The Nature of Modernism in American Literature and Film
During the 19th and 20th century, new industries and a growing population bursted in the western world. With new technologies and more people came new ideas that rapidly made their ways in society. These new ideas helped shape the movement known as modernism. Modernism applied not only to the industries and technologies, but also to art. However, modernism in art encompassed a range of characteristics. Through films, novels, plays, and poems, we can see that artistic views, in modernism, served as a revolutionary tool, often in experimental forms, to challenge the notion of absolute truth and ultimate authority by highlighting the consciousness and unconsciousness of the individual.
In modernism, artistic works were often used as a revolutionary tool because the previous generation and the upper class had such a tight grip on a specific set of values and truth-claims. Modernists had to rip through society to present new morals and values. This new movement was not only an artistic enlightenment, as the artists also practiced self-reflection, but also a politically-charged artistic movement. In their works, artists examined and questioned, authority truths, and values that society had accepted as unquestionable.
In his poem, “Of Modern Poetry,” Wallace Stevens discussed the elements that were imperative for a modern poem, so it aligned with the revolutionary theme of the era. According to Stevens, the modern poem