Modernism and Avant Garde

This subject is not offered in 2012.

None

This subject examines the movement in literature and other arts that lasted from roughly 1890 to roughly 1930 and which we know as modernism. It will provide an overview of the social and intellectual context of modernism, and of its relation to other social movements. Rather than trying to survey every major modernist writer, however, it will work with close readings of a small number of key figures: the poets Yeats, Pound and Stevens, the novelist Joyce (on whose Ulysses, one of the central modernist texts, we will spend three weeks), and two figures who work in deliberately indeterminate genres, Breton and Stein. In addition, in the spirit of modernisms transcendence of conventional boundaries between art forms, we will spend time looking at Cubism and Surrealism, and at film (the work of Eisenstein and Chaplin), and we will pay close attention to the manifesto, one of the key modernist genres.

Students who complete this subject will:

• acquire a broad knowledge of the modernist movement across several media, and a more detailed familiarity with a small group of key modernist writers, artists and film-makers;
• have an understanding of some of the theoretical underpinnings of the modernist movement and of its relation to broader social developments;
• have developed analytic skills in the close reading of difficult texts, and sophisticated explanatory skills to deal with the complexity of the aesthetic and social issues involved in studying this movement.

Written work of 4000 words comprising two essays, the first of 1500 words (40%), due mid-semester, and the second of 2500 words (60%), due at the end of semester. This subject has a minimum hurdle requirement of 75% attendance and regular participation in tutorials. Assessment submitted late without an approved extension will be penalised at 10% per day. In-class tasks missed without approval will not be marked. All pieces of written work must be submitted to pass this subject.

• Selected Poems (Yeats)
• Selected Poems (Pound)
• Selected Poems (Stevens)
• Ulysses (Joyce)
• Nadja (Breton)
• Selected Writings (Stein)
• Modernism: An Anthology of Sources and Documents (Kolocotroni et al., ed.)

• Illuminations (Benjamin)
• Modernism: 1890-1930 (Bradbury and McFarlane)
• Theory of the Avantgarde (Burger)
• The Modern Tradition (Ellmann and Feidelson, ed)
• The Pound Era (Kenner)

This subject potentially can be taken as a breadth subject component for the following courses:

• Bachelor of Biomedicine
• Bachelor of Commerce
• Bachelor of Environments
• Bachelor of Music
• Bachelor of Science
• Bachelor of Engineering

You should visit learn more about breadth subjects and read the breadth requirements for your degree, and should discuss your choice with your student adviser, before deciding on your subjects.

Students who successfully complete this subject will:

• be able to apply research skills and critical methods to a field of inquiry;

• be able to develop persuasive arguments on a given topic;

• be able to communicate oral and written arguments and ideas effectively and articulately.