long: modernism and arts

             The reign of Queen Victoria (1837-1901), experienced an emphasis on public righteousness and moral propriety. Victorian society was largely highlighted by the industrial revolution which had been rapidly transforming rural areas into industrialized landscapes. However, this development pushed the lower class workers into more difficult conditions. Furthermore, the rapid social changes and advances in science had an overwhelming effect on society. Publications like Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto (1848), Charles Darwin's On the Origins of Species by Means of Natural Selection (1859), and Freudian works such as The Psychopathology of Everyday Life (1904, tr. 1914) shocked people into questioning their beliefs. This conflict between religion and science emphasized an overall feeling of despair, alienation and emptiness. Then the outbreak of World War I (1914-1918) caused even more devastation and depression.
             Together, the historical events of the Victorian age had a direct influence in the establishment of modernism. "Victorian, in other words, can be taken to mean parent of the modern -- and like most powerful parents, it provoked a powerful reaction against itself." ("Victorian and Victorianism" par3). The intellectuals and artists of the age made their attempts to deal in some way with the upheavals in society, either by justifying them or rebelling within new movements. Modern movements grow out of a reaction to Realism and Naturalism. Some critics see in modernism at least four literary movements that make up the literature of the modern era which are mainly impressionism, expressionism, surrealism, and nihilism. The modernity of these movements made their impressions on countless disciplines; this essay will focus mainly on the consequential development of poetry in comparison to that of fine arts.
             Although the movements of the modern age each had their differentiating viewpoints, the progressive modernist movements shared co...

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