist drama in German-speaking countries officially entered the international stage; Ireland has its own "Renaissance Movement", and its leader, Ye Zhi, is the most accomplished English writer in this period. In terms of novel creation, Conrad, a Polish-born British writer, has an ambiguous modernist element in his works, while Proust of France has completed the masterpiece Searching for the Lost Time and become a pioneer of stream-of-consciousness literature.
The development of early modernist literature was not limited to France, Britain and Germany, but also spread to other European countries. For example, maeterlinck, a Belgian-born French playwright, created the dream play "Jade Bird"; Austrian poet Rilke introduced French symbolism into the German-speaking world. Swedish playwright Strindberg established his position as the originator of expressionist drama with his masterpiece Towards Damascus.
Modernism in this period is still relatively complicated in general, and the styles of many writers are still ambiguous and not as mature as late maturity. Most early modernist writers have gone through the process of changing from other literary schools to modernism. For example, Ye Zhi's poems in his early years had aestheticism and delicate feelings, while his works in his later years completely turned into purely modernist abstractions.
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Peak period (19 10- 1930)
Franz Kafka, 1907
During this period, various schools of modernist literature came one after another, and the European and American literary circles flourished unprecedentedly. In addition to the further development of French symbolism literature, Italian futurism literature, British and American imagism literature and French surrealism literature were born one after another. Stream-of-consciousness literature has officially become the mainstay of various schools of modernist literature, producing a number of outstanding literary masters and works. Expressionist drama crossed the border of German-speaking countries and was introduced to the United States.
Almost all the most important modernist works came out in this period, such as Kafka's Metamorphosis (19 12), Joyce's Ulysses (1922), Eliot's The Waste Land (1922) and O 'Neill's. This period is characterized by different schools of modernism in Britain, America, France, Germany and Italy. Paris is the base camp of the whole western modernist literature and art, and modernist literature reached its peak in the1920s.
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Decline period (1930- 1950)
Since the1920s, the international situation has become increasingly complicated due to the panic of the world economy, the rise of international fascism and the expansion of the Qing Party in the Soviet Union. 1939 The outbreak of World War II destroyed the dream of modern writers trying to establish a new post-war literary order, and realistic literature began to recover briefly in Europe.
World War II led to the collapse of all constructions of capitalist social order after World War I, and intellectuals' thinking on capitalist values and ethics gradually turned from "irrationality" to "nothingness", and existentialism philosophy came into being. Existentialist literature, represented by French writers Sartre and Camus, has developed rapidly, but it has gone beyond the category of orthodox modernist literature and become the first important branch of postmodern literature.
Although some important modernist works were produced in this period, such as Eliot's Quartet, orthodox modernist literature has gone far away and began to be replaced by postmodern literature.
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school
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Symbolism literature
See symbolism literature.
Among the schools of modernist literature, poetry and drama are the main ones with the longest development and the highest achievements. In the early days, France was the center, and later it spread to the whole western world. Representative writers: Valery, Malamey, Rambo, Wei Erlun, Ye Zhi, Eliot, Rilke, maeterlinck, etc.
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Expressionist literature
See expressionist literature.
Mainly in German-speaking countries, and later extended to the United States. It mainly covers poetry and drama, especially dramatic achievements. He has also made great achievements in the field of novels. Representative writers: Eugene O 'Neill, Kafka, Caesar, Toler, Strindberg, etc.
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Futurist literature
See futuristic literature.
It was born and developed in Italy, and later spread to France and the Soviet Union, mainly covering poetry and drama. It is not as successful as other schools in the horizontal direction, but it has done a lot of valuable exploration in the language and form of poetry. Representative writers: marinetti, Apollinaire, Mayakovski, etc.
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stream of consciousness
See Stream of Consciousness Literature.
The only modernist school focusing on novel creation has spread to all European and American countries, especially Britain and France. The introduction of psychological research results into novel creation subverts the traditional narrative mode of novels. Representative writers: Proust, Joyce, Faulkner, Woolf and so on.
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Imagism literature
See imagist literature.
It mainly occurs in Britain and America, covering only one kind of poetry, and is sometimes regarded as a branch of French symbolism poetry in Britain and America. Representative figures: Hume, Pound, Flint, Rochel, etc.
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surrealism literature
See surrealist literature.
The latest school of modernist literature, which has a wide international influence and involves all fields of literature and art, was born in France, and its predecessor was Dadaism prevailing from 19 16 to 1923. Representative figures: Brighton, Ai Lvya, Aragon, gascoyne, Egri Tis, etc.
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As far as Western Europe is concerned, realism is a literary trend of thought and creative method formed in the specific historical period from the Renaissance to the19th century, and it is also a literary phenomenon when the bourgeoisie in Western Europe stepped onto the historical stage and established political rule.
Realism, as a special literary term, first appeared in the theoretical works of German playwright Schiller in18th century. As a literary trend of thought, literary mud and creative method, "realism" first appeared in the French literary world. The word "realism" in French comes from the Latin word "realism". The emergence of realistic names is completely different from the existence of this literary trend of thought. In France, realism began in the 1950s. At first, the French novelist Fran? ois Flory (1821-kloc-0/599) used realism as a term to express a new artistic style. In his article "Realism in Art" in 1850, he used this term for the first time as a sign of criticizing realistic literature and art. Later, the French painter Courbet (18 19- 1877) advocated realism in painting.
1855, an exhibition of paintings was held in Courbet, which caused a big debate, known as the "realism debate" in the history of literature and art. In this war, Courbet founded a journal called Realism. 1857, Champolli, an enthusiastic supporter of Courbet, named his anthology "Realist". Since then, the flag of realism has been formally established in European literary circles, and this term has become popular in France. As we all know, Balzac (1799- 1850) is a writer in the deepest sense of realism, and his Human Comedy is a profound and standardized realistic literature. However, Balzac, like Stendhal, Dickens, Thackeray and Nikolai Nikolai Gogol, never used the term "realism" to express their new literary school. In Russia, Pisarev, a literary theorist, first used this term (see his Realist), but it was in the 1960s.
Generally speaking, anything that can fully express the typical characteristics of real life with images is called realistic works. Emile Faguet, a French literary historian, explained: "Realism is an artistic proposition that clearly and calmly observes human events and then describes them clearly and calmly. ..... We should select the most meaningful rhyming events from thousands of real events, and then sort out these events to make them have a strong impression. " This is basically consistent with Engels' definition that "realism requires the true representation of typical characters in typical environments in addition to the truth in details". If realism is not simply understood as the inner truth of various realistic arts, but only as a set of principles and artistic methods of character description, then in western Europe, it is generally believed that realism was formed during the Renaissance. From Renaissance realism to1critical realism in the 1920s, and1enlightenment realism in the 8th century. Renaissance realism is famous for describing the vivid and rich feelings, desires and feelings of characters. It shows the sublimity of people, the integrity, purity and poetry of characters. However, it is not as realistic as the Enlightenment in analyzing social relations. The latter is more social and analytical, emphasizing that creation should have a clear social purpose and ideological education.
/kloc-the trend of critical realism in the 0/9th century is both a historical inheritance and a realistic innovation. It summed up the literary experience before18th century, supplemented the historical concreteness of realism in the Renaissance, got rid of the rational principle of classicism, and overcame the didactic elements of realism and the subjectivity of romanticism in the Enlightenment. It also accepted the concreteness of character description from Renaissance literature, social analysis factors from classicism and enlightenment literature, and some passion from romanticism, but it gradually lost its unique optimism in the previous generation literature, but it was stained with pessimism that it could not get rid of. /kloc-the critical realism in the 0/9th century seems to be an organic combination of the realistic characteristics of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. It is also developed under the new historical conditions. It can describe people from the movement and development of things, from the various relationships between people and the environment, especially its representation of typical characters in typical environments, direct analysis of social life reality, and sharp exposure and criticism of reality, reaching an unprecedented level. In the history of world literature, the critical realism literature in the19th century became the peak of European bourgeois literature and art development. ..
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