The concept of avant-garde. Avant-garde trends in world literature

Modernism is an ideological trend in literature and art of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which is characterized by a departure from classical standards, the search for new, radical literary forms and the creation of a completely new style of writing. This direction replaced realism and became the forerunner of postmodernism, the final stage of its development dates back to the 30s of the twentieth century.

The main feature of this trend is a complete change in the classical perception of the picture of the world: the authors are no longer carriers of absolute truth and ready-made concepts, but rather demonstrate their relativity. The linearity of the narrative disappears, giving way to a chaotic, fragmented plot, fragmented into parts and episodes, often presented on behalf of several characters at once, who may have completely opposite views on current events.

Directions of modernism in literature

Modernism, in turn, branched into several directions, such as:

Symbolism

(Somov Konstantin Andreevich "Two ladies in the park")

Originated in France in the 70-80s of the 19th century and reached its peak in the early twentieth century, it was most common in France. Belgium and Russia. Symbolist authors embodied the main ideas of the works, using the many-sided and multi-valued associative aesthetics of symbols and images, they were often full of mystery, mystery and understatement. Outstanding representatives of this trend: Charles Baudelaire, Paul Verlaine, Arthur Rimbaud, Lautreamont (France), Maurice Maeterlinck, Emile Verhaern (Belgium), Valery Bryusov, Alexander Blok, Fedor Sologub, Maximilian Voloshin, Andrey Bely, Konstantin Balmont (Russia) .. .

Acmeism

(Alexander Bogomazov "Pedlars of flour")

Originated as a separate trend of modernism in the early twentieth century in Russia, acmeist authors, in opposition to the symbolists, insisted on a clear materiality and objectivity of the topics and images described, defended the use of precise and clear words, advocated distinct and definite images. The central figures of Russian acmeism: Anna Akhmatova, Nikolai Gumilyov, Sergei Gorodetsky...

Futurism

(Fortunato Depero "Me and my wife")

An avant-garde movement that arose in the 10-20s of the 20th century and developed in Russia and Italy. The main feature of futurist authors is their interest not so much in the content of their works, but more in the form of versification. For this, new word forms were invented, they used vulgar, common folk vocabulary, professional jargon, the language of documents, posters and posters. The founder of futurism is the Italian poet Filippo Marinetti, who composed the poem "Red Sugar", his associates Balla, Boccioni, Carra, Severini and others. Russian futurists: Vladimir Mayakovsky, Velimir Khlebnikov, Boris Pasternak...

Imagism

(Georgy Bogdanovich Yakulov - sketch of the scenery for the operetta "Beautiful Elena" by J. Offenbach)

It emerged as a literary direction of Russian poetry in 1918, its founders were Anatoly Mariengof, Vadim Shershenevich and Sergei Yesenin. The purpose of the Imagists' creativity was to create images, and the main means of expression was declared to be metaphor and metaphorical chains, with the help of which direct and figurative images were compared...

Expressionism

(Erich Heckel" street scene at the bridge")

The current of modernism, which developed in Germany and Austria in the first decade of the twentieth century, as a painful reaction of society to the horrors of ongoing events (revolutions, First World War). This direction sought not so much to reproduce reality as to convey the emotional state of the author; images of pain and screams are very common in the works. In the style of expressionism worked: Alfred Deblin, Gottfried Benn, Ivan Goll, Albert Ehrenstein (Germany), Franz Kafka, Paul Adler (Czech Republic), T. Michinsky (Poland), L. Andreev (Russia) ...

Surrealism

(Salvador Dali "The Persistence of Memory")

It emerged as a trend in literature and art in the 1920s. Surrealist works are distinguished by the use of allusions (stylistic figures that give a hint or indication of specific historical or mythological cult events) and a paradoxical combination of various forms. The founder of surrealism is the French writer and poet Andre Breton, the famous writers of this trend are Paul Eluard and Louis Aragon...

Modernism in Russian Literature of the 20th Century

The last decade of the 19th century was marked by the emergence of new trends in Russian literature, the task of which was a complete rethinking of the old means of expression and the revival of poetic art. This period(1982-1922) entered the history of literature under the name "Silver Age" of Russian poetry. Writers and poets united in various modernist groups and trends, which played a huge role in the artistic culture of that time.

(Kandinsky Vasily Vasilievich "Winter Landscape")

Russian symbolism appeared at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, its founders were the poets Dmitry Merezhkovsky, Fyodor Sologub, Konstantin Balmont, Valery Bryusov, later they were joined by Alexander Blok, Andrei Bely, Vyacheslav Ivanov. They publish an artistic and journalistic organ of the Symbolists - the journal "Balance (1904-1909)," they support the idealistic philosophy of Vladimir Solovyov about the Third Testament and the advent of Eternal Femininity. The works of symbolist poets are filled with complex, mystical images and associations, mystery and innuendo, abstractness and irrationality.

Symbolism is being replaced by acmeism, which appeared in Russian literature in 1910, the founders of the direction: Nikolai Gumilyov, Anna Akhmatova, Sergey Gorodetsky, also O. Mandelstam, M. Zenkevich, M. Kuzmin, M. Voloshin. Acmeists, unlike the Symbolists, proclaimed the cult of real earthly life, a clear and confident view of reality, the assertion of the aesthetic and hedonistic function of art, without affecting social problems. The poetry collection "Hyperborea", released in 1912, announced the emergence of a new literary trend called acmeism (from "acme" - the highest degree of something, it's time to flourish). Acmeists tried to make the images concrete and objective, to get rid of the mystical confusion inherent in the Symbolist movement.

(Vladimir Mayakovsky "Roulette")

Futurism in Russian literature arose simultaneously with acmeism in 1910-1912, like other literary trends in modernism, it was full of internal contradictions. One of the most significant futuristic groupings called Cubo-Futurists included such prominent poets Silver Age as V. Khlebnikov, V. Mayakovsky, I. Severyanin, A. Kruchenykh, V. Kamensky and others, the Futurists proclaimed a revolution of forms, absolutely independent of content, freedom of poetic speech and the rejection of old literary traditions. Interesting experiments were carried out in the field of the word, new forms were created and outdated literary norms and rules were denounced. The first collection of futurist poets, A Slap in the Face of Public Taste, declared the basic concepts of futurism and asserted it as the only truthful spokesman of its era.

(Kazimir Malevich "Lady at the Tram Stop")

In the early 1920s, on the basis of futurism, a new modernist trend, imaginism, was formed. Its founders were the poets S. Yesenin, A. Mariengof, V. Shershenevich, R. Ivnev. In 1919, they held the first Imagist evening and created a declaration proclaiming the main principles of Imagism: the primacy of the image “as such”, poetic expression through the use of metaphors and epithets, a poetic work should be a “catalogue of images”, read the same as from the beginning, so from the end. Creative disagreements between the Imagists led to the division of the direction into the left and right wings, after Sergei Yesenin left its ranks in 1924, the group gradually disintegrated.

Modernism in Foreign Literature of the 20th Century

(Gino Severini "Still Life")

Modernism as literary direction lies in the late 19th early 19th century on the eve of the First World War, its heyday falls on the 20-30s of the 20th century, it develops almost simultaneously in the countries of Europe and America and is an international phenomenon consisting of various literary movements, such as Imagism, Dadaism, expressionism, surrealism, etc.

Modernism arose in France, its prominent representatives who belonged to the Symbolist movement were the poets Paul Verlaine, Arthur Rimbaud, Charles Baudelaire. Symbolism quickly became popular in other European countries, in England it was represented by Oscar Wilde, in Germany by Stefan George, in Belgium by Emil Verhaarn and Maurice Metterlinck, in Norway by Henrik Ibsen.

(Umberto Boccioni "The street enters the house")

G. Trakl and F. Kafka in Belgium belonged to the number of expressionists, the French school - A. France, the German - I. Becher. The founders of such a modernist trend in literature as Imagism, which has existed since the beginning of the 20th century in English-speaking European countries, were the English poets Thomas Hume and Ezra Pound, they were later joined by the American poetess Amy Lowell, a young English poet Herbert Read, American John Fletcher.

The most famous modernist writers of the early 20th century are the Irish prose writer James Joyce, who created the immortal stream-of-consciousness novel Ulysses (1922), the French author of the seven-volume epic novel In Search of Lost Time Marcel Proust, and the German-speaking master of modernism. Franz Kafka, who wrote the story "The Metamorphosis" (1912), which has become a classic of the absurdity of all world literature.

Modernism in the Characteristics of Western Literature of the 20th Century

Despite the fact that modernism is divided into a large number of currents, their common feature is the search for new forms and the determination of man's place in the world. The literature of modernism, which arose at the turn of two eras and between the two world wars, in a society tired and exhausted from old ideas, is distinguished by cosmopolitanism and expresses the feelings of authors lost in an ever-evolving, growing urban environment.

(Alfredo Gauro Ambrosi "Duce Airport")

Writers and poets who worked in this direction constantly experimented with new words, forms, techniques and techniques in order to create a new, fresh sound, although the themes remained old and eternal. Usually it was a theme about the loneliness of a person in a vast and colorful world, about the discrepancy between the rhythms of his life and the surrounding reality.

Modernism is a kind of literary revolution, writers and poets participated in it, declaring their complete denial of realistic plausibility and all cultural and literary traditions in general. It fell to them to live and create in a difficult time, when the values ​​of traditional humanistic culture are outdated, when the concept of freedom in different countries had a highly ambiguous meaning when the blood and horrors of the First World War devalued human life, and the world appeared before the man in all his cruelty and coldness. Early modernism symbolized the time when faith in the power of reason collapsed, the time came for the triumph of irrationality, mysticism and the absurdity of all existence.

100 r first order bonus

Choose the type of work Graduate work Course work Abstract Master's thesis Report on practice Article Report Review Test Monograph Problem solving Business plan Answers to questions creative work Essay Drawing Compositions Translation Presentations Typing Other Increasing the uniqueness of the text Candidate's thesis Laboratory work Help online

Ask for a price

The twentieth century entered the history of culture as a century of experiment, which then often became the norm. This is the time of the appearance of various declarations, schools, often encroaching on world traditions. So, let's say, the inevitability of imitation of the beautiful, about which G. Lessing wrote in his work "Laocoon, or On the Limits of Painting and Poetry", was criticized. On the contrary, the artist began to imitate the disgusting, which in ancient times was forbidden under pain of punishment.

The starting point of aesthetics was the ugly; the rejection of harmonic proportions violated the image of art, in which the emphasis is on deformation, geometric shapes.

The term "modernism" appears at the end of the 19th century and is usually assigned to non-realistic phenomena in art that follow decadence. However, the ideas that gave it content were met earlier. Suffice it to recall the "Flowers of Evil" by Charles Baudelaire.

Modernism (fr. modernisme - from moderne - the latest, modo - just) as a philosophical and aesthetic movement has the following stages (we select conditionally):

Avant-gardism, located in time between the wars;

Neo-avant-gardism (50s-60s);

Postmodernism (70s–80s).

Speaking of avant-garde as part of modernism, we note that Western criticism often does not use these terms, preferring "avant-garde".

Modernism continues the unrealistic trend in the literature of the past and moves into the literature of the second half of the twentieth century.

Modernism is both a creative method and an aesthetic system, reflected in literary activity a number of schools, often very different in terms of program statements.

Common features:

1) loss of a fulcrum;

2) a break with the traditional worldview of Christian Europe;

3) subjectivism, deformation of the world or literary text;

4) the loss of an integral model of the world, the creation of a model of the world every time anew at the arbitrariness of the artist;

5) formalism.

Modernism is a variegated literary movement in its composition, political aspirations and manifestos, which includes many different schools, groupings, united by a pessimistic worldview, the artist’s desire not to reflect objective reality, but to express himself, setting on subjectivism, deformation.

The philosophical origins of modernism can be found in the works of Z. Freud, A. Bergson, W. James.

Modernism can be decisive in the work of the writer as a whole (F. Kafka, D. Joyce) or can be felt as one of the techniques that had a significant impact on the style of the artist (M. Proust, W. Wolfe).

Modernism as a literary movement that swept Europe at the beginning of the century has the following national varieties:

French and Czech surrealism;

Italian and Russian futurism;

English Imagism and the “stream of consciousness” school;

German expressionism;

American and Italian Hermeticism;

Swedish primitivism;

French unanimism and constructivism;

Spanish ultraism;

Latin American creationism.

What is characteristic of avant-garde as a stage of modernism? The word avant-garde itself (from the French avant-garde - advanced detachment) came from military vocabulary, where it denotes a small elite detachment that breaks into the enemy’s territory in front of the main army and paves the way for it, and the art historical meaning of this term, as a neologism, is used Alexandre Benois(1910), acquired in the first decades of the 20th century. Since then, the classical avant-garde has been called the totality of heterogeneous and differently significant artistic movements, trends and schools.

The outlines of avant-gardism are also elusive, historically uniting various trends - from symbolism and cubism to surrealism and pop art; they are characterized by a psychological atmosphere of rebellion, a feeling of emptiness and loneliness, an orientation towards the future, which is not always clearly presented.

As noted by the Czech scholar Jan Mukařovski, "the avant-garde strives to get rid of the past and traditions".

It is significant that the avant-garde art, which was rapidly developing in the tenth and twenties, turned out to be enriched with a revolutionary idea (sometimes only conditionally symbolic, as was the case with the expressionists who wrote about the revolution in the sphere of the spirit, the revolution in general). This gave optimism to the avant-garde, painting its canvases red, and attracted the attention of revolutionary-minded artists who saw avant-gardism as an example of anti-bourgeois protest (B. Brecht, L. Aragon, V. Nezval, P. Eluard). Avant-gardism not only crosses out reality - it moves towards its own reality, relying on the immanent laws of art. The avant-garde rejected the stereotype of forms mass consciousness, did not accept the war, the madness of technocracy, the enslavement of man. The avant-garde opposed rebellion, chaos and deformation to mediocrity and the bourgeois order, to the canonized logic of the realists, to the morality of the philistines - freedom of feelings and unlimited imagination. Ahead of time, the avant-garde updated the art of the 20th century, introduced urban themes and new techniques, new principles of composition and various functional styles speeches, graphic design (ideograms, refusal of punctuation), free verse and its variations.

3. The main artistic and aesthetic trends of the first half of the twentieth century

Consider Dadaism, Surrealism, Expressionism, Futurism and Imagism as the most prominent avant-garde movements. foreign literature the first third of the 20th century.

DADAISM (from the French dada - baby talk without meaning) is the immediate predecessor of surrealism. It took shape in Zurich, the capital of neutral Switzerland, through the efforts of emigrant poets from the warring countries (T. Tzara, R. Gulzenbeck), who published the magazine Cabaret Voltaire (1916–1917). Dadaists declared absurdity and an atmosphere of scandal, desertion, protesting against the First World War, the desire to bring the public out of self-satisfied complacency. The aesthetic form of their protest was illogical and irrational art, often meaningless sets of words and sounds, compiled using the Dada collage method. “These two syllables have reached their goal, they have reached the “resonant nonsense”, absolute insignificance, wrote André Gide in the Dada article. - The highest gratitude in relation to the art of the past and its perfect masterpieces, - the French writer reflects, - consists in abandoning all pretensions to their renewal. The perfect is that which can no longer be reproduced, while putting the past before oneself means blocking the path to the future.

The most notable among the Dadaists is the Swiss poet Tristan Tzara (1896–1963), the author of the books The Seven Dada Manifestoes (1924), The Approximate Man (1931), the famous Dada Songs, in which random images, unexpected associations and At the same time, there is an element of parody of the boulevard novel and naturalistic poetry. To some extent, the meaning of the poetry of Tzara and the Dadaists as a whole is conveyed by his words: "I write a manifesto, and I do not want anything, I say something in the meantime, and I, in principle, am against manifestos, just as I am against principles." In these words - negation, which will find its own further development in French Surrealism and German Expressionism, to whose programs the Dadaists will join.

SURREALISM (from the French sure?alite - super-reality) developed in France; his program is outlined in the "Manifesto of Surrealism", written by A. Breton with the participation of L. Aragon in 1924, and the manifesto, which appeared in January 1925. Instead of depicting objective reality, the goal of art in them is proclaimed supersensible supreality and the world of the subconscious, and “automatic writing”, the method of uncontrolled expressiveness and the combination of the incompatible as the main method of creation.

Surrealism sought to liberate the essence of man, suppressed by civilization, and to communicate by influencing subconscious impulses. The "Manifesto of Surrealism" paid tribute to Freud's discoveries in the field of the human psyche and drew attention to dreams as an important aspect of mental activity. A. Breton noted in his work: “Surrealism ... Pure mental automatism, which aims to express either orally, or in writing, or in any other way, the real functioning of thought. The dictation of thought is beyond any control on the part of the mind, beyond any aesthetic or moral considerations. The very word "surrealism" was first used by G. Apollinaire in the preface to his drama "Breasts of Tiresias", where the author apologized for the neologism he had invented. He needed one to renew the theater, to return it to nature itself, without repeating it: “When a person decided to imitate walking, he created a wheel - an object unlike a foot. It was unconscious surrealism." The components of a surrealistic image are deformation, a combination of the incongruous, free associativity. The word was used by the Surrealists in a game function.

The poetics of surrealism is characterized by: disintegration of an object into its component parts and their “rearrangement”, conditional outer space, timelessness and collage statics. All this is easy to see in the paintings of S. Dali, in the poetry of F. Soupo, J. Cocteau. Here is a poem "From a fairy tale" by the Czech poet Vitezslav Nezval, which creates an surreal impression based on ordinary realities, whimsically combined contrary to logic and meaning, but according to the law of fantasy:

Someone on an old piano

Falsehood torments the ear.

And I'm in a glass castle

I beat fire-winged flies.

alabaster pen

Didn't hug.

The princess is getting old.

Became an old woman...

The piano mourns deafly:

I'm sorry, sorry..

And my heart sleepily sings:

It was - no

It was - no

Bim - Bam.

(Translated by V. Ivanov)

The history of the school of surrealism was short-lived. The French school, like the Czech, Polish, and even earlier Spanish and many others that arose in different European countries, felt its failure in the face of the threat of fascism and the impending World War II and dissolved itself. However, surrealism influenced the art of the 20th century: the poetry of P. Eluard, L. Aragon, V. Nezval, F. Lorca, painting and arts and crafts, cinema, and everything around modern man space.

EXPRESSIONISM (fr. expression - expression). AT prewar years and during the First World War, expressionism, the art of expression, experienced a short but bright heyday. The main aesthetic postulate of expressionists is not to imitate reality, but to express their negative attitude towards it. Poet and expressionist theorist Casimir Edschmid argued: “The world exists. There is no point in repeating it." In doing so, he and his followers challenged realism and naturalism. Artists, musicians and poets, grouped around the Russian painter V. Kandinsky, published the Blue Rider almanac in Munich. They set themselves the task of freeing themselves from object and plot dependence, appealing directly to the spiritual world of man with color or sound. In literature, the ideas of expressionism were picked up by poets who sought to express the experiences lyrical hero in a state of affect. Hence the hypertrophied figurativeness of the verse, the confusion of vocabulary and the arbitrariness of syntax, the hysterical rhythm. Poets, playwrights and artists close to expressionism were rebels in art and in life. They were looking for new, scandalous forms of self-expression, the world in their works appeared in a grotesque guise, bourgeois reality - in the form of caricatures.

Thus, proclaiming the thesis about the priority of the artist himself, and not reality, expressionism emphasized the expression of the soul of the artist, his inner "I". Expression instead of image, intuition instead of logic - these principles, of course, could not but affect the appearance of literature and art.

Representatives of expressionism: in art (E. Barlach, E. Kirchner, O. Kokoschka, A. Schoenberg, B. Bartok), in literature (F. Werfel, G. Grakl, G. Game, etc.).

The style of expressionist poetry is marked by pathos, hyperbole, and symbolism.

The work of expressionist artists turned out to be in Nazi Germany under a ban as sickly, decadent, incapable of serving the policy of Nazism. Meanwhile, the experience of expressionism is productive for many artists, not to mention those who were directly influenced by his program (F. Kafka, I. Becher, B. Kellerman, L. Frank, G. Hesse). The work of the latter reflected an essential feature of expressionism - to think philosophical categories. One of major topics art of the 20th century - alienation as a result bourgeois civilization, which suppressed a person in the state, a philosophical theme and central to Kafka's worldview, received a detailed development from the expressionists.

FUTURISM (Italian futurismo from Latin futurum - future) is an avant-garde art movement of the 1910s - early 1920s of the 20th century, most fully manifested in Italy (the birthplace of futurism) and Russia. Futurists were also in other European countries - Germany, England, France, Poland. Futurism declared itself in literature, painting, sculpture, in lesser degree in music.

Italian Futurism. February 20, 1909, is considered the birthday of futurism, when the Futurist Manifesto written by T. F. Marinetti appeared in the Parisian newspaper Le Figaro. It was T. Marinetti who became the theorist and leader of the first, Milanese, group of futurists.

It is no coincidence that futurism originated in Italy, a country-museum. “We have no life, but only memories of a more glorious past ... We live in a magnificent sarcophagus in which the lid is screwed tightly so as not to penetrate Fresh air”, T. Marinetti complained. Bringing your compatriots to the Olympus of modern European culture - that's what, undoubtedly, was behind the outrageous and loud tone of the manifesto. A group of young artists from Milan, and then from other cities, immediately responded to Marinetti's call - both with their work and their own manifestos. On February 11, 1910, the “Manifesto of Futurist Artists” appears, and on April 11 of the same year, the “Technical Manifesto of Futurist Painting”, signed by U. Boccioni, J. Balla, C. Carra, L. Russolo, J. Severeni, by the largest artists - futurists. In all his works, both theoretical and artistic (poetry, the novel Mafarka the Futurist), T. Marinetti, like his associates, denied not only the artistic, but also the ethical values ​​of the past.

Pity, respect for human personality, romantic love. Intoxicated with the latest advances in technology, the futurists sought to cut out the "cancer" old culture knife of technicalism and the latest achievements of science. Futurists argued that the new technique also changes the human psyche, and this requires a change in all the visual and expressive means of art. AT modern world they were especially fascinated by speed, mobility, dynamics, energy. They dedicated their poems and paintings to automobiles, trains, and electricity. “The heat emanating from a piece of wood or iron excites us more than the smile and tears of a woman,” “New art can only be violence, cruelty,” Marinetti said.

The worldview of the Futurists was strongly influenced by the ideas of Nietzsche with his cult of the "superman"; Bergson's philosophy, which asserts that the mind is capable of comprehending only everything that is ossified and dead; rebellious slogans of the anarchists. A hymn to strength and heroism - in almost all the works of Italian futurists. The man of the future, in their view, is a "mechanical man with replaceable parts", omnipotent, but soulless, cynical and cruel.

They saw the cleansing of the world from "junk" in wars and revolutions. “War is the only hygiene of the world”, “The word “freedom” must obey the word Italy,” Marinetti proclaimed. Even the titles of poetry collections - "Pistol Shots" by Luchini, "Electric Poems" by Govoni, "Bayonets" by A. D. Alba, "Airplanes" by Buzzi, "Song of Motors" by L. Folgore, "Pyro" by Palazzeschi - speak for themselves.

The key slogan of the Italian futurists in literature was the slogan - "Words on the loose!" - not to express the meaning in words, but to let the word itself control the meaning (or nonsense) of the poem. In painting and sculpture, Italian Futurism became the forerunner of many subsequent artistic discoveries and trends. So, Boccioni, who used in one sculpture the most different materials(glass, wood, cardboard, iron, leather, horsehair, clothes, mirrors, electric light bulbs, etc.) became the harbinger of pop art.

IMAGISM emerged as a trend in 1908 in the bowels of the London Poets' Club. The fossilization of familiar poetic forms forced young writers to look for new ways in poetry. The first Imagists were Thomas Ernest Hume and Francis Flint. In 1908, Hume's famous poem "Autumn" was published, which surprised everyone with unexpected comparisons: "The moon stood by the wattle fence, // Like a red-faced farmer", "Scrappy stars crowded around, // Similar to city children" (translated by I. Romanovich) . In 1909, the American poet Ezra Pound joined the group.

The leader and indisputable authority in the group was Thomas Ernest Hume. By that time, he had strong convictions: “Images in verse are not just a decoration, but the very essence of an intuitive language,” while the poet’s purpose is to look for “suddenness, unexpectedness of angle.” According to Hume, "new verses are like rather sculpture than music, and are addressed more to sight than to hearing. The rhythmic experiments of the Imagists are interesting. Hume called for "shattering the canonical rhyme", abandoning the correct metrical constructions. It was in the "Poets' Club" that the traditions of English blank verse and free verse were born. However, by 1910 meetings of the "Poets' Club" gradually became more and more rare, then it ceased to exist. Hume died a few years later on one of the fronts of the First World War.

A second group of Imagists gathered around Ezra Pound. In October 1912, Ezra Pound received from the young American poetess Hilda Doolittle, who had moved to England a year ago, a selection of her poems, which struck him with "Imagist conciseness." Hilda Doolittle attracted her lover and future husband to the group. It was the later famous English novelist Richard Aldington. A sign of the second stage of Imagism was the appeal to antiquity (R. Aldington was also a translator of ancient Greek poetry). Pound during these years formulated his famous "Several Prohibitions" - the commandment of Imagism, explaining how one should, or rather how one should not write poetry. He emphasized that “figurative poetry is like a sculpture frozen in the word” (remember: Hume wrote about the same thing).

The result of the second stage in the history of Imagism was the poetic anthology Des Imagistes (1915) collected by Pound, after which Pound left the group and went to France. The war began, and the center of Imagism began to move from warring England to America.

The third stage in the development of Imagism is American. The leader of the group of Imagists was the American poetess Amy Lowell (1874–1925) from the prominent Boston Lowell family, who had given in the 19th century famous poet James Russell Lowell. The main theme of Amy Lowell's poems is admiring nature. The merit of the poetess is the three Imagist anthologies prepared by her one after another.

Famous novelists David Herbert Lawrence, James Joyce and Ford Madox Ford (1873-1939) appeared with poems in Imagist anthologies, there are also poems by Thomas Stearns Eliot, as well as two other future pillars of American poetry - Carl Sandburg (1878-1967). .) and the very young William Carlos Williams (1883–1963).

The compiler of the Anthology of Imagism published in Russia in 2001, Anatoly Kudryavitsky, wrote in the preface to it:

“In the poetry of the English-speaking countries, almost a decade and a half passed under the sign of Imagism - almost the entire beginning of the century. Imagist poets struggled to update the poetic language, freed poetry from the cage of regular verse, and enriched literature with new poetic forms, with a wide rhythmic range, a variety of stanza and line sizes, and unexpected images.

Having considered several avant-garde trends and the work of major writers, it can be argued that avant-garde art as an artistic movement is characterized by subjectivism and a generally pessimistic view of progress and history, an extra-social attitude towards a person, a violation of the holistic concept of personality, harmony of external and internal life, social and biological her. In terms of worldview, modernism argued with the apologetic picture of the world, was anti-bourgeois; at the same time, he was alarmed by the inhumanity of revolutionary practical activity. Modernism defended the personality, proclaimed its self-worth and sovereignty, the immanent nature of art. In poetics, he tested non-traditional methods and forms opposed to realism, focused on the free will of the creator, and thus influenced realistic art. The boundary between modernism and realism in a number of concrete examples from the work of modern authors is quite problematic, because, according to the famous literary critic D. Zatonsky, “modernism ... in chemically pure form does not occur." It is an integral part of the artistic panorama of the 20th century.

etc.), so it is necessary to distinguish between these two concepts in order to avoid confusion.

Modernism in the visual arts

Modernism- aggregate artistic directions in art second half of XIX- mid-twentieth century. The most significant modernist trends were impressionism, expressionism, neo- and post-impressionism, fauvism, cubism, futurism. As well as later currents - abstract art, Dadaism, surrealism. In a narrow sense, modernism is seen as an early stage of avant-garde, the beginning of a revision of classical traditions. The date of the birth of modernism is often called 1863 - the year of the opening in Paris of the Salon of the Rejected, where the works of artists were accepted. In a broad sense, modernism is “another art”, the main goal of which is the creation of original works based on inner freedom and a special vision of the world by the author and carrying new means of expression pictorial language, often accompanied by outrageousness and a certain challenge to established canons.

Modernism in literature

In literature, modernism replaced the classical novel. Instead of a biography, the reader was offered literary interpretations various philosophical, psychological and historical concepts (not to be confused with psychological, historical and philosophical novel, which are classical), a style called Stream of Consciousness (Eng. stream of consciousness), characterized by a deep penetration into the inner world of the characters. important place in the literature of modernism, the theme of understanding the war, the lost generation, occupies.

The main forerunners of modernism were: Dostoevsky (1821-81) ( Crime and Punishment (1866), Brothers Karamazov(1880); Whitman (1819-92) ( grass leaves) (1855-91); Baudelaire (1821-67) ( The flowers of Evil), A. Rimbaud (1854-91) ( Insights, 1874); Strindberg (1849-1912), especially his late plays.

Modernism did away with the old style in the first three decades of the 20th century and radically redefined possible literary forms. The main writers of this period:

Modernism in architecture

The expression "modernism in architecture" is often used as a synonym for the term "modern architecture", but the latter term is still broader. Modernism in architecture covers the work of the pioneers of modern architecture and their followers in the time period from the early 1920s to the 1970s-1980s (in Europe), when new trends emerged in architecture.

In specialized literature, the term "architectural modernism" corresponds to the English terms " modern architecture», « modern movement" or " contemporary" used in the same context. The expression "modernism" is sometimes used as a synonym for the concept of "modern architecture"; or as the name of a style (in English literature - “ contemporary»).

Architectural modernism includes architectural trends such as European functionalism in the 1920s and 1930s, constructivism and rationalism in Russia in the 1920s, the Bauhaus movement in Germany, the architectural art deco style, international style, brutalism, organic architecture. Thus, each of these phenomena is one of the branches of a common tree, architectural modernism.

The main representatives of architectural modernism are the pioneers of modern architecture Frank Lloyd Wright, Walter Gropius, Richard Neutra, Ludwig Mies van Der Rohe, Le Corbusier, Alvar Aalto, Oscar Niemeyer, and some others.

Modernist trends in art

Criticism

The opponents of modernism were Maxim Gorky and Mikhail Lifshits.

see also

Write a review on the article "Modernism"

Notes

Literature

• Nilsson Niels Oke. Archaism and modernism // Poetry and painting: Collection of works in memory of N. I. Khardzhiev / Compilation and general edition of M. B. Meilakh and D. V. Sarabyanov. - M .: Languages ​​of Russian culture, 2000. - S. 75-82. - ISBN 5-7859-0074-2.

Links

• Lifshits M. A.

Middle Ages new time Modernism Contemporary art

An excerpt characterizing Modernism

Pierre was led into a lighted large dining room; a few minutes later steps were heard, and the princess and Natasha entered the room. Natasha was calm, although a stern expression, without a smile, was now again established on her face. Princess Marya, Natasha, and Pierre equally experienced that feeling of awkwardness that usually follows the end of a serious and heartfelt conversation. It is impossible to continue the previous conversation; it is shameful to talk about trifles, but it is unpleasant to be silent, because you want to talk, but it is as if you are pretending to be silent. They silently approached the table. The waiters pushed back and pulled up the chairs. Pierre unfolded the cold napkin and, deciding to break the silence, looked at Natasha and Princess Mary. Both, obviously, at the same time decided on the same thing: in both eyes, contentment with life shone and the recognition that, in addition to grief, there are also joys.
- Do you drink vodka, Count? - said Princess Marya, and these words suddenly dispersed the shadows of the past.
“Tell me about yourself,” said Princess Mary. “Such incredible miracles are being told about you.
“Yes,” Pierre answered with his now familiar smile of mild mockery. - They even tell me about such miracles, which I have never seen in a dream. Marya Abramovna invited me to her place and kept telling me what had happened to me, or was about to happen. Stepan Stepanitch also taught me how I should tell. In general, I noticed that being an interesting person is very calm (I now interesting person); They call me and they tell me.
Natasha smiled and wanted to say something.
“We were told,” Princess Mary interrupted her, “that you lost two million in Moscow. Is this true?
“And I became three times richer,” said Pierre. Pierre, despite the fact that his wife's debts and the need for buildings changed his affairs, continued to tell that he had become three times richer.
“What I have undoubtedly won,” he said, “is freedom…” he began seriously; but decided not to continue, noticing that this was too selfish a subject of conversation.
- Are you building?
- Yes, Savelich orders.
- Tell me, did you know about the death of the countess when you stayed in Moscow? - said Princess Mary, and immediately blushed, noticing that, making this question after his words that he was free, she attributed to his words such a meaning that they, perhaps, did not have.
“No,” answered Pierre, obviously not finding awkward the interpretation that Princess Mary gave to his mention of his freedom. - I learned this in Orel, and you can not imagine how it struck me. We were not exemplary spouses, ”he said quickly, looking at Natasha and noticing in her face the curiosity about how he would respond about his wife. “But this death shocked me terribly. When two people quarrel, both are always to blame. And one's own guilt suddenly becomes terribly heavy in front of a person who is no longer there. And then such a death ... without friends, without consolation. I’m very, very sorry for her, ”he finished, and with pleasure noticed the joyful approval on Natasha’s face.
“Yes, here you are again a bachelor and a groom,” said Princess Mary.
Pierre suddenly blushed crimson and for a long time tried not to look at Natasha. When he ventured to look at her, her face was cold, stern, and even contemptuous, as it seemed to him.
“But you definitely saw and spoke with Napoleon, as we were told?” - said Princess Mary.
Pierre laughed.
- Never, never. It always seems to everyone that being a prisoner means being visiting Napoleon. Not only have I not seen him, but I have not heard of him either. I was in much worse society.
Dinner was over, and Pierre, who at first refused to tell about his captivity, gradually became involved in this story.
“But is it true that you stayed behind to kill Napoleon?” Natasha asked him, smiling slightly. - I then guessed when we met you at the Sukharev Tower; remember?
Pierre admitted that this was true, and from this question, gradually guided by the questions of Princess Mary and especially Natasha, he became involved in a detailed account of his adventures.
At first he spoke with that mocking, meek look that he now had on people, and especially on himself; but then, when he came to the story of the horrors and sufferings that he saw, he, without noticing it, got carried away and began to speak with the restrained excitement of a man who experiences strong impressions in his memory.
Princess Mary, with a meek smile, looked first at Pierre, then at Natasha. She saw only Pierre and his kindness in this whole story. Natasha, leaning on her arm, with a constantly changing expression, along with the story, watched Pierre, not looking away for a minute, apparently experiencing with him what he was telling. Not only her glance, but exclamations and short questions, which she did, showed Pierre that from what he was telling, she understood exactly what he wanted to convey. It was evident that she understood not only what he was saying, but also what he would like and could not express in words. About his episode with a child and a woman, for whose protection he was taken, Pierre told this way:
- It was a terrible sight, the children were abandoned, some were on fire ... They pulled out a child in front of me ... women, from whom they pulled things, pulled out earrings ...
Pierre blushed and hesitated.
- Then a patrol arrived, and all those who did not rob, all the men were taken away. And me.
- You, right, do not tell everything; you must have done something ... - said Natasha and was silent, - good.
Pierre went on talking. When he talked about the execution, he wanted to avoid the terrible details; but Natasha demanded that he should not miss anything.
Pierre began to talk about Karataev (he had already got up from the table and was walking around, Natasha followed him with her eyes) and stopped.
“No, you cannot understand what I have learned from this illiterate fool.
“No, no, speak,” said Natasha. – Where is he?
“He was killed almost in front of me. - And Pierre began to tell the last time of their retreat, Karataev's illness (his voice trembled incessantly) and his death.
Pierre told his adventures as he had never told them to anyone before, as he himself had never yet remembered them. He now saw, as it were, a new meaning in all that he had experienced. Now, when he told all this to Natasha, he experienced that rare pleasure that women give when listening to a man - not smart women who, while listening, try or remember what they are told in order to enrich their minds and, on occasion, retell what or adapt what is being told to your own and communicate as soon as possible your clever speeches worked out in your small mental economy; but the pleasure that real women give, gifted with the ability to choose and absorb into themselves all the best that is only in the manifestations of a man. Natasha, not knowing it herself, was all attention: she did not miss a word, not a fluctuation of her voice, not a look, not a twitch of a facial muscle, not a gesture of Pierre. On the fly, she caught the word that had not yet been spoken and directly brought it into her open heart, guessing secret meaning all the spiritual work of Pierre.
Princess Mary understood the story, sympathized with it, but now she saw something else that absorbed all her attention; she saw the possibility of love and happiness between Natasha and Pierre. And for the first time this thought came to her filled her soul with joy.
It was three in the morning. Waiters with sad and stern faces came to change the candles, but no one noticed them.
Pierre finished his story. Natasha, with sparkling, animated eyes, continued to look stubbornly and attentively at Pierre, as if wanting to understand something else that he had not expressed, perhaps. Pierre, in bashful and happy embarrassment, occasionally glanced at her and thought of what to say now in order to transfer the conversation to another subject. Princess Mary was silent. It never occurred to anyone that it was three o'clock in the morning and that it was time for bed.
“They say: misfortunes, suffering,” said Pierre. - Yes, if now, this minute they told me: do you want to remain what you were before captivity, or first survive all this? For God's sake, once again captured and horse meat. We think how we will be thrown out of the usual path, that everything is gone; And here only begins a new, good. As long as there is life, there is happiness. There are many, many ahead. I’m telling you this,” he said, turning to Natasha.

At the beginning of the 20th century, traditional forms of art, such as realism and romanticism, could no longer convey all the realities of the new life. As the Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset aptly put it, the new art was established on the "absolute negation of the old." To designate this period of culture, as well as the totality of new trends in art that have existed since late XIX Art. and, at least until the 50-60s of the XX century, most researchers use the concept of "modernism".

Modernism - this is a common name for the literary trends and trends of the twentieth century, which are characterized by attempts to display new phenomena in the life of society with the help of new artistic means.

Modernists, unlike realists, defended the special mission of the artist, who is able to foresee the path of development of a new culture. Realistic means of expression are, in their opinion, outdated and not convincing enough to convey the state of mind of a person who finds himself alone with problems in this hostile world. At the same time, the American scientist John Miller emphasized that “modernism can be considered a rebellion against “realism”, but not against “reality”. Modernists proclaimed the value and self-sufficiency of an individual, looked for special artistic means to display the whole complex of contradictions of the twentieth century. They were not characterized by an appeal to the existing reality, at the same time they rejected a romantic escape from life's realities, they were not interested in object world, they were fascinated by the "creation of a new reality", and the more implausible it was, the more certain it arose in the imagination of modernists.

In the works of modernism, reality found its embodiment with the help of new artistic techniques, for example, such as " mindflow”, which directly conveys the process of the character’s inner speech during his encounter with reality, or “montage”, which, like in cinema, is based on the combination of various themes, images and fragments and is a way of knowing the world.

Among the first representatives of modernism in world literature were the Irish James Joyce, French Marcel Proust and an Austrian Franz Kafka. They own a number of important creative discoveries, on the basis of which entire literary trends and trends later began to appear. material from the site

In the poetry of the first half of the twentieth century, the same changes took place as in prose. Poetic experiments of the Spaniard Federico Garcia Lorca, French Fields of Eluard, Anglo-American Thomas Eliot, Austrians George Trakl and Rainer Maria Rilke, Czech Vitezslava Nezvala, Poles Yuliana Tuvima and Galczynski's constants, as well as many others contributed to the changes art form lyrics. Influenced by synthesis various kinds art poetry became more and more elegant. Figurative (visual) poetry also appeared as the embodiment of the long-standing dream of many poets, musicians and artists about the synthesis of the arts. French lyricist Guillaume Apollinaire even came up with a special term for such texts — “ calligram" (from the Greek. callis- handsome and gramma- writing). The poet proclaimed: "Calligram" is a comprehensive artistry, the advantage of which is that it creates a visual lyric that has hitherto been almost unknown. This art is fraught with enormous possibilities, the synthesis of music, painting, literature can become its peak. Such a design of the text, in his opinion, is necessary “so that the reader perceives the entire poem at a glance, just as a conductor covers the notes of the score with one glance.”

In an effort to penetrate the reader's subconscious, modernist poets gravitated more and more towards subjectivism, the image-symbol, encryption, actively used the free (without a certain size and rhyme) form of the poem — vers libre.

Didn't find what you were looking for? Use the search

On this page, material on the topics:

• concept of modernism
• briefly about modernism in literature.
• short report on modernism
• modernism in Russian literature essay
• juan gris book 1911

The twentieth century, like no other, passed under the sign of the competition of many trends in art. These directions are completely different, they compete with each other, replace each other, take into account the achievements of each other. The only thing that unites them is the opposition to classical realistic art, attempts to find their own ways of reflecting reality. These directions are united by the conditional term "modernism". The term "modernism" itself (from "modern" - modern) arose in the romantic aesthetics of A. Schlegel, but then it did not take root. But it came into use a hundred years later, at the end of the 19th century, and began to designate at first strange, unusual aesthetic systems. Today, "modernism" is a term with an extremely broad meaning, in fact, standing in two oppositions: on the one hand, it is "everything that is not realism", on the other (in last years) is something that is not “postmodernism”. Thus, the concept of modernism reveals itself negatively - by the method of "contradiction". Naturally, with this approach, there is no question of any structural clarity.

There are a lot of modernist trends, we will focus only on the most significant:

Impressionism (from the French "impression" - impression) - a trend in art of the last third of the 19th - early 20th centuries, which originated in France and then spread throughout the world. Representatives of impressionism sought to capturethe real world in its mobility and variability, convey their fleeting impressions. The Impressionists themselves called themselves “new realists”, the term appeared later, after 1874, when the now famous work of C. Monet “Sunrise. Impression". At first, the term "impressionism" had a negative connotation, expressing bewilderment and even neglect of critics, but the artists themselves accepted it "to spite the critics", and over time, the negative connotations disappeared.

In painting, impressionism had a huge impact on the entire subsequent development of art.

In literature, the role of impressionism was more modest, as it did not develop as an independent movement. However, the aesthetics of impressionism had an impact on the work of many authors, including in Russia. Many poems by K. Balmont, I. Annensky and others are marked by trust in “transiency”. In addition, impressionism has affected the coloring of many writers, for example, its features are noticeable in the palette of B. Zaitsev.

However, as a holistic trend, impressionism did not appear in literature, becoming a characteristic background of symbolism and neorealism.

Symbolism - one of the most powerful areas of modernism, rather diffuse in its attitudes and searches. Symbolism began to take shape in France in the 70s of the XIX century and quickly spread throughout Europe.

By the 90s, symbolism had become a pan-European trend, with the exception of Italy, where, for reasons that are not entirely clear, it did not take root.

In Russia, symbolism began to manifest itself at the end of the 80s, and as a conscious trend it took shape by the mid-90s.

By the time of formation and by the peculiarities of the worldview in Russian symbolism, it is customary to distinguish two main stages. The poets who debuted in the 1890s are called “senior symbolists” (V. Bryusov, K. Balmont, D. Merezhkovsky, Z. Gippius, F. Sologub, and others).

In the 1900s, a number of new names appeared that markedly changed the face of symbolism: A. Blok, A. Bely, Vyach. Ivanov and others. The accepted designation of the “second wave” of symbolism is “young symbolism”. It is important to bear in mind that the “senior” and “junior” symbolists were separated not so much by age (for example, Vyach. Ivanov tends to be “older” by age), but by the difference in worldviews and the direction of creativity.

The work of the older symbolists more fits into the canon of neo-romanticism. Characteristic motives are loneliness, the chosenness of the poet, the imperfection of the world. In the verses of K. Balmont, the influence of impressionist technique is noticeable, early Bryusov has many technical experiments, verbal exoticism.

The Young Symbolists created a more holistic and original concept, which was based on the fusion of life and art, on the idea of ​​improving the world according to aesthetic laws. The mystery of being cannot be expressed by an ordinary word, it is only guessed in the system of symbols intuitively found by the poet. The concept of mystery, the non-manifestation of meanings became the basis of symbolist aesthetics. Poetry, according to Vyach. Ivanov, there is a "secret writing of the inexpressible". The socio-aesthetic illusion of young symbolism was that through the "prophetic word" it is possible to change the world. Therefore, they saw themselves not only as poets, but also as demiurges, that is, the creators of the world. The unfulfilled utopia led in the early 1910s to a total crisis of symbolism, to its disintegration as complete system, although the "echoes" of symbolist aesthetics can be heard for a long time.

Regardless of the realization of social utopia, symbolism has greatly enriched Russian and world poetry. The names of A. Blok, I. Annensky, Vyach. Ivanov, A. Bely and other prominent symbolist poets - the pride of Russian literature.

Acmeism(from the Greek "akme" - "highest degree, peak, flowering, flowering time") - a literary movement that arose in the early tenth years of the 20th century in Russia. Historically, acmeism was a reaction to the crisis of symbolism. Unlike the "secret" word of the Symbolists, the Acmeists proclaimed the value of the material, the plastic objectivity of images, the accuracy and sophistication of the word.

The formation of acmeism is closely connected with the activities of the organization "Workshop of Poets", the central figures of which were N. Gumilyov and S. Gorodetsky. O. Mandelstam, the early A. Akhmatova, V. Narbut and others also joined acmeism. Later, however, Akhmatova questioned the aesthetic unity of acmeism and even the legitimacy of the term itself. But one can hardly agree with her on this: the aesthetic unity of the acmeist poets, at least in the early years, is beyond doubt. And the point is not only in the program articles of N. Gumilyov and O. Mandelstam, where the aesthetic credo of the new trend is formulated, but above all in the practice itself. Acmeism in a strange way combined a romantic craving for the exotic, for wandering with the sophistication of the word, which made it related to the baroque culture.

Favorite images of acmeism - exotic beauty (for example, at any period of his work, Gumilyov has poems about exotic animals: giraffe, jaguar, rhinoceros, kangaroo, etc.), images of culture(with Gumilyov, Akhmatova, Mandelstam), the love theme is solved very plastically. Often a substantive detail becomes a psychological sign(for example, a glove at Gumilyov or Akhmatova).

At first the world appears to the acmeists as refined, but "toy", emphatically unreal. For example, the famous early poem by O. Mandelstam sounds like this:

Burning with gold leaf

There are Christmas trees in the woods;

Toy wolves in the bushes

They look with terrible eyes.

Oh, my sadness,

Oh my quiet freedom

And the inanimate sky

Always laughing crystal!

Later, the paths of the Acmeists diverged, little was left of the former unity, although the loyalty to the ideals of high culture, the cult of poetic mastery, was preserved by most poets to the end. Many came out of acmeism major artists the words. Russian literature has the right to be proud of the names of Gumilyov, Mandelstam and Akhmatova.

Futurism(from Latin "futurus" "- future). If symbolism, as mentioned above, did not take root in Italy, then futurism, on the contrary, is of Italian origin. The "father" of futurism is considered to be the Italian poet and art theorist F. Marinetti, who proposed a shocking and harsh theory of the new art. In fact, Marinetti was talking about the mechanization of art, about depriving him of spirituality. Art should become akin to a "play on a mechanical piano", all verbal delights are superfluous, spirituality is an obsolete myth.

Marinetti's ideas exposed the crisis of classical art and were picked up by "rebellious" aesthetic groups in different countries.

In Russia, the first futurists were the artists brothers Burliuks. David Burliuk founded the colony of futurists "Gilea" in his estate. He managed to rally around himself various, unlike any other poets and artists: Mayakovsky, Khlebnikov, Kruchenykh, Elena Guro and others.

The first manifestos of the Russian futurists were frankly shocking in nature (even the name of the manifesto “Slap in the face of public taste” speaks for itself), however, even with this, the Russian futurists did not accept Marinetti’s mechanism from the very beginning, setting themselves other tasks. Marinetti's arrival in Russia caused disappointment among Russian poets and further emphasized the differences.

The Futurists set out to create a new poetics, a new system of aesthetic values. The virtuoso play with the word, the aestheticization of everyday objects, the speech of the street - all this excited, shocked, caused a resonance. The catchy, visible nature of the image annoyed some, delighted others:

Every word,

even a joke

which he vomits with a burning mouth,

thrown out like a naked prostitute

from a burning brothel.

(V. Mayakovsky, "A Cloud in Pants")

Today it can be recognized that much of the work of the Futurists did not stand the test of time, is only of historical interest, but in general, the influence of the experiments of the Futurists on the entire subsequent development of art (and not only verbal, but also pictorial, musical) turned out to be colossal.

Futurism had several currents within itself, either converging or conflicting: cubo-futurism, ego-futurism (Igor Severyanin), the Centrifuga group (N. Aseev, B. Pasternak).

Very different from each other, these groups converged in a new understanding of the essence of poetry, in a craving for verbal experiments. Russian futurism gave the world several poets of enormous scale: Vladimir Mayakovsky, Boris Pasternak, Velimir Khlebnikov.

Existentialism (from Latin "exsistentia" - existence). Existentialism cannot be called a literary trend in the full sense of the word, it is rather a philosophical movement, a concept of man, which has manifested itself in many works of literature. The origins of this trend can be found in the 19th century in the mystical philosophy of S. Kierkegaard, but existentialism received its real development already in the 20th century. Of the most significant existentialist philosophers, one can name G. Marcel, K. Jaspers, M. Heidegger, J.-P. Sartre and others. Existentialism is a very diffuse system, with many variations and varieties. However, the common features that allow us to talk about some unity are the following:

1. Recognition of the personal meaning of being . In other words, the world and man in their primary essence are personal principles. Error traditional look, according to existentialists, lies in the fact that human life is considered as if "from the outside", objectively, and the uniqueness of human life lies precisely in the fact that it there is and that she my. That is why G. Marcel proposed to consider the relationship of man and the world not according to the scheme "He is the World", but according to the scheme "I - You". My attitude towards another person is only special case this comprehensive scheme.

M. Heidegger said the same thing a little differently. In his opinion, it is necessary to change the basic question about a person. We're trying to answer, what there is a person", but it is necessary to ask " who there is a person." This radically changes the entire coordinate system, since in the familiar world we will not see the grounds for a unique “self” for each person.

2. Recognition of the so-called "border situation" when this "self" becomes directly accessible. In ordinary life, this “I” is not directly accessible, but in the face of death, against the background of non-existence, it manifests itself. The concept of the boundary situation had a huge impact on the literature of the 20th century - both among writers directly associated with the theory of existentialism (A. Camus, J.-P. Sartre), and authors who are generally far from this theory, for example, on the idea of ​​a boundary situation almost all the plots of Vasil Bykov's military stories are built.

3. Recognition of a person as a project . In other words, the original "I" given to us forces us to make the only possible choice every time. And if a person's choice turns out to be unworthy, the person begins to crumble, no matter what external reasons he may justify.

Existentialism, we repeat, did not take shape as a literary trend, but it had a huge impact on modern world culture. In this sense, it can be considered an aesthetic and philosophical trend of the 20th century.

Surrealism(French "surrealisme", lit. - "superrealism") - a powerful trend in painting and literature of the 20th century, however, which left the greatest mark in painting, primarily due to the authority famous artist Salvador Dali. Scandalous famous phrase Dali, with all his outrageousness, clearly sets the accents about his disagreements with other leaders of the “surrealist is me” direction. Without the figure of Salvador Dali, surrealism probably would not have had such an impact on the culture of the 20th century.

At the same time, the founder of this trend is not Dali at all, and not even an artist, but just the writer Andre Breton. Surrealism took shape in the 1920s as a left-wing movement, but markedly different from futurism. Surrealism reflected the social, philosophical, psychological and aesthetic paradoxes of European consciousness. Europe is tired of social tensions, of traditional forms of art, of hypocrisy in ethics. This "protest" wave gave rise to surrealism.

The authors of the first declarations and works of surrealism (Paul Eluard, Louis Aragon, Andre Breton, etc.) set the goal of "liberating" creativity from all conventions. Great importance was attached to unconscious impulses, random images, which, however, were then subjected to careful artistic processing.

Freudianism, which actualized the erotic instincts of man, had a serious influence on the aesthetics of surrealism.

In the late 20s and 30s, surrealism played a very prominent role in European culture, but the literary component of this trend gradually weakened. Major writers and poets departed from surrealism, in particular, Eluard and Aragon. André Breton's attempts to revive the movement after the war were unsuccessful, while Surrealism gave rise to a much more powerful tradition in painting.

Postmodernism - a powerful literary trend of our time, very motley, contradictory and fundamentally open to any innovations. The philosophy of postmodernism was formed mainly in the school of French aesthetic thought (J. Derrida, R. Barthes, J. Kristeva, etc.), but today it has spread far beyond France.

At the same time, many philosophical origins and first works refer to the American tradition, and the term “postmodernism” itself was first used in relation to literature by the American literary critic of Arab origin, Ihab Hassan (1971).

The most important feature of postmodernism is the fundamental rejection of any centricity and any value hierarchy. All texts are fundamentally equal in rights and able to come into contact with each other. There is no art high and low, modern and outdated. From the point of view of culture, they all exist in a certain “now”, and since the value chain is fundamentally destroyed, no text has any advantages over another.

Almost any text of any era comes into play in the works of postmodernists. The boundary of one's own and another's word is also destroyed, so interspersed texts are possible famous authors into a new work. This principle has been called centonality principle» (centon - a game genre when a poem is made up of different lines of other authors).

Postmodernism is radically different from all other aesthetic systems. In various schemes (for example, in the well-known schemes of Ihab Hasan, V. Brainin-Passek, etc.), dozens of distinctive signs of postmodernism are noted. This is a setting for the game, conformism, recognition of the equality of cultures, a setting for secondary (i.e., postmodernism does not aim to say something new about the world), orientation for commercial success, recognition of the infinity of the aesthetic (i.e., everything can be art) etc.

The attitude towards postmodernism both among writers and literary critics is ambiguous: from complete acceptance to categorical denial.

In the last decade, more and more often they talk about the crisis of postmodernism, remind about the responsibility and spirituality of culture.

For example, P. Bourdieu considers postmodernism a variant of "radical chic", spectacular and comfortable at the same time, and calls not to destroy science (and in the context, it is clear - art) "in the fireworks of nihilism" .

Sharp attacks against postmodern nihilism are also undertaken by many American theorists. In particular, the book Against Deconstruction by J. M. Ellis, which contains a critical analysis of postmodernist attitudes, caused a resonance.

At the same time, it must be admitted that so far there are no new interesting trends that offer other aesthetic solutions.

"Clarissa, or The story of a young lady, containing the most important questions privacy and showing, in particular, the calamities that may result from the wrong conduct of both parents and children in relation to marriage. Now, however, this scheme is much more complicated. It is customary to talk about pre-symbolism, early symbolism, mystical symbolism, post-symbolism, etc. However, this does not cancel the naturally formed division into older and younger.