Amanda+C

 1. Modernism is everything that we consider modern. It is any literary work, movie, or song that we believe pertains to this day and age and the feelings of this day and age towards the world. Modernism is said to be new, innovative, and dark. It is work that isn’t afraid to show the bleak side of the times we live in today, unlike works of the past that have added a light to the dark times in their work. It isn’t afraid to say this is what I think of the world and I don’t care if you agree. For example the works were going to read in class are full of violence and the things that go on everyday but that no one talked about before. Modernism if what we think of the world today. Modernism is everything we feel today. -Amanda Countryman

3. In the poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T.S Eliot there are many things tying it to modernism. One main idea of modernism that stands out seems to be the view that he is not like the writers and poets of before and that his style is different. In one part of the poem Eliot says “No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be” (Eliot). Eliot is saying that he is not Hamlet and would never want to be, he wants to be his own person. Another line from this stanza states what he thinks of the works from the past. He says “Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse” (Eliot). This sentence shows how he thinks that the famous works of the past are just filled with overwritten sentences and sound fancy but are as he puts it a bit obtuse. Both of these sentences show how he is proud to be a modern writer and not like those of the past. His poem is a great example of modernism. -Amanda Countryman

4. Existentialism is the backbone of the modern era and everything that modernism is. To be an existentialist it is said that one must see what is in them and not what is in others. To be an existentialist one great writer of the modern era said, “Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself. Such is the first principle of existentialism” (Sarte, Jean-Paul). The inward and what we make of ourselves is the definition of existentialism. In many works of the modern age this way of thinking is clearly shown. Many characters are struggling to find themselves in the world and to define who they are, not what the world defines them as. With this common theme in works it is hard to deny the self worth is a key component into becoming an existentialist. Existentialism is defining ones self and making ones self. -Amanda Countryman