Modernism, a broad cultural trend, gradually took root in various countries at the end of the 19th century.

At that time, the Industrial Revolution had a profound impact on the world. The fields of philosophy, science, politics, and ideology have all undergone tremendous changes.

People's thinking gradually got rid of the shackles of tradition, positivism and trust in reason were questioned, and romanticism began to abandon some ideas of the Enlightenment. These all laid a solid ideological foundation for the rise of modernism.

It reached its radical climax on the eve of World War I. At that time, society was in turmoil and people had doubts about old values ​​​​and art forms. They long for a new culture that can reflect the changes of the times. This force drove the rise and spread of modernism around the world.

Modernism emerged from the philosophical changes that followed the Industrial Revolution.

In that era, people's view of the world changed and they no longer relied solely on reason to interpret everything.

New concepts in the field of philosophy allow artists and writers to re-evaluate the world and themselves. They no longer stick to the old aesthetic standards and creative models.

They abandoned the over-respect for reason in the Enlightenment era and felt that the world was complex and could not be fully explained by reason alone.

The evolution of this philosophical concept makes modernists pay more attention to individual inner experience and deep consciousness, thus opening up a new path for the creation of modern literature and art.

Artists and writers faced with the modernist project needed to reexamine the assumptions and aesthetic concepts of their predecessors.

They abandoned the piety and rhetoric of Romanticism, and those lofty ideals found new scrutiny in modernist works.

Modernist writers began to question language and its pursuit of coherence, and they sought to convey ideas through innovative forms and language.

Many modern writers feel that the old literary expression forms are no longer enough to accurately reflect the complex emotions and thoughts of people today.

They hope to use novel writing techniques to subvert the existing narrative framework and language norms, so that readers can have a new understanding of the potential of literature.

At the beginning of the 20th century, a group of famous novelists made bold and innovative attempts.

Writers such as Henry James, Virginia Woolf, and Joseph Conrad explored changes in time and narrative perspective.

In their works, time no longer develops in a straight line, and the narrative angles have become rich and diverse, which requires readers to be more active in understanding the content.

In Virginia Woolf's works, she often used interior monologue and stream-of-consciousness techniques, which broke the narrative pattern of conventional novels. Readers can thus penetrate deeply into the characters' hearts and experience the complexity of people's emotions and thoughts in modern society.

During her pre-war years in Paris, Gertrude Stein sought a way to create literature that would break with traditional conventions of grammar and reference.

Her writing style is unique, often not sticking to conventional grammar, and using concise and repeated words and phrases to create a unique literary atmosphere.

Ezra Pound vowed to innovate and was determined to "break the quintile". He vigorously advocated innovation in poetry, thus promoting the prosperity of Imagist poetry.

TS Eliot wrote "The Waste Land" under the shadow of World War I. This work can be called a model of modernist literature.

Shortly after its publication in 1922, The Waste Land was recognized as a model work of modernism due to its rich allusions, scattered language fragments, and intertwined register-like language.

Many poets such as HD, WH Auden, Hart Crane, Yeats, etc. also embody the modernist style in their respective works.

At the same time, modernism also gave rise to many smaller movements, such as Dadaism and others.

These movements broadened the artistic expression techniques of modernism and demonstrated the challenging attitude of people of that era towards traditional art and culture, as well as their desire for novel ideas and expressions.

The cross-century cultural trend of modernism has undoubtedly brought earth-shaking changes and many new opportunities to the world of literature and art. Which modernist works do you feel have had the most profound impact on today’s culture?