Symbolism is the earliest and most influential school in European and American modernist literature. It originated in the middle of19th century, prevailed in the 1920s and 40s, and its influence continues to this day. People generally regard its formation as the dividing line between European and American modern literature and European and American classicism. The word symbolism was formally put forward by the French poet Jean Moraes in le figaro on September 1886 according to the new skills and trends in the poems of Baudelaire, Arthur Bo Han and paul verlaine. It advocates that poets get rid of naturalistic literature, pay attention to the tendency of describing external things, and strive to explore the "highest truth" in their own hearts, demanding that abstract ideas be given concrete and perceptible forms. The Flower of Evil, a collection of poems published by French poet Baudelaire in 1857, is generally regarded as the beginning of symbolism. In terms of subject matter, this collection of poems takes the evil of society and human nature as the object of artistic beauty (the flower of evil means that poets can create beautiful things from ugly things), reveals the evil phenomena such as beggars, prostitutes and wars in the "hell" of modern Paris, and breaks through the frame of romantic affairs in the later period; In terms of artistic methods, Baudelaire developed the Swedish mystic philosopher Amnuel Swedenburg's "correspondence theory", that is, "there is a mysterious correspondence between all things in nature, and there is a mutual correspondence between visible things and invisible spirits". He believes that external things are closely related to people's inner world, mutual induction and mutual compatibility, and regards landscape and vegetation as "symbolic forests" that convey information to people. Poets can hint at the subtle inner world through colorful images.
There are two different opinions about the emergence of the word expressionism: some people said it was 190 1 at the mathis Art Exhibition held in Paris, others said it was 19 1 in the painting review of the German magazine The Tempest, and later it was19/kloc-. Expressionism first appeared in painting as a counterattack against impressionism represented by Monet. It is not satisfied with the impressionist's description of external objective things (such as light and shadow), and demands to break through the appearance of things to express the inner essence of things, to break through the description of human behavior to reveal the inner soul of people, and to break through the description of temporary phenomena to express eternal quality or truth. Influenced by Kant's philosophy, Bergson's intuitionism and Freud's psychoanalysis, expressionism emphasizes describing people's subjective world, intuition and subconscious, and reflects the real world in a special way. Swedish playwright August Strindberg is a pioneer of European expressionism. His trilogy Go to Damascus is the earliest expressionist drama in Europe. It describes the struggle between man and fate, the opposite sex, the church and himself in the form of monologues. The famous Ghost Sonata makes the dead, the dead and the living appear at the same time, revealing the relationship between people in capitalist society.
Futurism originated in Italy, then spread to Russia, and then spread to France, Britain, Poland and other European countries.
1909 On February 20th, the Italian poet and dramatist Marina published the Manifesto of Futurism in le figaro, announcing the birth of Futurism. The following year, Marina published the Manifesto of Futurism Literature, which further put forward the theoretical proposition of this school.
In terms of content, futurism believes that it is necessary to create a "new art of the future" in view of the great changes brought to the objective world by the rapid development of science and industry at the beginning of the twentieth century and the fact that machines and technology, speed and competition have become the main characteristics of the times. Literature and art should change from reflecting stagnant and lifeless phenomena to "praising enterprising movement" and "machine civilization", praising the turbulent life of capitalist cities, "beauty of speed" and "beauty of strength", being brave in exploring the unknown and facing the future. Based on this ideological tendency, futurists also believe that war, violence and terror are necessary means to destroy old traditions and build a new future, so they advocate praising all wars and even claim that war is a "great symphony" and "the only way to keep an honest life in the world". Formally, Futurism believes that the movement of the objective world is an abstract factor divorced from human society, and takes "speed" and "strength" as the yardstick of beauty, so it inevitably falls into irrationalism and nihilism. They advocate that poetry based on "free and uninhibited writing" can express various forms, speeds and combinations at will, and that a series of "analogy", "induction" and "intermittent imagination" can express the author's vague and mysterious feelings.
Stream of consciousness is a widely used writing skill in modern western literary creation. In the 1920s-40s, it rose in Britain, America, France and other countries, and formed an influential school.
The name of stream of consciousness first appeared in the paper "On Several Problems Neglected by Introspective Psychology" by American psychologist william james 1844. In this article, he pointed out that people's thinking activities are not the connection of fragments, but a continuous "flow", that is, "the flow of thoughts, the flow of consciousness, or the flow of subjective life". The French philosopher henri bergson (1859- 194 1) put forward a similar view. He once said: "Truth" exists in "the inseparable fluctuation of consciousness." Stream of consciousness is produced under the direct influence of this modern psychology. The emergence of stream-of-consciousness theory meets the needs of some writers who tried their best to describe the inner life of characters in the late 19 century and early 20 century. These writers think that the traditional European novels are described from the outside, ignoring the description of the characters' feelings and inner life. They demand to break through the past "procedures", go deep into the mystery of character consciousness, and let characters directly show their ideological activities. Therefore, they emphasize inner monologue, free association and various symbolic techniques to truly show the trajectory of the flow of character consciousness.
1887, French writer Aidoo a Duchamp used the technique of "inner monologue" for the first time in his book "The laurel tree was cut down", which initiated the stream-of-consciousness novel. Then, in the works of the early 20th century, such as Spots on the Wall and Waves, Virginia Woolf, an English writer, even "monologues" her feelings by ignoring the life experiences and names of the characters, and freely writes the free association of consciousness flowing forward (future) or backward (past) caused by an event, which greatly develops the expressive skills of stream of consciousness.
Surrealism appeared in France after World War I, and its influence spread to some countries in Europe, America, Africa and Asia. Surrealism developed from Dadaism. Dadaism was founded in Switzerland by the French writer Zara. "Dada" is a child's language and has no meaning in itself. It advocates taking the baby's attitude towards life as the aesthetic basis and rejects all traditional writing skills. Dadaism has no systematic theory and no successful creation, and only existed for a few short years. The word surrealism was first put forward in the preface of the poem Tirezias's Breast by the French poet Polinelli. 19 19, French writers Brighton, Ai Lvya, Aragon, etc. Literature magazine was founded, surreal experiments were carried out, 1924 published the first surreal manifesto, and surreal research society was organized, which initially formed a powerful trend. From the presentation of surrealism to the publication of Brighton's second surrealism declaration in 1930, this decade is a prosperous period of surrealism. Subsequently, the surrealist camp split, and Aragon and Ai Lvya parted ways with Brighton.
Brighton and Aragon, the founders of surrealism, were both students of medical university in their early years. They are deeply influenced by Freud's subconscious theory and dream interpretation, and their creative thoughts are directly based on this theory. They believe that literature and art should find its unity behind the complexity of human beings, and the surface of reality is not enough to reflect reality itself. There is a "certain combination form" that transcends reality, which has been ignored by people so far, but it can reflect the essence of things.
After World War I, existentialism was formally formed in Germany.
German philosopher Husserl and Danish philosopher Kelk Gore are pessimistic about objective existence. They recognize the objective world, but separate existence from essence, with special emphasis on the dominant position of consciousness. Sartre, a French writer, put forward the famous existential viewpoint "Existence precedes essence" according to their theory. On the one hand, Sartre thinks that the world is absurd and life is meaningless, but on the other hand, he affirms the value of human existence and thinks that "man is destined to be free", and it is important to make a "choice" and resort to "action". However, Sartre believes that people's freedom of choice is not limited by society and class from the perspective of irrationalism.
Absurdism rose in France in the late 1940s and early 1950s. It quickly became popular in Europe and America. Because it is similar to the avant-garde in the 1920s, people began to regard it as the avant-garde. Because it is mainly active in the field of drama, which is contrary to the characteristics and laws of traditional drama, people also call it "anti-drama school" and "anti-traditional drama school". It was not until 196 1 that Martin Esslingen, a famous British drama critic, formally put forward the concept of "absurd school" in his book Theatre of the Absurd.
Influenced by existentialist philosophy, absurd writers think that the world has lost its rationality, justice and logic, and the relationship between people and the world and between people is absurd. They also believe that people came to this world by accident, not only without any purpose, but also surrounded and squeezed by the ugly world, absurd reality and unreasonable society, so they are no longer people and become "inhuman." What makes people feel ridiculous is people themselves, not any social system. As Eugene Yunescu, the master of the absurd, declared: "Absurdity means no purpose, and people are confused by cutting off the connection with religion, philosophy and even the source of intuition. All his actions have become meaningless, absurd and useless. " The absurd school is based on such an understanding, which is an expression of "trying to find meaning for its meaningless existence in a meaningless world".
Compared with existentialism, absurdity pays more attention to the absurdity of life. Their works abandon the logic of structure, the rationality of characters' behavior and the accuracy of language, and there is no difference between tragedy and comedy.
The New Fiction School rose in France in 1950s, and formed a wave at the end of 1960s, which once influenced Europe and America. In 1950s, some French writers who opposed the realistic literary tradition gathered around Midnight Publishing House and proposed to reform the traditional novels. At first, they did not have a clear theoretical proposition, but carried out their own creative experiments on the premise of "anti-traditional novels" From 1956 to 1958, the French writer Alain Rob-Reye published two papers, The Road and Nature of Future Novels and Humanism and Tragedy, which systematically discussed the anti-traditional ideas in novel creation and were regarded as the theoretical declarations of the "New Fiction School".
The New Fiction School believes that times have changed and industrial technology has made great progress, but the novel art has fallen into a "serious stagnation". This is because it has not got rid of the shackles of traditional novels. In their view, the objective world is just a "world of things", while traditional novels depict people as the center of real life, thus covering up the "face of things". From this point of view, they also oppose all novel techniques related to the realistic tradition in the previous period. They think that existentialism has something to do with Sartre's tendentious novels and realism, so it is not worth taking. For the stream of consciousness and Kafka's novels, they also think that there are realistic elements and philosophies, and they all reject them. Therefore, the new novel school is also called "exclusion school" or "anti-traditional novel school"
The "Beat Generation" rose in 1950s and 1960s and prevailed in America. Its practice and achievements in literature are not many, but it has a noticeable influence on the literature and art of the United States and even the western world.
The "Beat Generation" is an earlier social trend of thought. After World War II, the United States has made great progress in science, technology and economic strength. However, due to the implementation of McCarthyism, genocide and other high-handed policies, as well as the intensification of inherent contradictions such as unemployment and labor-capital confrontation, domestic class contradictions and ethnic contradictions are increasingly intensified. People got rid of the killing of the great war and were shrouded in unexpected clouds such as the Cold War. Many young Americans feel threatened by "social collapse" and "world destruction". They treat life with nihilism and hedonism mixed with passive resistance and self-abandonment. They believe that all the sufferings in the modern world stem from "reason" and "spirit", and if people don't act according to what "reason" and "spirit", the world will become better. They deny everything and only divide people into "gentlemen" and "hippies". They want to get out of the dog fighting life and become so-called hippies, that is, people with vision. They wear strange clothes, refuse to take any social responsibility, scoff at all traditional ideas, or set up "beat" villages, or live in gangs where men and women live together, or wander around the bottom of the city, joining the ranks of hooligans, prostitutes, drug dealers and jazz singers, forming an "underground society" and "underground culture" that are sharply opposed to civilized society and traditional culture.
"Black humor" is a literary genre, which originated in the United States in the 1960s and is still popular today.
1965 Friedman, an American writer, selected 12 pieces of relevant novels from some writers according to the same ideological and artistic features in their novels, and compiled Black Humor. Eight months later, another writer, nick baker, published The Fatal Stinging Humor. Since then, the name "black humor" has been widely circulated. To say "black" refers to the terrible and funny objective reality, and "humor" refers to the mocking attitude of a personality with free will to this reality.
There are many reasons for "black humor", the most important of which is the premonition of bad luck caused by war trauma and social unrest and the loss of personality caused by the abnormal development of science and technology. In a word, it is a literary reflection of American social reality and is full of "black humor" in itself. Faced with the worsening social contradictions in the capitalist world, black humor writers see the deformity and ills of society, the hostility of the surrounding world to themselves, no longer believe in the saying of "social harmony" and have no hope for the "perfect realm" of mankind. They believe in existentialism, but they go further than existentialism. People think that under absurd living conditions, the possibility that people can choose freely is very limited or even non-existent. They emphasize absolute absurdity and despair. So they take ruthless exposure and bitter ridicule as their responsibility. Vonneger, a black humor writer, said that "black humor" is "humor before disaster" and "humor under the gallows", which reflected their thoughts and feelings in their creation.
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