The Massachusetts Review, Inc.
What Was Modernism?
Author(s): Harry Levin
Source: The Massachusetts Review, Vol. 1, No. 4 (Summer, 1960), pp. 609-630
Published by: The Massachusetts Review, Inc.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25086557
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Levin
Harry
was Modernism?
What
apartment
building
York
in New
City,
according
has been named The Picasso.
announcement,
I have not had the pleasure
of seeing
sug
it, I would
Though
a
as
to
that we
that
it
be
hailed
gest
landmark,
ought
indicating
corner.
some sort of cultural
Americans
rounded
have smoothly
our apart
to christen
it has been more
Heretofore
customary
Anew
to a recent
of England,
after the landed estates or the rural counties
as if by verbal
tran
to compensate
for the rootless
association
name
A
sience of metropolitan
few years
of
ago the
living.
as household
a
have
notions
of
would
up
Picasso,
god,
conjured
a
structure
and
Bohemian
ambience.
jerrybuilt
Prospective
ments
in their perennial
and security, would
quest for comfort
tenants,
rooms
have been put off by a vision
of collapsible
stairways,
or
without
with dou
kitchenettes,
floors, trapezoidal
neighbors
in
But
the
ble faces and blue-green
meanwhile
complexions.
has brought
wealth
and unquestioned
untold
signature
now
a
warrant
to
its
it
and
becomes
of domestic
prestige
signer,
no
an
can
ever be
If this is not
arrival,
respectability.
painter
the
said
to have
arrived.
of a restless
phase
been points
We must
But
career,
At
where?
where
the
latest
arrivals
and
strangest
have
always
of departure.
admit that our eponymous
hero has met with more
the
of
recognitions,
notably
appropriate
gathering
retrospective
on
in
Picasso's
cities
the
several
of
exhibited
occasion
his
works,
previous
609
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Review
The Massachusetts
not only
That was
indeed a retrospect:
birthday.
seventy-fifth
a single man could fill a museum,
wherewith
of the productivity
such varied
him to master
that enabled
but of the versatility
numerous
from
follow
his progression
media.
To
to period?from
and
and period
drawing
paint
or from romanticism
and ceramics,
and impres
ing to sculpture
to cubism and primitivism?was
to recapitulate
the his
sionism
and
styles
room
to room
the labels of the catalogue
the dynamic
loomed
tory of art. Above
a
not
the
of
in
but a
school
himself
artist,
personality
merely
own
to
of schools,
succession
work
whole
his
outrival
seeking
at every subsequent
as the work of so many
stage as well
artists.
If there was any text he was born to illustrate,
Ovid's Metamorphoses.
The
eye that could
conceiving
broken
toy
the shaping hand that could
an archaic
of love,
goddess
transform
such
are
it was
a
turn
ape or a sacrificial goat,
a terra-cotta
into
pitcher
into a monstrous
mechanical
earlier
the
faculties
that Marcel
Proust must have had inmind when he described the impact of
as "une metamorphose
des
of Proust's,
had described
great painters
favorite writer
choses.yy Emerson,
the poetic process
a
as
of things."
who will be eighty next year,
is unique
in his
not
art
in
his
In
but
artistic
eminence.
the
sister
of music,
field,
we think at once of the protean
achievement
of Igor Stravinsky,
his junior by one year. There,
for technical
with due allowance
we
seem
a
some be
to
note
similar
which
differences,
tendency,
"a metamorphosis
Pablo Picasso,
wildered
cataloguers might have labelled Ultraism. This
is the
to change,
in other words,
that
that metamorphic
impetus,
con
that
must
which
systematic
deformation,
reshaping
spirit
its material
and outdistance
itself in a dazz
transpose
tinually
newer
manners.
newest
of
and
Picasso was asked
ling sequence
will
his classical
person who admired
by a conventional
illustrations,
"Since you can draw so beautifully,
why do you spend your time
those queer
answered
"That's
things?" He
making
succinctly,
have
with
countered
another
why." He might
question:
why
retrace familiar lines? Similarly Stravinsky might have replied,
to hearers
past mastery
aware
that his departures
craft: why go
of his
were
on
firmly
repeating
upon
grounded
the recognized
610
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was Modernism?
What
are other
There
chords?
the
discordant
sound
is he who
composer
discovery.
Since more
more
possible
first time
must
and more
have
try them,
combinations
have
possibilities
been
become
they may
though
them. The
original
in the interests
of further
modalities,
you hear
have
been
tried, more
the problems
and
exhausted,
and harder.
harder
and
of
The
experimentation
public,
to
harmonies
of course,
the accustomed
is shocked;
it prefers
unrec
the neoteric
and
it
finds
cubist
experiments,
projections
the development
of the arts is registered
However,
ognizable.
a series of shocks to the public?which,
after all, in
or
cars
obso
the
of
accepts
clothes,
buying
planned
principle
"the
for a
lescence. At its own pace, it too is animated
need
by
through
as has been
out by James John
refreshment,"
pointed
son Sweeney,
the Director
Museum
who
of the Guggenheim
has done so much
to supply
that need. The
shift of taste fits in
with a dialectical
of revolution
and alternating
pattern
reaction,
constant
as the breaking
to the making
of outmoded
images gives way
the successful
of fresh ones. Hence
iconoclast
ends
frequently
as an image-maker.
career has been
T. S. Eliot,
Witness
whose
a literary
or Picasso's.
to Stravinsky's
Since his con
parallel
as a Brit
to the Anglican
Church
and his naturalization
ish subject, we have come to view him as a living
embodiment
as an experimentalist,
of tradition. Yet he emerged
whose
prob
lematic endeavors
his early readers.
startled and puzzled
version
This
the usual
with
transition
from
corresponds
to the elder states
the enfant
is naturally
terrible, who
radical,
is normally
conservative.
But it does not explain why
man, who
as Bernard
such grand old men
Shaw and Andre
several
Gide,
seem
so
so
their
still
after
alive
and
years
deaths,
respective
much
realignment
younger
patricidal
Mr.
Eliot
than
their
survivors.
launched
attacks,
in particular,
against
It does
Modernism
not
account
for
the
in general
and
men
such as
angry middle-aged
whose
cry is In Defence
Shapiro,
of Ignorance.
rallying
It throws no light on the charlatanical
to
fame that has accrued
Picasso's
Salvador
for
back
younger
compatriot,
Dali,
turning
his limp and dripping
watches.
Yet one of the spokesmen
for a
by
Karl
611
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The Massachusetts
Review
Peter Viereck,
throws out a meaningful
resurgent
conservatism,
the In
when
he
"the
of
revolt
hint,
speaks
against revolt." And
the mid
stitute of Modern
has officially marked
Art at Boston
its name to the Institute
of Con
by changing
we
are
that we
all
about
temporary
Now,
contemporaries;
no
as
we
so
we
have
choose
may
stay alive. But
option,
long
or not we wish
to be modern,
whether
drift
and the present
transition
century
Art.
seems
to be
hazards
"An
the
toward
are
called
and
is the peculiar
So Matthew
deliverance
intellectual
ages which
choice
negative
involvement.
of controversial
modern."
away
demand
of
Arnold
had
clared in his inaugural lecture "On the Modern
But
Literature."
in
1857?the
dragging
though
that
year
that
was
lecture
French
inaugurated
the
those
de
in
Element
delivered
B ovary and Les
both Madame
from
at Oxford
modernism
Fleurs
by
du Mai
was not much more
the lawcourts?it
than another
of
through
recourse
to
for
his
which
Arnold's
classicism.
criteria,
By
pleas
were
could
and Lucretius
those of high civilization,
Sophocles
be ranked
the moderns.
It remained
for the late Edwin
among
to work out the implications
of this relativistic
conception,
and to such nineteenth-cen
it also to the Renaissance
applying
as Nietzsche.
Muir's
tury prophets
sharply pointed
paragraphs
as We Moderns
in The New Age,
under a pseudonym
collected
Muir
two years
in 1918, were
in the United
States
later
republished
a polemical
L.
introduction
H.
Mencken.
by
Modernity,
mean
the very
does not necessarily
latest thing;
they argued,
rather it is a program
"a principle
of cultural
of
emancipation,
can only be maintained
life itself" which
strug
by "constantly
with
gling." The
struggle
aries as Chesterton
long-range
the challenge
conflict
back
trasting
earlier
and
such
derivatives
would
meet
those
from
the Post-Modern
we
may
the Restoration
strength
with
feel
later
such reaction
against
as Galsworthy.
The
forces which,
recognizing
in every sphere.
it as heresy
whom
but
categorized?by
of modernism,
damn
has been
live in what
we
Today
Arnold
Toynbee??as
the Moderns,
toward
looked
was
of the moment
Period.
back
Looking
as Dryden
did when
he
to the Elizabethans,
con
refinement.
"Theirs
was
612
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the
What was Modernism?
... The
was not
race before
Second Temple
the Flood.
giant
ourselves
console
like the First."
by reflecting,
But, we may
a time
there are times of change and times that seek stability;
for exploring
and
innovating
and
well
may
We
into a time
lead
well
may
consolidating.
can
we
so
in
that
fortunate,
enjoy
effortlessly
cured by the pangs of our forerunners.
Lacking
their convictions,
much
in our arts and letters
similating
on a large scale and at a popular
and diffuses,
of their experimentalism.
F. Scott Fitzgerald,
some
to
catch
that finally
of the glamour
aged
as a hero
been
himself
sentimentalized
his own
Compare
and drama.
great and flamboyant
Fifties?the
decent,
judicious,
By Love
Cozzens'
Gould
James
ure how
Gatsby,
far we
have
advanced
hero
reckless
with
of
a typical
respectable
Possessed?and
count
for as
ourselves
those
gains
the
courage
se
of
exploits
simply
the results
level,
because he man
has
him,
caught
fiction,
biography,
the
of the Twenties,
the
of
protagonist
Arthur Winner
into the middle
in
you can meas
age of the Twen
tieth Century.
a militant
Compare
Steinbeck's
novel
of
a penitent
the
Journeyy
of
nel mezzo
del cammin.
Grapes
of Wrath?with
Middle
Lionel
Trilling's
Forties,
locate the turn
came
that
II was the Flood;
us
the Thirties?let
but the Temple
novel
say John
of the
and you can
War
World
had been crumbling and the
race disappearing
through what W. H. Auden,
retrospec
too
rather
and
low
called
"a
dishonest
decade."
tively
severely,
Some
of the talents were
sacrificed:
Guillaume
prematurely
Lorca.
Garcia
Others
honor
survived
without
in
Apollinaire,
as Ezra Pound
their own countries,
and Boris Pasternak
did for
giant
such different
reasons.
Many
of their
amiable
juniors
were
led
astray by those "enemies of promise" which Cyril Conolly de
murred at but did little to resist. The query "Who killed Dy
lan Thomas?"
has
prompted
some maudlin
fact about
much
accusations.
The
posthumously,
uine promise.
it published
James Agee's
writing,
is his uneasiness
about not living up to his gen
so movingly
The gifted
who writes
J. P. Salinger,
of adolescent
are
colleges
has yet to free himself
confusions,
full of writers
in residence,
who
poignant
of
from
them. Our
offer
courses
613
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in
Review
The Massachusetts
"creative"
and publish
embittered
writing,
the
non-coincidental
interest
is
of
novels
whose
prin
be
cipal
tween
source
Joyce's
his life
and censored
during
books, which were burned
a happy hunting
candi
for
doctoral
have become
ground
resemblance
and their characters.
colleagues
our
not be glorious,
Miltons
may
they are both
Though
a
where
has become
and pampered.
vocal
caucus-race,
Poetry
there are vir
and where
there are prizes for all the participants
to make
no
that
"died
The
little
spectators.
magazines
tually
on the
verse free," as people used to say, have been resurrected
forms.
in the stricter Provencal
campuses, where
they specialize
time,
their
dates; while
subject
termittent
disciple, Samuel Beckett,
his dishevelled
of an article
in a current
issue of PMLA.
One
is the
in
of my
Wolfe's
is based on two tons of Thomas
nightmares
now
in a vault of the Houghton
Library,
reposing
manuscripts
scholars will
that future
and the thought
by
gain reputations
cut out. It is significant
Law
that
what
the
editors
back
putting
one of the very few ambitious
rence Durrell's
novels
tetralogy,
to appear
decadent
nounced
in Britain
in the self-consciously
place
an
as
Mann
Thomas
"Art,"
criti
"is becoming
in D ok tor Faustus,
latterly,
of Alexandria.
city
and illustrated
In the same vein
takes
who
turned from
Crowe Ransom,
that litera
announced
years
ago,
poet
thirty
lately
into an age of
ture has been moving
from an age of creation
criticism.
on his retirement
from his influ
Mr.
interviewed
Ransom,
cism."
John
to critic some
ential
chair
the happier
thoughtful
renewed
as teacher
stressed
and editor at Kenyon
College,
the
for
situation:
the
of
necessity
aspects
prevailing
the
for
self-cultivation
and
rereading,
opportunities
instance
classics. An
of the existent
understanding
more
now
far
dominant
the
revival
of
be
James,
Henry
might
are valid
in his day. These
and absorbing
than he ever was
an academic myself
to deplore
and I am too ingrained
pursuits,
Then
be conceded,
the amenities
of the Academy.
too, it must
to living
are positive
in an epoch which
tech
advantages
so that our ac
esthetic
has
with
enriched
nology
appliances,
the fine arts is vastly augmented
with music
and with
quaintance
there
614
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What was Modernism?
But
and photographic
records
reproductions.
by long-playing
consumers
we are mainly
not production;
this is reproduction,
are readers
and
of reprints
than producers
rather
of art. We
connoisseurs
tue of
even as we are gourmets
by vir
Fidelity,
our wide
account
and the credit card. For
of High
the
expense
of culture
diffusion
to the standardizations
is geared
is peculiarly
susceptible
of our practitioners,
independence
cated by institutions
of learning,
and
omy,
to
when
of our econ
trends. The
inflationary
are
domesti
not
they
is compromised
art a business.
that make
more
insidi
ously by the circumstances
and the established,
The Just and the Un
The
prosperous
as opposed
mirror
Mr.
find
their
in
the
novels
of
justy
Cozzens,
to that concern for the underprivileged
which
used to
novelists
more
than misunderstood,
understanding
profess. Genius,
success in the shrewd fiction of C. P. Snow,
to worldly
rises
where
for "the new men"
the means
provide
we hear of
of power."
From England
men
are
at
who
the various
conformi
young
angry, presumably
sum
an
in
their
ties which
of
Establishment.
up
they
conception
our so-called
It is not quite so clear what
is beating
"beat gen
seem
to
a
be
rebels
without
cause, born too late
eration";
they
and
science
to enter
"the
in a world
a document
scholarships
corridors
too old.
which
in On
Jack Kerouac,
fills some of us with
must
somehow
experience
for all their violent whims,
good a time as Hemingway's
have
passed
do not seem
the Road}
has produced
the wistful
that
feeling
us by. Yet
his friends,
so
to be having
nearly
Sun Also Rises.
in The
playboys
a per
with
San Francisco,
for whatever
or may
sonal impression
not be worth,
looks very much
may
across
like Greenwich
the continent
Village
transported
long
after its heyday.
It exemplifies
the cultural
lag rather than the
The
school
associated
advance-guard.
As
it happens,
I have
been
somewhat
associated
with
the pub
lishing firm known as New Directions, which was founded in
the late Nineteen-Thirties
by my college friend, James Laugh
lin.
In spite of its vanguard
title, it has been primarily
engaged
a
in fighting
on its
action.
The
innovators
rear-guard
leading
list have been Ezra Pound andWilliam
Carlos Williams,
both
615
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The Massachusetts
are advanced
a reference
of whom
day
Review
septuagenarians
to the annual
I noticed
The
nowadays.
New
other
Direc
miscellany,
as "the
for off
tions, which was characterized
place
accepted
in terms,
is an interesting
contradiction
beat publication."
Here
a deeper
in our standards. Whether
which
contradiction
reveals
it expresses
conformist's
the nonconformist's
yearning
or the
for conformity
one
with
hand
it gives
urge toward nonconformity,
of
It weighs
the notion
the other.
it takes away with
so
charac
is
the
which
"off-beat,"
acceptance
against
compound,
what
noun "beat"
ac
an expression
The
of the mid-century.
as
an
the terminology
of jazz;
cords with
par
ungrammatical
same
sado-masochistic
carries
the
word
certain
overtones,
ticiple,
teristic
Rounded
off by a Slavic
e.g. "beat-up."
or contemptuous,
affectionate
be either
diminutive,
and which
which
must
may
have
been reinforced by the Sputnik, it has become an epithet for the
of being flagrantly
"beatnik."
unfashionable,
seems
to derive
from
connotation
its underlying
However,
has gone
in uniform
is off his beat, the man
who
the cop who
it subserves
into unfamiliar
off duty and strayed
territory. Thus
a
so
the
of
denizens
of
the ambivalent
curiosity
well-grooved
fashion
ciety about whatever
sents an ineffectual
its currency
to those
cognate phrase,
the relationship
of uniformity,
encountered.
be
Broadway
in devious
its beaten paths.
It repre
lie beyond
owes
to vary the cliche, and probably
own beat is Madison
whose
A
Avenue.
may
effort
concrete
is more
"off-Broadway,"
between
that main
thoroughfare,
and
its bypaths,
to which
Hollywood
of Covent
trend.
reduces
accomplishment,
preneurial
man's pragmatic
philosophy
novelty
all but
may
perchance
on
superseded
to improvise
its theaters
basements.
Shaw's Pygmalion,
drama,
has had
Legitimate
comedy,
by musical
lofts and makeshift
version
in its Broadwayized
is the soaring
index of this
where
in specifying
the precinct
Like
Fair Lady,
My
bland
composites
it is an entre
ideas,
Garden,
those
imported
another
by-product
as stated by
Pope:
of
the middle
Be not the first by whom the new are tried,
Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.
616
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What was Modernism?
That
ment
tele
an advertise
when
is reversed
sentiment
paradoxically
its clien
salutes
for Esquire,
the haberdashery
magazine,
as "the aware moderns
are
to
the
first
embrace a new
who
to becoming
fash
the popular
it upon
its way
speed
we Post-Moderns
ion." Well,
like to eat our cake and keep
it,
to take a chance on a sure thing. We
to call the
tipsters want
idea and
long shot while
hogging
the inside track, to take credit for
we congratu
Hence
risking unpopularity.
our
Chat
because
broadmindedness
upon
Lady
a
is now
after
of sup
best-seller
thirty years
without
originality
late ourselves
terley's
Lover
pression.
nature's
round number
for the span
years constitute
Thirty
a kind
from
and
of
through
maturity,
infancy
consequently
basic rhythm
for reckoning
the progresses
and regressions
of
mankind.
is
the
about
between
years
Thirty
just
age-difference
a
and an academician:
the case history
consider
of Jean
playboy
as
Cocteau. What
is generally
the
Irish
Renascence
regarded
in 1892 with Yeats's
Countess
and terminated
Cathleen
began
in 1922 with
Broader
movements,
Joyce's Ulysses.
are
in
their periodicity.
another,
comparable
start with Wordsworth's
of 1800, we
manifesto
one
the
continental
of Romanticism
triumph
the end of another
cycle,
before
Shortly
countertendencies
toward
dates
succeeding
if we
Thus,
observe
from
that
1830.
to the
this gives way
and Naturalism;
Positivism,
Realism,
to the Nineties,
from the Sixties
the
when we move
whereas,
are Symbolism,
latest watchwords
and Decadence.
Estheticism,
It will be seen that a revolutionary
tends to be suc
generation
ceeded by a reactionary
and more
one; to put it less politically
seems
a
to
there
be
oscillation
between
psychologically,
cyclic
tough and tender minds. That would help to explain the phe
nomenon
were
of the hard-boiled
from
the softness
as it
Nineteen-Twenties,
recoiling
of the fin du siecle. It might
also set the
acknowledged weaknesses
spective.
But nostalgia
ness
any
in which
purpose
of the Fifties
into clarifying per
for the vigorous
is a weak
youth of our century
need not indulge ourselves;
nor would
it serve
to draw
invidious
our
between
im
comparisons
we
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The Massachusetts
Review
and our elders.
The
is
life
contemporaries
average
to
two
we
at
and
in
live
the
least
span
privileged
generations,
as they were
of the Moderns.
Insofar
ahead of their
afterglow
to them. Furthermore,
time, we can even claim to be nearer
each generation
has three decades,
to gather
in which
either
mediate
momentum
a
after
start,
wavering
or else
to subside
from
a
powerful beginning. Accordingly, the manic Twenties declined
into the depressive Thirties, which yielded in turn to the war
Forties.
interrupted
seems to have begun
the Sixties
expecting
ward
the
countermovement
the
of
Fifties
we may
in
take comfort
unpromisingly,
to proceed
on a
to
looking
rising plane,
watershed
in the Nineteen-Eighties.
There
next
the
If
us pause,
Orwell's
and we
shift
George
object-lesson
gives
a
a
with
set of vari
relief to
backward
and
less complex
glance
can examine
ables. We
the material
chart the framing
factors,
ac
curves
and
the
of artistic
conditions,
project
hypothetical
tivity.
we
Yet
sensibilities,
have
in their most
respond.
The
best we
have
occurred
no means
of predicting
how
human
the
individualized manifestations,
can do is to recognize
a special resonance.
when
with
But
those
that
will
responses
cannot
point
let me particularize
by generalizations;
instead,
names
of titles and
and dates. Among
the latter,
of the publica
192*2 stands out as the year of Proust's
death,
tion of his central volume,
et Gomorrhe,
Sodome
and the first
of
his
work
in
had like
letters
appearance
England.
English
be established
with a handful
wise to absorb the twofold
Land.
And
Lawrence
Room,
if this was
offered
and Katherine
enough
Aaronys Rod,
The
Mansfield
them
of poetry faced not merely
Late
Last
shock of Ulysses
not
and Earlier,
Lyrics
Poems?it
sounded
for
and The Waste
the
D.
reviewers,
Virginia Woolf
Garden
Party.
H.
Jacobys
Readers
the Georgian anthology but Hardy's
Yeats's
rather
Later
Poems,
but
autumnal,
and Housman's
the harvest
grew
was more
Books and Characters
reaping. Lytton
Strachey's
de Vepoque,
while Max
Beerbohm's
Rossetti
and his
narrowly
Circle was an antiquarian
curio. Among
the highlights
of the
were
season
in France
Les
Caves
du Vatican
Gide
and
by
with
618
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What was Modernism?
of verse.
collection
Charmesy
Valery's
Brecht's
first play, Baaly and Die Sonette
were
Maria
Rilke.
Americans
reading
and being
Though
scandalized
saw Bertolt
Germany
an Orpheus
by Rainer
Babbitt
Sinclair Lewis'
O'Neill's
by Eugene
Christie.
Anna
I have been highly selective, the list is sufficient to
justify an annus mirabilis?or
ers
Let
brilliant.
comparably
would
us
be,
therefore
if there were
not
another
sample
oth
year,
jumping arbitrarily to 1924, when Franz Kafka died, scarcely
known, since his novels would only be published during the
next
event for the critics was Thomas
greatest
Der
The
masterwork,
noisiest,
Zauberberg.
perhaps,
was the Surrealist
to be something
which
of
Manifesto,
proved
an
but Valery
it with
counterbalanced
his first col
anticlimax;
three
years. The
Mann's
lection
of critical
Anderson's
prose,
Variete.
autobiography,
salient volume
America
witnessed
A
Sherwood
Marianne
Story-Tellers
Story,
of poetic Observations,
and William
Faulkner's
first book, also in verse, The Marble
In Brit
Faun.
more
Moore
waxed
than ever with
reminiscent
ain, George
Conversations
in Ebury
T. E. Hulme's
Street;
posthumous
Moore's
Speculations
were
to have
continuing
influence
on criticism
and
poetry; each of the three Sitwells contributed to the ebullition
by bringing out a book; and Bernard Shaw was inspired to
touch
his heights
Forster's
by the theme of Saint Joan. E. M.
to
an
omen
as
India
as
a
have
been
well
may
Passage
milestone;
for it was his most
to date, and it is the last that
novel
important
Mr. Forster
has given us.
can
Everyone
multiply
while
students of Russian
for himself
these modern
instances;
or Spanish
can point to addi
literature
tional flowerings
which were
or
either
in
transplanted
nipped
as Joyce foresaw,
the bud. Futurism,
had no future; Marinetti
fell in line behind Mussolini;
andHitler was to proscribe Mod
as
art or Kulturbolschewismus.
degenerate
to underline
need
or constraints
the pressures
so
entre deux guerres,
to Mr.
epoch
poignantly,
we
1918-1939.
Nor
could
blame
week-end,"
ernism
confronted with the task of continuing to write,
hard
to forgive
such
knowledge.
Yet
at
We
that
hardly
limited
the
Forster's
"long
the generation
if they found it
this distance
we
619
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can
The Massachusetts
with
perceive,
ment
comprises
Review
that
increasing
clarity,
one of the most
genius in the history of theWest.
are
still
among us, before
ask ourselves
why
should
they
they
technic distinction. What,
each
common,
vergent medium,
the elementary
or
more
less;
decade
eighth
of
them
if anything,
we
extinguished,
with
such
pyro
such figures
have
in
a di
to idiosyncracy,
vowed
practising
in a disparate
Above
all,
background?
to
that they happen
circumstance
be coeval,
have been,
that they are all, or would
in their
if we are not to beg
what,
was there
What
shared?
they
But
they breathed that differed
successors
their
burned
some of its lights
formed
today.
the Zeitgeist
tion, was
all been
have
of
constellations
And while
have
move
the modernistic
remarkable
from the intellectual
the ques
in the air
climate of
or
predecessors?
of them grew up in the late Nineteenth
and ma
Century
in
their
tured in the early Twentieth,
the pe
reaching
prime
or
was not so well
riod between
the wars. The Nineteenth
All
as
ganized
nor
so
as the
speculative
the
Renaissance.
magniloquent
a
of middle-class
it permitted
liberalism,
the Eighteenth,
nor so richly
deeply
as
Seventeenth,
as the apogee
But,
maximum
for the emergence
of individuality;
it ed
of leeway
art and fostered
it collected
individuals
ucated
thoroughly;
tem
it cultivated
human
it developed
science;
relationships;
were
the
and
Into
its
talent.
world
Modernists
perament
born,
and yet they were not quite shaped by it. To
it they often hark
earlier,
acute
which
for
sensibility
they have reserved
of
Had
adolescence.
born
been
any
they
impressions
have felt?with
Adams?that
they might
Henry
they
back, with
their own
that
had missed a still earlier boat. Had
they might
have
poured
their
they been Mid-Victorians,
creative
into causes
energies
that
they now could take for granted. If they had reached maturity
in the Nineties,
their views
would
have
inevitably
been
colored
by the outlook of the Decadents.
But they took the fin du
in youthful
for them,
stride;
of one century as it was the beginning
it was
siecle
One
not
so much
the end
of another.
of the determining
characteristics
of modern
man,
the
he
role
influences
plays and relates him to pre-existing
which
phe
620
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What was Modernism?
is his
nomena,
of the Twentieth
We
of chronology.
never experienced
Century
casual
it. Our
welcoming
insensitive
habit
to the West's
now
was
nium
awareness
first
in sight.
The
"Years
Such
form'd!"
"No
would
limits
children
of
at
inhaled
had been a disillusioning
of the unper
a performance
to
prologue
as he chanted,
because,
keenly
the modern!
had been Whitman's
be happening;
are
excitement
that Wordsworth
bliss
he anticipated
all the more
one knows what will
happen
which
the
of
the
us
centuries makes
of predating
that its second millen
realization
the dawning of the French Revolution
adumbration.
who
years
next."
and those whose
At
all
events,
things
existence falls within
cross
those who
envy
names
to inscribe their
of a single
century may well
and have a chance
boundaries
temporal
on history's
have
it must
blank
pages. How
terribly much
an
stu
as
meant
to James
university
Joyce,
eighteen-year-old
on
them
to
set
and
dated
his
have
ambitions
down
paper
dent,
"
was the brave new world
that had been heralded
1900!" Here
came that very
whose
death
Ibsen, by Nietzsche
by his mentor
who had been
and
those
other
Proto-Moderns
year, by Tolstoy
breaking the images that had stood in itsway.
One of the assumptions aboutWorld War
settled
history.
Its sequel was
is now and in England."
the present
was
over;
entitled
aptly
S. Eliot
that "History
But the interval thought of itself in
from history. The
tense, separating modernity
past
the present was happily more
comfortable?though
as Miniver
less colorful,
and other
time
Cheevy
unhappily
snobs lamented.
heightened
tration on
to teach T.
I was that it had
by
the
Ernest
In Our
Hemingway's
and
Time,
its reminiscences
instant,
which
first
book
of
stories
was
was
its grasp
of immediacy
concen
of battle. His
intensive
to his
imparts a film-like
quality
fiction, is pinpointed in "The Snows of Kilimanjaro," when a
of a dying
polyglot series of synonyms runs through the mind
yy
. . Whatever
heute.
"Now,
ahora, maintenant,
is
the meaning
and that "nowness"
imminence;
language,
search
for
the
of
for what Whitman
newness,
precondition
writer:
termed
nouvelle
"the
unperform'd."
revue frangaise!
To
"The
the unperformed!
perform
Great
Vortex!"
English
the
is a
had
La
The
621
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The Massachusetts
Review
sense
of novelty,
of potentialities
up, does not
being
opened
to
is
the inherited
it
less
because
any
eager
juxtaposed
sense of the past and the pleasures
of retrospection.
Everyman,
in his more
is
his
of
conscious
moods,
overwhelming
thoughtful
seem
as heir
patrimony
the guise
to them takes
of all the ages; and his relation
of their
the masterpieces
stroll among
of an endless
museum.
invisible
was
not only
of the essence,
for the innumerable
poets,
in the dimension
who worked
Time
but
Bergson,
scientists
did Wyndham
Lewis
assail
the
for
the metaphysician
and
novelists,
painters,
he formulated.
Vainly
con
of his
time-consciousness
to the Ondt,
in Joyce's
the Gracehoper
retorted
temporaries.
was
Proust
The
of
can't
beat
lifework
time?"
you
fable, "Why
an
an
to
such
the attempt
of
attempt,
aging dilettante
precisely
As
its
lost time by recapturing
the past, repudiating
concerns
moments
and
its
highest
crystallizing
ephemeral
an appeal
to the timelessness
the
of art. Yeats
pursued
through
same objective
he pictured
himself
aban
when
symbolically,
make
for
up
the earthbound
doning
timeless
of nature
sphere
His
art-city,
Byzantium.
to remember
desired
forgotten
ness has the habitual
effect of
sail for the
and setting
had
Michael
Robartes,
poet,
The
of
belated
beauty.
feeling
the
stimulating
of sounding
consequence
along with
the stylistic
and playing
reverberations,
act of memory,
echoes, evoking
Pound
ad
pastiche.
a maxim
as
to "make
it new," he was repeating
vised disciples
aware of the irony; for his stud
and was well
old as Confucius,
into the processes
had won him insights
ies in the Renaissance
of
cultural
renewal,
and
with
shown
When
him
how
renovation
could
be
innovation.
I have
What
seems
to have
lated
and
resulted
up-to-date
transformations
mental
to
call the metamorphic
impetus
state of feeling
this paradoxical
be
and
of
simultaneously,
working
experi
ventured
from
into
traditional
continuities.
But
there
as well
as
of Modernism,
geographical
preconditions
and
have
another
Eliot
and
Picasso,
Stravinsky
Joyce
too common
the uncommon
in common?alas,
among
are other
historical.
trait
artists of our time. How
few of them have lived out their
622
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was Modernism?
What
is a
origin! To be sure, migration
abroad has been a classic step in
force, and sojourn
civilizing
we have
to
had
vitae. Unfortunately
curriculum
the artistic
careers
in the
lands
dint
through
the distinction
learn,
tions,
of
their
of wars,
between
and political
and exile.
revolutions,
expatriation
persecu
The
hy
phenated German-Jewish-Czech, Kafka, though he did not live
to share it, clairvoyantly sketched the plight of the Displaced
a Transatlantic
to become
who was destined
Mann,
had
situated
his
in
mountain
neutral
Switzerland.
nomad,
magic
in
his
the
International
Sanitorium
Teutonic
There,
Berghof,
a
an
to
Swiss
hero undergoes
successive
exposure
physician,
and a Russian
Italian poet, a Polish
businessman,
priest, a Dutch
an
mistress.
education
while
his
Then,
having
gained
regaining
Person.
health, he is lost in combat with the Allies.
The
"The
by continental
architects,
catchphrase
employed
be
to
International
extended
very
Style," might
appropriately
were
other works
them
of the Twenties.
of
in
Many
composed
of
the
between-the-wars
"The
Paris,
capital
cosmopolitanism.
School
of Paris"?a
painting?was
for unacademic
topographical
designation
over
our
by
presided
expatriate
Spaniard,
now has his monument
in New York. Paris was the
Picasso, who
inevitable
headquarters
for
and
who
choreographers
a famous generation
where
those
Russian
dancers,
designers,
ballets.
It was
created
Stravinsky's
of Americans
got
temporarily
lost,
under the Sybilline tutelage of Gertrude Stein. Meanwhile,
an apartment
was carefully
the Etoile,
the self-exiled
Irishman
Joyce
most
the
minute
and comprehensive
elaborating
that any city has ever received
from
literature?his
of his native Dublin.
is
of
its
in en
Ulysses
time,
account
account
deavoring
chronicles.
set forth
quence
in
near
to arrest
the eighteen
hours
of
it exhaustively
had
especially
Balzac,
time
Nineteenth-century
novelists,
the complexities
of the metropolis,
a se
but through
of loosely
connected
or less conven
novels where more
tional narrative was filled in with sharply detailed observation.
Joyce's
unexampled
experimental
design,
contribution
which
was
controlled
as they fell into place.
a
yet rigorously
gigantic
the accumulating
details
623
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The Massachusetts
It is the metamorphic
device:
the
impetus that provides this controlling
of Dublin
transmutation
out of the Odyssey.
archetypes
came
left it, the environment
the personages.
was
That
Review
not
In the novel,
into mythical
as Naturalism
had
dangerously
the fault of
close to swamping
the Naturalists,
but
citizens
of the situations with which they dealt. The dehumanization of
art, if I may build upon a useful phrase from Ortega y Gasset,
mirrors
the
dehumanization
even
of life. Joyce,
by
was
to mock-apotheosis,
to
resorting
to re
and
metamorphosis
trying
his characters;
humanize
and he succeeded
in giving
them con
not
stature.
if
Dos
novelists
like
Passos
tour,
Journalistic
John
a
or
and Jean-Paul
Sartre,
seeking
panoramic
kaleidoscopic
to the urban
imitated
structural
scene, have
Joyce's
to which
the French
Unanimistes
the problem,
the German
of the Gesamtkunstwerk
have also
proponents
approach
methods.
and
But
addressed
of
structure.
connection
matter
else within?the
goes beyond?or
themselves,
an
must
If the object
is unity,
that
bear
organic
to the multiplicity;
its collective
be
pattern must
revealed and confirmed through individual lives;
view
must
interaction
of social
be combined
with
its outward
an
inner
focus
on psychological
motivation.
the old-fashioned
Hence
fictional
type of rounded
character,
seems
to
the
and
dissolve
reader,
standing
in the stream of consciousness,
which
and
directly
transparently
a flow of impression
and sensation
from the external
conveys
the novelist
not utilize
world.
need
the
internal
Though
to
he
the
voice
and
the
monologue,
increasingly
approximates
the narrator
between
of
viewpoint
his
intimacy
ensuing
of his own autobiography,
the artist. The
intensity
the
where
point
else.
everything
writing
a novel,
The
of the
very
completeness
to fall back upon the raw materials
them into self-portraiture
of
refining
protagonist.
forces him
he
of Proust's
disclosed
an
Gide,
by writing
Les Faux-monnayeurs,
introspection
abyss between
his
novel
him to
pushed
the moi
and
about
including
a novelist
his novelist's
journal, and then publishing the journal he kept while writing
that
novel,
Le
that first-person
Journal
narrative
des
may
Faux-monnayeurs,
a double
become
demonstrated
mirror
reflect
624
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What was Modernism?
was spurred
to such
ing infinity. Fiction
ness by the revelations
of psychoanalysis:
for unconscious
terns.
It may
of self-conscious
the Freudian
probing
for
universal
search
the
pat
motives,
Jungian
to argue
nature
that human
be an exaggeration
changed in 1910, but Virginia Woolf
though
feats
probably
unaware
that
was bold enough to do so,
the International
Psychoanalyti
cal Association had been founded in that year.
was a measured
overstatement,
argument
new
in defending
the
novelists
against
Georgian
ians as Arnold
Mrs. Woolf
knew
that
Bennett.
That
just
as much
about
as the
assertion
that
put forward
such Edward
have
it would
sunsets
have
validity
to paint
and the Impressionists
undertook
sense
had
in the
characterization
that
too were being visualized
the eyes
that people
through
changed,
was
of other people,
and that another metamorphosis
thereby
author of Orlando
that permu
understood
being effected. The
a circumscribing
so subtle
tations
and subjective
have
might
since Monet
changed
It was
them.
true,
effect
either
and
with
Here
on
the novel.
Most
the recesses
upon
the Twenties
flexible
of
the
self
it readily
of genres,
or the expanses
of
focuses
society;
at once,
sometimes
extremes,
constructs.
their mental
and their monumental
analyses
is where Ultraism
its ne plus ultra.
have attained
may
took
it to both
Joyce himself could go no farther than Finnegans Wake;
others
could
that
and
later
novelists
have
few
understand
get
far;
no attempt
to press beyond Ulysses.
has stirred
This
ably made
some critics to announce
an
or dying
is
that the novel
obsolete
form. One cannot deny that it seems to be regressing
toward the
at best
of documentary
realism, where
or
from
reportage
tinguishable
good journalism.
plane
But fiction is doomed
that
it may
be
indis
to failure in its competition with fact.
is fantasy?that
is to
which
confers
say,
power
projective
imagination,
on the stuff of our
value and significance
everyday
apprehension
it. Thus
and transmuting
the apparent
sordid
by rearranging
ness and purposelessness
of our day with Leopold
in
Bloom
are transmuted
reenactment
into a symbolic
Dublin
of Homer's
seem
of those
cross-references
Some
and
epic.
far-fetched,
What
it possesses
the
non-fiction
of
lacks
the
625
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The Massachusetts
others
for us data
they interpret
ironic; yet, as a whole,
use
otherwise
be meaningless.
of myth
Joyce's
a
than that, wrote
past
key to the present. More
which
grimly
would
makes
the
T.
in his review
S. Eliot
scientific
that
discovery."
which
Land,
least heroic
of Ulysses,
writers
"It
Future
it, as he predicted;
Waste
Review
has
would
the
importance
take advantage
of a
of
and even then he had just finished his
in flashbacks
abounded
and most
and
of
In
parallels.
he exorcized
epics,
fragmentary
the blight of contemporaneous
London
it the
by tracing through
a
a
outline
of
Grail. A timeless
quest for the Holy
ritual,
timely
the
I.
A.
that
it
Richards
commented
critique,
completed
severance
and belief.
between
poetry
to be a station on Mr.
Eliot's
proved
It is not
in the
long run, it
toward
faith.
pilgrimage
that Modernism,
the product
of cities,
to recreate
the image of cities. One of the
surprising
be so impelled
should
But,
in this respect, is Charlie Chaplin, who
greatest Modernists,
has so brilliantly rendered the metropolis in all its frustrations
For T.
London
is "unreal";
S. Eliot,
but
incongruities.
or
its apparition
is that of Vienna,
Alex
Athens,
Jerusalem,
vision
when
he
and his elegiac
becomes
andria;
prophetic
was
Towers."
The
prophecy
apocalyptically
imagines
"falling
and
fulfilled by the bombings of the next war, which Mr. Eliot?
combining
reminiscence
his
own
as
observation
from Dante's
Inferno?has
the last of his Four Quartets. That
musical
analogy,
finding
air-raid
with
a
invoked
in
warden
powerfully
he should proceed by
in the austere
inspiration
the later Beethoven,
is still
his
but
im
of
another
string quartets
posing
Poets'
and
novelists'
trait of his generation.
poets
novelists,
and musicians'
pro
musicians,
they were
painters
painters'
in their own particular
versed
crafts, and so whole
foundly
heartedly
transfer
to
devoted
it from
one
from Wagner,
who
techniques
to be induced by music
thesia,
Poetry
to
they attempted
thematic
borrowed
at a synes
had aimed
that
craftsmanship
art to another. Writers
himself
in conjunction
other arts.
with
and music, when Wallace
Stevens
Man
with a Blue Guitar.
encompassed
painting
ter Picasso?his
presented?af
that a man of letters
The
thought
should
consider
himself
626
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a
was Modernism?
What
of the fine arts, or that he should be designated
pro
as an artist,
is a legacy
from Flaubert's
generation
practitioner
fessionally
is not likely to outlast Joyce's by long. The
which
cult of in
as if it
as devoutly
both men practised
artistry, which
transigent
were
is embodied
in and elucidated
their religious
by
vocation,
as a Young Man,
the
Artist
the latter's Portrait
the
where
of
and
is Daedalus,
the fabulous Greek
artificer,
archetypal
figure
the epigraph
is a line about him from Ovid's Metamorphoses:
"Et
animum
ignotas
was
in artes.yy Joyce
dimittit
invit
clearly
ing the application to himself: "And so he turned his mind
arts." Paul
unknown
the
Valery
of the
artist-engineer
in two essays upon
homage
He made
his own apologia
(M. Tete, Mr. Head),
the unabashed
discerned
in
prototype
his
and
Renaissance,
paid
the method
of Leonardo
da Vinci.
Italian
through
whose
admission:
"La
the personage
of M.
Teste
cerebral soliloquies begin with
betise
nyest
pas mon
fort.yy Stu
pidity has decidedly not been the forte of theModernists;
have
now write
let
in defence
of
the most
them make
to suffer
in refusing
firm,
to their Post-Modern
that virtue
left
to
a historical
attackers,
seems
Teste
If M.
ignorance.
of that last infirmity.
fools,
as they are weak
they
can
who
arrogant,
was
just as
to
in appealing
He
philistines.
recent literature
itself upon its outspokenness,
prides
Though
it is almost
there remains one organ of the body which
taboo to
a
seem
is
the
brain.
What
and
that
may
sin, on the
mention,
were
is
that
of
the
with
the
Moderns,
part
they
preoccupied
of their
minds
is worse?that
and?what
they make
the minds
cannot
of their readers. This
an
era
are
whose
be lightly
culture-heroes
per
by
forgiven
the
mindless?whether
be
goons of
they
sistently
good-hearted
or the
the
slobs
of
Tennessee
John Steinbeck,
epicene
Williams,
serious
characters,
demands
upon
analphabetic gladiators of the laterHemingway. But popularity
was excluded, by definition, from the aims of the writers I have
been discussing; their names did not figure upon the best-seller
list
of
their
day;
many
others
did,
which
The aura of obscurity or unintelligibility
sionally
tinge
these
intellectuals,
are now
forgotten.
which may still occa
in some degree,
emanates
from
627
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their
refusal
Review
to advertise
or
themselves
indeed
intellectuality. Like
promising
or the class of Mandarins
a way
them, would
ultimate
quality,
is its uncom
marrow,
to the very
their work
pervades
to their
to talk down
in the hope of enlarging
it. That,
have been a treason of the clerks. Their
audience
which
The Massachusetts
for
the intelligentsia of old Russia
in China,
looked
they
upon
as
letters
of life.
their own dedica
this may have presupposed,
along with
no
The
which
be possible.
conditions
may
tion, other
longer
has
of
lowered
it, and
learning
extraordinary
higher
spread
But
introduced a large amount of dilution. The highbrows and the
have
lowbrows
intermarried,
what Virginia Woolf
of a tension
and
children
their
dreaded most?all
are?exactly
Instead
middlebrows.
the uncomprehending
and the
majority
and
citizens
if
between
sensible
you will,
saving remnant?or,
a
a
has
been
coteries?there
detente,
relaxation,
long-haired
for mutual
in
and a collaboration
the formerly
profit between
artist and the no longer hostile
Out
it
of
tractable
bourgeoisie.
between
a middlebrow
to be emerging
the moder
synthesis,
our
a subject
But
is
that
of
expression
mid-century.
better
of sociology
and
by professors
notoriously
appreciated
on
mass
communication
it
is
than
old-fashioned
experts
by
there
seems
ated
to imply that all of
critics. Nor do I wish
scholars or modernist
our talents,
to
and economic
pressure
technological
responding
mere
have
become
of
entertainment.
On
purveyors
attraction,
an
the contrary,
of them profess
of the
many
engagement
sincerest
kind
Modernists
did
to the
not
responsibilities
to make
have
common
of
The
welfare.
such
because
commitments,
Hence
by such urgencies.
they
they were not threatened
in single-minded
detachment.
strive for artistic perfection
Alfred North Whitehead
early Twentieth
Century
was
was
one
could
strongly convinced that the
of the greatest
epochs
in the
march of intellect. Though he was thinking basically of mathe
matics and physics, he held a lively belief in the interplay be
tween
the
sciences
and
the humanities.
that Wordsworth,
writing
opinion
in the opening
point, had expressed
He
from
year
concurred
with
the
the
vantage
opposite
of the Nineteenth
Cen
tury:
628
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What was Modernism?
the
labours
not only
ever
create
any material
in
the
condition,
impressions
will sleep then no more than at
the steps of the Man
of science,
at
he
be
but
will
his side,
effects,
of science
of Men
or
direct
indirect, in our
revolution,
which we habitually receive, the Poet
present; he will be ready to follow
If
should
and
in those general
indirect
sensation into the midst of the objects
carrying
such
Certainly
have struggled
comprehension
Wordsworth's
of the science
a material
has taken place;
the arts
revolution
to it; and we gain a fuller
to adapt themselves
him?in
if we
of the modern
envision
artist,
terms?at
the side of the
The
partner
and sharpened
en
has been
scientist.
his curiosity
has intensified
uneasy,
ship, however
his own
his preoccupation
with
He
technique.
to experiment,
in his roman
couraged
Zola did
itself.
not by blindly
as
hypotheses
as Valery
accepting
but rather
did
experimental,
to
he
from
the
had
learned
lessons
poetry
transferring
ars non stagnat.
or in taking for his motto
Successful
geometry,
as
error
and
trial
and
incidental
involves
waste,
experiment
in
scientists
know.
This
is a necessary
function
upon
performed,
the fringes of the arts, by that continued ferment of willed
whose
products we can usually
as
Snow has lately
Sir
Charles
cultures,"
too far apart. What
should
draw
them
But
dismiss.
eccentricity
reminded
"the
two
are
still
us,
more
together,
that conjointly
is the shared
else,
anything
recognition
cover an area which man has set aside for the free
play
than
they
of pains
taking intelligence.
Science no longer underprops
reassurances.
istic or positivistic
our world
view
with
rational
a modernist
It has undergone
seen
and
its
its
solid
of
subverted
own,
phase
premises
by such
as
and
concepts
relativity
Where,
then, can we
indeterminacy.
turn for illumination?
con
Can we come to no more
helpful
than
clusion
Marabar
value."
that E. M.
the message
Forster
in the
discerned
of India?
has
exists;
"Everything
nothing
Critics of the Moderns
have accused
them of being de
Caves
ficient in a sense of values, of believing
negativistic
or Kafka's
in nothing beyond that
to reread Eliot's
credo. However,
or Mann's
"Parable
of the Law,"
"Fire
Sermon,"
to his
farewell
629
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The Massachusetts
Review
or Proust's
commemoration
of a great writer's
soldier-hero,
a sonless
or Joyce's
encounter
between
death,
hallucinating
to
the
is
feel
of
ethical
father and a fatherless
son,
glow
insight.
A
younger
too
much
and more
plain-spoken
writer
whom
we
have
lost
the Nobel
Prize
received
three
soon, Albert
Camus,
for having
"illuminated
the problems
of the human
in our time." That
citation recalls
the warning
of an
mo
at
the
French
of
dawn
very
Rabelais,
moralist,
years ago
conscience
earlier
dernity,
that "science
sans
conscience
would
soul. Joyce's young artist, Stephen Dedalus,
to create
been
the "uncreated
the endeavor
for a scientific
conscience"
of his generation
bring
ruin
pledged
of his people.
to have created
Has
to the
himself
it not
a conscience
age?
630
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