Literary Modernism Redux

In preparation for this project, I figured I should do a little research into the life and times of the man and his greatest work. This has led me to look into the artistic sensibilities of the day, which of course would mean Modernism. From what I can tell, Modernist literature is basically a rejection of Realism (think Middlemarch, one of my favorites) for a more disjointed, twisted, and ambiguous worldview, with a bit of pessimistic disillusionment sprinkled in for good measure (fun times!). Plot, character, and themes are mixed and mashed so as not to be as clear cut or, er…, realistic. The article I was reading basically pointed to T.S. Eliot’s The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock as one of the seminal works of Modernism (another one of course is Ulysses). This poem, if you recall, thrives on ambiguity, presenting a puzzling yet beautiful poetic narrative that raises more questions than it answers. Who is the narrator really? Who is he talking to? What is literal or symbolic? What is actually going on? This of course hints heavily towards what I will find in Ulysses and should, in a lot of ways, frighten me thoroughly. One thing I would say, though, is that the very questions I just listed and will undoubtedly wrestle with in the months to come are certainly relevant to my reality, on a daily basis. I think it is interesting that, although seen by some as a rejection of Realism, the Modernist writer may actually be moving closer to “reality” that any writer before or since.