44- Features of Modernism in Western Literature خصائص الحداثة في الأدب الغربي

4 months ago

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00:00May the peace, blessings, and mercy of God be upon you

00:02Yesterday I received a question from a student, I think, asking me about the characteristics of modernity in literature.

00:10This question was left as a comment on an episode in which I analyzed Joseph Conrad's novel Heart of Darkness.

00:18Heart of Darkness

00:20Therefore, our episode today will be about the characteristics of Western modernity.

00:28What are the characteristics of Western modernity?

00:30We begin the episode with a scene from a novel by the famous English writer Thomas Hardy.

00:40A novel called Tess of the d'Urbervilles

00:45In this scene there is a dialogue between the heroine of the story, Tess, and her brother, Shaqeeqiya.

00:55He recalls what she had told him before, that the stars have different worlds.

01:06He asks her if the place we live in is different from the worlds of those stars.

01:14You tell him that the worlds of those stars are like apples on a tree.

01:23Some are great and healthy.

01:25Some of these apples are great and healthy.

01:27Others stink

01:29He asks her what about the place we live in.

01:33About this world we live in

01:36Is it a wonderful, healthy world or a stinky world?

01:42She answers with one phrase

01:45It means a stinky world

01:48This phrase represents the modernist point of view.

01:54In life and in the world in general

01:58Modernism is a pagan philosophical movement

02:04It appeared in the second half of the nineteenth century.

02:09She came out of romance

02:12From the Romantic movement

02:13In reaction to the Industrial Revolution

02:16On bourgeois principles and ideas

02:21I started first in France

02:26And in America at the same time

02:29In France, represented in Baudelaire's poetry

02:34Leflig Dumal

02:36Flowers of Evil

02:38In the poems of Walt Whitman

02:42Levsov Grass

02:44leaves of grass

02:46Also in the poems and stories of Edgar Allan Poe

02:51This was followed by other works by other writers.

02:57Like Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment

03:01For example, The Brothers Karamazov

03:04Also Henry James

03:07His famous novel

03:09The Portrait of a Lady

03:11Woman painting

03:12and others

03:15Modernism emerged in the period between 1910 and 1945.

03:22Several distinctive characteristics of modernity emerged.

03:28For example

03:30A feeling of loss of control appeared.

03:36loss of stability

03:38A break with tradition

03:41Whether it is social traditions

03:44religious traditions

03:45Break with all inherited traditions

03:49Modernity believes that humanity lacks free will.

03:55Instead of this free will

03:57Man falls prey to the circumstances in which he grows up.

04:06A victim of the circumstances and environment in which he lives

04:12Books like T.S. Eliot

04:15Virginia Woolf

04:17Try many forms of writing.

04:22And try new topics

04:26These new themes are explored and illustrated.

04:30Modernity and how it affects individuals

04:35For the novel

04:37Modernity attempts to portray mental reality.

04:41Not the external reality

04:44We find that the narrative depicts

04:47Or reflect what the book feels

04:51From the lack of order and the lack of a mastermind in life

04:56Modernist novelists use

05:00Like Virginia Woolf and James Joyce

05:03A writing technique called narrative technique

05:07Narration

05:09It is a narrative style that attempts to re-

05:14Producing random human thought patterns

05:19and affected by external stimuli

05:22Without any consideration

05:27To use punctuation marks

05:30Such as commas, periods, quotation marks, etc.

05:35Because the human mind does not think according to these punctuation marks.

05:40In poetry we see that the school of imagery

05:46which was started by the American poet

05:50At the beginning of the twentieth century

05:53Prefer clear visual imagery depicted in concrete, concise language.

06:01This school encourages the use of powerful images in scattered language.

06:09But in a specific language where not a single word can be taken from the line.

06:18It is a very precise language.

06:20Its pictures are very clear and very accurate.

06:25It does not contain any extra letter or word.

06:29Unconventional poetic weights are used.

06:33He was interested in the metaphysical poets who appeared in the seventeenth century.

06:40Metaphysical Poets Movement

06:43As for drama in Western modernity

06:46In the early twentieth century, it reflected all the characteristics of modernity in other literary genres.

06:54such as feeling detached or the effect of feeling detached

06:58arising from technological advancement

07:02Loss of confidence in traditions

07:05Feeling of the futility of life, etc.

07:09These characteristics were a shock and a challenge to the masses.

07:15Modernist playwrights were deliberately trying to do this.

07:22They are deliberately trying to shock the audience.

07:26One of the most famous and prominent modern playwrights of our time

07:33Harold Pinter, Nobel Prize winner in Literature

07:38Pinter's plays belong to the Theatre of the Absurd.

07:44absurd theater

07:45Like the play The Dumbwaiter, published in 1957.

07:51Meaning stupid waiter

07:55It belongs to the theatre of the absurd.

07:58It is a kind of drama.

08:01Absurdist theatre is a type of drama.

08:03It is based on the idea that life is meaningless.

08:07And life is absurd

08:09This is done by photographing the characters of the work.

08:13In meaningless situations

08:15And desperate, miserable characters speaking in a confused manner

08:22And enter into a meaningless dialogue

08:25It also depicts the absurd theatre.

08:28The impossibility of imposition controlling his life

08:32The impossibility of communication between members of society

08:37Among people

08:38and social inequality among them

08:43I end the episode by saying that modernity has separated

08:47I separated between God

08:50And between human life

08:53I separated God from human life

08:57From the point of view of Western modernity

09:00May be divine power

09:03It set the world in motion.

09:06But the world now operates according to natural law.

09:11without divine intervention

09:13Here I would like to point out

09:15However, this understanding does not agree with

09:19Our culture, our heritage, our cultural and religious legacy

09:24And our understanding of life

09:26What suits Western modernity

09:29It may not suit us.

09:32Not everything that suits them suits us.

09:35We say this so that we have criteria for knowledge.

09:39We refine what we read and what we study.

09:43We do not follow blind imitation.

09:48Without criticism and bias, we end up with

09:52separation

09:54college

09:56About our heritage and legacy

09:58And our culture

10:00Our religion

10:02God Almighty was truthful when He said in the Throne Verse:

10:06In Surat Al-Baqarah

10:07Allah, there is no god but He, the Ever-Living, the Self-Sustaining

10:10Neither drowsiness nor sleep takes him

10:13To Him belongs whatever is in the heavens and whatever is on the earth.

10:15Who is he that can intercede with Him except by His permission?

10:19He knows what is before them and what is behind them

10:22They do not encompass anything of His knowledge except what He wills.

10:26His throne extends over the heavens and the earth

10:28And their preservation does not lead to

10:30He is the Most High, the Most Great

10:32God Almighty is true

10:34Neither drowsiness nor sleep takes him

10:36Contrary to what Western modernity says

10:40See you in the next episode, God willing.

10:42And the holy month of Ramadan

10:44May the peace, blessings, and mercy of God be upon you

44- Features of Modernism in Western Literature خصائص الحداثة في الأدب الغربي

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