1. Modernity

2. The Term and Time frame
Modern or Modernity or Modernism used to refer to a particular time and attitude
Late 1800s to around WWII

3. The Romantic Mindset—from Whitman’s Song of Myself (1855)
I Celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belong to me, as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.

4. The Modern Mindset—from Yeats’ “Second Coming” (1920)
Things fall apart, the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

5. Technological developments that might be considered “Modern”
Industrial Revolution
Electricity
Transportation
Modern conveniences
Sense of PROGRESS

6. What happened to change the optimism?
Or, what kinds of changes led Yeats to sound so different from Whitman?

7. World War I

8. Effects of Industrial Revolutions

9. Freud’s new understanding of the mind and unconscious
Challenge to the concept of our rational selves
Raises a question of how much “control” we have over ourselves

10. Developments in Physics
Einstein’s Theory of Relativity
Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle

11. Modern Christianity Nietzsche’s “Death of God” Challenges from science
Fundamentalist response

12. Developments in the arts
Move from representational art
a portion of Picasso’s Guernica

13. Virginia Woolf: “On or about December, 1910, human character changed
Virginia Woolf: “On or about December, 1910, human character changed.” Key term: Solipsism Edvard Munch, The Scream