20M - Twentieth Century Modernism Module Overview

Twentieth Century Modernism Module Overview

Introduction  Stream of consciousness and interior monologue emerged in modernist literature.

After the 19th century, literacy was prevalent throughout Great Britain. With literacy came knowledge, and with knowledge came doubt in various areas of life. World War I marked a different kind of warfare during the 19th century than man had ever experienced--trench warfare in which each side dug hundreds of miles of trenches to fight, but the trenches became a place to house death and disease. As World War I came to a close, ending the life of many British soldiers, disillusionment with war and society settled over England, and the literature of the time period reflected the feelings of the masses. During the time period of Modernism, the literature changed by producing a break in traditional styles of poetry and prose. Where the Victorian poets focused on the beauty of nature, Modernist poets focused on the inhumane atrocities of war; poems were combinations of different forms and rhyme schemes. Most literature was cynical and revealed a lack of faith in the government and religion while showcasing the darker side of human nature. Stream of consciousness and interior monologue were popular in Modern literature to clearly demonstrate true human thoughts and feelings. In the Twentieth Century Modernism module, we will learn how new war tactics chipped away at an already embittered society and fostered further disillusionment in government and religion. We will examine how people during this time period used literature to reveal the innermost thoughts of man and voice their distrust while understanding the important role of literature in providing a voice for change in society today.

Essential Questions

  1. Can I cite textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as draw inferences?
  2. Can I write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas, concepts, and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content?
  3. Can I determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text including figurative and connotative meanings?

Key Terms

  1. Anaphora - Repetition of the same word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses or verses.
  2. Dystopian Novel - A genre of novel that contains an imaginary society (often futuristic or science fiction) that is unpleasant and dehumanizing.
  3. Feminist Theory - A type of literary theory that analyzes gender equality and how literature portrays male domination over females economically, socially, physically, and psychologically.
  4. Fragmentation - A Modernist and Post-Modernist literary technique where narratives are broken apart or disjointed in order to mirror the broken reality people now felt
  5. Frame Narrative - A type of literary fragmentation that presents a story within a story, whereby an introductory or main narrative is presented for the purpose of setting the stage for a more emphasized second narrative.
  6. Literary Criticism - The study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature.
  7. Literary Theory - The methods that reveal what literature can mean.
  8. Marxist Theory - A type of literary theory that analyzes how social institutions and class structure affect and oppress people economically and otherwise.
  9. Metonymy - A figure of speech in which one word or phrase is substituted for another with which it is closely associated also, the rhetorical strategy of describing something indirectly by referring to things around it.
  10. Psychoanalytical Theory - A type of literary theory that psychoanalyzes the author or character by identifying Freudian concepts such as the Oedipus complex, Freudian slips, Id, ego and superego, etc. in order to demonstrate how they influence the thoughts and behaviors of the characters.
  11. Reader Response Theory - A type of literary theory that indicates the text has no fixed, final, or correct meanings because the readers create the meaning based on their previous experiences and interpretations.
  12. Stream of Consciousness - A literary technique that is also known as an interior monologue characterized by fragmentation and a lack of punctuation that depicts the inner thoughts and feelings that pass through a character's mind.
  13. Understatement - A figure of speech in which a writer or a speaker deliberately makes a situation seem less important or serious than it is.

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