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I. The Culture of Modernity: Literature
Revolution
- a. Revolution in physics and psychology was paralleled by revolution in lit and arts
- Writers and artists (1914) rejected traditional literary and artistic styles that dominated European cultural life since Renaissance-à Modernism
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Naturalism
- i. Lit was dominated by this, which accepted the material world as real and felt that lit should be real
- ii. By addressing social problems, writers could contribute to an objective understanding of the world
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Continuation
- i. Although it was a continuation of realism, it lacked the underlying note of liberal optimism about people and society that was prevalent in the 1850s
- 1. Naturalists wre pessimistic about Europe’s future and portrayed characters caught in the grip of forces beyond their control
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Novels of French writer
- i. Novels of French writer Emile Zola
- 1. Showed how alcoholism and different environments affected people’s lives
- a. He read Origin of Species and was impressed by its emphasis on the struggle for survival and the importance of environment and heredity
- i. Themese were central to his Rougon-Macquart, a 20-volume series of novels on the “natual and social history of a family”
- 1. He maintained that the artist must analyze and dissect life as a biologist would do an organism
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Second half of 19th
- i. Second half of 19th: golden age of Russian lit
- 1. High point in works of Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoevsky
- a. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
- i. Played out against historical background of Napoleon’s invasion o fRussia in 1812
- ii. Realistic in vivid description sof military lfie and character portrayal
- iii. Each person delineated and analyzed psychologically
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Dostoevsky
- a. Dostoevsky combined narrative skill and acute psychological and moral observation with profound insights into human nature
- i. Maintained that the major problem of his age was a loss of spiritual belief
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Western people
- 1. Western people were attempting to gain salvation through the construction of a materialist paradise built only by human reason and human will
- 2. He feared that the failure to incorporate spirit would result in total tyranny
- ii. his own life experiences led him to believe that only through suffering and faith could he be purified
- 1. evident in Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov
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Symbolism``
- i. Reacted against Realism
- 1. Primarily interested in writing poetry, they beleivd tha tan objective knowledge of the world was not possible
- a. External world wasn’t real but only a collection of symbols htat reflected the true reality of the individual human mind
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