History and Concept of Modernism

Abstract

The present research article attempts to trace manifestations of literary innovation linked to major cultural and social changes on a global scale. Modernism is most ambiguous term to define. For number of critics, modernism stated with renaissance whereas for some others modernism started with the publication of Joseph Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’ published in 1895. Virginia Woolf made a comment on the changed nature of human being: “in or about December, 1910, human character changed” (Woolf 1966, 320). The term modernism denotes newness in terms of them e and technique employed in literature. Modernism is one of the most important fields of literary and cultural studies. However, the term is very ambiguous from literary and cultural situation. Critics and scholars attempt to define modernism in different ways but there is not a single comprehensive definition covering all aspects of modernism. For some critics, modernism came to an end with 1930. It belongs to the past, to tradition. However, there are critics who consider modernism as “dominant but dead” (Hal Forster 1983, ix). Nonetheless, this definition is misleading. Modernism is alive and kicking. Aesthetical, ideological and historical issues are approached and studied using the concept of modernism. Hence the concept of modernism is pressing rather than dead. The present research paper attempts to study the rise and development of modernism and its influence on new literature. It also makes an enquiry into the aesthetic and cultural poetics of literary modernism.