Concetti Chiave
- The 20th-century cultural movement was widespread in Europe and the USA, emphasizing unconventionality and breaking with tradition.
- Key figures like Picasso and Matisse in painting explored the distortion of shapes and subjective interpretations of reality.
- The modern novel departed from traditional storytelling by focusing on character introspection and the human mind.
- Time in modern novels is subjective, using flashbacks and non-linear sequences instead of chronological order.
- Modern novels often feature an unobtrusive narrator, allowing characters to present themselves directly to the reader.
What was the cultural movement of the 20th century?
It’s a cultural movement spread in the first two decades of the 20th century not only in Europe but also in the USA. It broke with the past so with the tradition and the key-word is “unconventionality”.
This movement develops mainly in painting with Picasso, Matisse, Kandinsky and in particular they shared:
- distortion of shapes, so different point of view (Picasso)
- The breaking down with the limitations in space and time so the introduction of new theories about the time (
- they preferred the interior monologue so the stream of consciousness and not the objectivity of the reality, but only the analysis of the human mind (
- the collapse of certainty so the reality presented is no more objective but subjective
Features of the modern novel
The modern novel broke up with the past so with the traditional novel and the main features are:
- The narrator is unobtrusive so characters introduced themselves
- the lack of plot, so it deals only with the characters’ mind with thoughts, feelings, emotions, sensations, and as a result we have the birth of a
- we have a new concept of time, before we have past, present and future but now we have a mix of past, present and future with flashback and flash for award. Also the time isn’t anymore chronological, ordered, measured by the clock and objective but is only subjective
- we can find the interior monologue that is the verbal expression of the stream of consciousness (a psychic phenomenon, these words are introduced for the first time by William James, an American psychologist, that wanted to describe the continuous flow of thoughts that characterize the human mind like the continuous flow of a river)
- no moral aim and no realism
- finally we have the impersonality of the narrator that isn’t an intermediator between the reader and the characters because the latter presented themselves
Domande da interrogazione
- What characterized the cultural movement of the early 20th century?
- What role did the stream of consciousness play in the modern novel?
The cultural movement of the early 20th century was marked by unconventionality, breaking away from tradition. It was prominent in painting, with artists like Picasso and Matisse, focusing on the distortion of shapes, subjective reality, and the stream of consciousness.
The stream of consciousness in the modern novel served as a verbal expression of characters' continuous flow of thoughts, as described by William James. It highlighted the subjective nature of reality and the inner workings of the human mind, moving away from objective storytelling.
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