ENGL 2132 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Édouard Dujardin, Sigmund Freud, The Waste Land
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American modernism (1915 1945: modernism is a revolutionary movement encompassing all of the creative arts, a movement whose artists deliberately sought to liberate themselves from the constraints and polite conventions we associate with conventional vi(cid:272)to(cid:396)ia(cid:374)is(cid:373). I(cid:374) ez(cid:396)a pou(cid:374)d"s (cid:449)o(cid:396)ds, mode(cid:396)(cid:374)is(cid:373) (cid:272)alled (cid:862)to (cid:373)ake it (cid:374)e(cid:449)(cid:863); i(cid:374) othe(cid:396) (cid:449)o(cid:396)ds, (cid:374)e(cid:449) fo(cid:396)(cid:373)s of a(cid:396)t to (cid:396)epla(cid:272)e the t(cid:396)aditio(cid:374)al o(cid:396) (cid:449)o(cid:396)(cid:374) out forms of art. Moderns sought abstract expressionism and their ideas and their art exploded onto the international scene in the aftermath of world war i, a traumatic transcontinental event that physically devastated and psychologically disillusioned the west in an entirely unprecedented way. Their works reflected the pervasive sense of loss, disillusionment, and even despair in the wake of the great war, hence their emphasis on historical discontinuity and the alienation of humanity. Out of this dist(cid:396)ust of so(cid:272)iet(cid:455)"s i(cid:374)stitutio(cid:374)s, a (cid:374)e(cid:449) fo(cid:272)us o(cid:374) the i(cid:374)di(cid:448)idual (cid:449)as (cid:271)o(cid:396)(cid:374).
