Literary Modernism
In Our Time
BBC
4.6 • 9.9K Ratings
🗓️ 26 April 2001
⏱️ 42 minutes
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Summary
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss literary modernism. In James Joyce’s Ulysses he writes, “Greater love than this, he said, no man hath that a man may lay down his wife for a friend. Go thou and do likewise. Thus, or words to that effect, saith Zarathustra, sometime regius Professor of French letters to the University of Oxtail”. It is profane, it gets the Bible wrong on purpose, it nods in the direction of Nietzsche and it doesn’t quite seem to make sense - it must be modernism! The literary movement that embraced Joyce, DH Lawrence, TS Eliot, Virginia Woolf and many others in the early decades of the twentieth century.
Modernism claimed to be revolutionary, and has been accused of being wilfully obscure. Some modernist writers campaigned for the rites of working women, others embraced fascism. What were the movements defining features, and do the questions that exercised the genre at the start of the twentieth century have relevance to us at the beginning of the twenty-first?
With John Carey, Merton Professor of English Literature at Oxford University; Laura Marcus, Reader in English at the University of Sussex; Valentine Cunningham, Professor of English Language and Literature at the University of Oxford.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Thanks for downloading the In Our Time podcast. For more details about In Our Time and for our terms of use |
| 0:05.4 | Please go to bbc.co.uk forward slash radio for I hope you enjoy the program |
| 0:11.4 | Hello, in James Joyce Ulysses. He writes |
| 0:14.2 | Greater love than this. He said no man hath that a man may lay down his wife for a friend |
| 0:20.0 | Go down do likewise. That's a word to that effect. Seth Zarathruster. Sometimes read your professor of French letters to the University of Oxtail |
| 0:27.3 | It's profane. It gets the Bible wrong on purpose. It nods in the direction of grand philosophy |
| 0:31.9 | It doesn't quite seem to make ordinary sense. It could be called an example of modernism |
| 0:36.8 | Modernism claimed to be revolutionary and has been accused of being willfully obscure |
| 0:41.0 | Some modernist writers campaigned for the rights of working women are there's embraced fascism |
| 0:45.6 | What were the movements defining features and do the questions that exercised the modernists at the start of the 20th century |
| 0:52.0 | Have relevance to us at the beginning of the 21st with me to discuss literary modernism is John Carey |
| 0:57.8 | Merton professor of English literature talks at university and also of the most controversial text on modernism in recent years |
| 1:03.8 | Called the intellectuals and the masses also with us is Laura Marcus reader English at the University of Sussex and Valentine Cunningham |
| 1:11.0 | Professor of English language and literature at the University of Oxford John Carey at modernism a very loose term |
| 1:17.8 | When you see starting and what are its most obvious defining characteristics? |
| 1:23.5 | Well, you could regard that as a question about time |
| 1:27.6 | That's to say you you might say that modernism began in say the 1890s coming after East Theticism and went on |
| 1:36.0 | Perhaps to the end of the 1920s or you could regard it in terms of figures |
| 1:41.2 | You could say modernism is what people like Elliott Joyce pound Virginia Woolf did |
| 1:47.4 | But if you try and do it as you're suggesting by theme or something that holds all these together |
| 1:52.5 | That is very difficult. I suppose you might take though the notion of |
| 1:58.9 | fragmentation |
... |
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