ENGL 2210 World Literature II

Modernism Study Guide

  1. What are some definitions for the words modern and modernism and modernization?
  2. What does the term Westernization mean?
  3. What are some of the main characteristics of "Modernism"?
  4. What does "positivism" mean and how is it different from "modernism"?
  5. What are some of the similarities between the Enlightenment and Scientific rationalism?
  6. How did WW I contribute to the re-examination of the rationalist, or positivist conception of man?
  7. What is Nietzsche's contribution to Modernism?
  8. What does the philosophy of Phenomenology say about reality?
  9. Describe Bergson's conception of reality?
  10. What did Freud focus his attention on in his description of human nature?
  11. Why was Existentialism popular in the forties and fifties?
  12. What is "cultural parochialism"?
  13. Dada
  14. Conceptual Artist as Vandal
  15. Italian Futurism
  16. Russian Futurism
  17. Moderinsm in painting:
    Geometric Abstraction; Pablo Picasso; Cubism; Surrealism; Abstract Expressionism
From the Russian Futurist manifesto, "A slap in the face of public taste," by d. burliuk, alexander kruchenykh, v. mayakovsky, victor khlebnikov 15th december 1913.

We alone are the face of our Time. Through us the horn of time blows in the art of the word.

The past is too tight. The Academy and Pushkin are less intelligible than hieroglyphics.

Throw Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, etc., etc. overboard from the Ship of Modernity.

He who does not forget his first love will not recognize his last.

Wash Your hands which have touched the filthy slime of the books written by those countless Leonid Andreyevs.

From the heights of skyscrapers we gaze at their insignificance!...

We order that the poets' rights be revered:

To enlarge the scope of the poet's vocabulary with arbitrary and derivative words (Word-novelty). To feel an insurmountable hatred for the language existing before their time.

Sound Poem from Vasily Kamensky:

Zgara-amba Zgara-amba
Zgara-amba Zgara-amba
Zgara-amba Zgara-amba
Amb. Amb.

Amb-zgara-amba Amb-zgara-amba
Amb-zgara-amba Amb-zgara-amba
Amb-zgara-amba Amb-zgara-amba
Amb. Amb.

qar-qor-qur-qir tsar-tsor-tsur-tsir
Cin-drax-tam-dzzz. Chin-drax-tam-dzzz.