The main representatives of modernism Belong to an artistic and Literary Which sought to transform literature through innovation and criticism to the earlier structures of the Victorian era.
Born in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in Latin America and Europe, this movement wanted to influence the materialistic and vulgar society of the time, and dethroned the realist and naturalist authors and poets.
He modernism , Nourished by the ideas promoted by Parnassianism and symbolism, had a rebellious character focusing on the realization of artistic literary works full of deep meaning and elaborated by the sheer pleasure of making"art for art".
With ample creative freedom, he sought to approach the beauty of everyday things, fostering experimentation and individualism, allowing works to be free in their format, structure and feeling.
Modernist literature is Characterizes By the presence of a narrative, characters, plot and fragmented images where there is not necessarily a linear linear structure, hence the spontaneity and jumps in time are its main attribute.
It seeks to describe different perceptions of reality by showing that nothing is static, especially writing.
This type of literature plays with the narrative using various literary figures and the irony to criticize the social conventions of the time.
Modernism is a cult of beauty and perfection, a movement that explores new forms of expression.
You may be interested 8 Poems of Modernism of Great Authors .
Latin American pioneers of the modernist movement
1-Rubén Darío
Considered as the initiator and maximum exponent of Latin American modernism, born on January 18, 1867 in Nicaragua.
His work opened the literary gates of Spain and Latin America to the outside, sweetening the whole world with a different prose, open, simple and full of symbols and metaphors.
Its main modernist works and of great fame are: blue (1888), Profane Prose (1896), Songs of life and hope (1905) and The wandering song (1907).
With beautiful and cultured poetry, blue Is classified as the first great modernist work of bido to the constant criticism of bourgeois social structures. It is a work that mixes of American and French culture combined with a picturesque and delicate style.
The author dies February 6, 1916 in Nicaragua, leaving the way open for the multiple European modernist exponents that will follow.
José Martí
A faithful follower of the modernist movement, born in Cuba in 1853, he is an outstanding author for having promoted modernist and nationalist political literature.
Martí, politician and writer, was the organizer of the War of Independence of Cuba besides having written the following modernist works: Free Verses (1878-1882), Ismaelillo (1882), Simple verses (1891) and the famous essay"Our America"(1891).
With his work Free Verses , The author cries out for the real poetry, of original type that is born of the entrails and the deepest of being, being one of the main modernist works of Hispano-America.
The author dies in 1899 in Cuba, being remembered as one of the most important Cuban literary figures of his time.
Pablo Neruda
A Chilean writer born in 1904 and died in 1973, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971 and is considered one of the Latin American poets Most read worldwide.
Their Most famous works , between them Twilight (1923), Twenty love poems and a desperate song (1924), Residence on earth (1933), General sing (1950) and Elementary Odes (1954-1957), have been considered great modernist works.
His poetry is characterized by exalting the sensibility over reason, adopting elements of French parnassianism, while using multiple comparisons, metaphors and symbologies, both natural and mythological.
In addition, it has a touch of classic sensuality, which have allowed it to be part of the precursors of the modernist movement.
Major American Modernist exponents
4- Ernest Hemingway
An important exponent of Anglo-Saxon modernism, he was an American journalist and writer born on July 21, 1899 and died on July 2, 1961.
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1953 and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954, his works have certain characteristic modernist features like the use of concise and simple prose, seeking to obtain the maximum of minimal language.
With his works Goodbye to guns (1929), For whom the Bell Tolls (1946), The old man and the sea (1952) and Paris was a party (1964), we can see how his privileged themes were love, war and nature.
He sought to always criticize the society of the twentieth century which, in Words of Hemingway , Was a generation lost by wars, materialism and the industrial bourgeoisie.
Katherine Anne Porter
Writer of novels and short stories, essayist and American activist was born on May 15, 1890 and died in 1980.
Considered as one of the main authors of modernism for dealing with dark themes such as evil, betrayal and death.
It breaks with the romantic scheme while maintaining modernist features as a simple prose full of symbolism and constant criticism of southern United States society of the time, its structures, as well as social differences and gender discrimination.
His most famous works have been Collected short stories (1965), Ship of fools (1962), The leaning tower (1944), Flowering Judas and The Jilting of Granny Weatherall (1930). Porter has been awarded the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award in 1966.
6- E.E Cummings
American poet, painter and essayist born on October 14, 1894 and died on September 3, 1962, is considered As one of the greatest exponents of modernism in the United States.
His prose is characterized by a constant experimentation with language, where the author seeks to play with him by not respecting formal writing structures, failing to include capital letters or even punctuation marks in his poems.
The author reflects irony and a great imagination in his writings, being famous for the writing of modern satires. His works include The enormous room (1922), Tulips and chimneys (1923) and Fairy tales (1965).
7- William Faulkner
American writer born in 1897, awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, published varied collections of works until his death in 1962.
He is recognized for his linguistic and narrative experimentalism, after including in his works great temporal jumps and use of different types of narratives simultaneously.
The author managed to present a different way of telling stories away from the normal rational structure, hence their writings as well as being full of ironies have interspersed chapters whose goal is to play with the reader's mind, something typical of modernism.
His most famous works are The pay of the soldiers (1926), The noise and the fury (1929), Light of august (1932), Sanctuary (1931) and The eternal dream (1946).
Other important representatives of modernism
8- Federico García Lorca
Poet and Spanish playwright, belonging to the modernist movement due to the excessive and marked use of symbolism in his works.
In addition to the use of different Metaphors Y Literary elements To embellish his writings. His work has a perfect combination of cultured and popular.
9- James Joyce
Irish writer, acclaimed for his famous work Ulises (1922) due to the introduction of new literary forms in his prose and the use of a pure exotic narrative that seeks to describe the daily life of each of his characters.
There are numerous cases of interior monologues that explain the awareness of the characters that make life in the work, hence a brilliant use of language.
10- Joseph Conrad
Polish novelist, considered as one of the exponents of modernism more interesting due to the different style of his works.
In his writings, the author explores the instability of the human being, describing and reflecting his individual consciousness in language.
The use of metaphors, symbologies, riddles and a little regular narrative structure that explains the daily physical and mental aspects of people is what makes him part of the group of the main representatives of modernism.
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