ERA

Today, we consider ourselves modern, but at the turn of the 20th century, so did the people of the 1900s. Enter the Modernism Era, a period of complete rebellion. If Romanticism represented literature's teenage years, Modernism is the midlife crisis of literature. As the world became more interconnected and everything changed from the traditional style, Modernists sought to do the same with literature. Many of the authors had been raised during the late 1800s when life was still relatively traditional, as they became adults, they entered a brave, new world if you will, full of technological advancements (like the vacuum cleaner), polarizing political choices (can you say Prohibition?), and life-changing world events (the Great Depression and the Great War to name a few). This super saturated world of change startled some like F. Scott Fitzgerald and Franz Kafka.

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The Modernist Era focuses on symbolism, psyche, and society heavily. Modernism had various sub-variations. The most notable--existentialism--focused on the complete annihilation of truth. These authors often focused on the concept of absolute truth as an impossibility and life as chaotic and meaningless. They were disillusioned with the world and that bled through into their work. Other modernism literature was solely abstract: playing with style and presentation. This is where meta versions of characters (Six Characters in Search of an Author), stream of consciousness (Ulysses), and nonlinear storytelling (Mrs. Dalloway) began to appear.