Professor Perl invites you in these eight lectures to abandon your preconceptions and consider some of the most controversial authors of the 20th century: the Modernists.Who were they? How did “classical” Modernists like Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, and James Joyce differ from “neo-Modernists” like Gertrude Stein and William Carlos Williams? What made them believe and write as they did? Why were political extremism, war, and self-destructive behavior such defining forces in their writing (and their personal demons)? What do they have to say to us today in the 21st century? These lectures place literary Modernism within the wide-ranging context of the philosophy, literature, politics, and morality of its time. In doing so, they allow you to look more clearly at the writers and works who have contributed to the definition of human culture. You'll see Eliot, Joyce, Pound, Yeats, James, Lawrence, and others spring to life with their radical beliefs about art and their unforgettable novels and stories. These lectures do not shrink from the challenges imposed by exploring Modernism, or from challenging the answers that scholars have routinely accepted. Nor do they shy away from the difficulties of literary Modernism itself; a literary genre that intimidates many. But despite all this, these lectures are brilliantly organized, crystal clear, and an invaluable tool for finally wrapping your brain around a dramatic roster of authors and an enduring canon of literature.
Literary Modernism: The Struggle for Modern History
Discover an intriguing reconsideration of some of the most controversial authors of the 20th century: the Literary Modernists.
01: Introduction—Modernity and Modernism
This lecture discusses the two kinds of modernism: paleomodernism and neomodernism. A poem by William Carlos Williams, “The Red Wheelbarrow,” is presented as the neomodernist response to the paleomodernism of T. S. Eliot and others. The lecture then begins the examination of the characteristics that differentiate the two schools.
02: Transition
The neomodernist view is examined, and we learn that T. S. Eliot's work was influenced by his early study of philosophy and that he disagreed with the direction taken by philosophers. Therefore, Eliot chose the discourse of poetry over that of philosophy.
03: Against Theory
We review the career of W. B. Yeats and trace his shift from symbolist to realist. Conversely, Henry James's career is examined because it moves from realist to symbolist. At the end of the lecture we hear T. S. Eliot's assertion that romanticism and neoclassicism are personalities that were once joined.
04: Waste Lands
The effects of the Depression and World War II were profound, and the modernists reflected their concern in art. T. S. Eliot, D. H. Lawrence, and others considered themselves to be therapists to the world. Eliot's “The Waste Land” and works by Lawrence called for a new religion to lead to the rebirth of society.
05: The Complete Consort
James Joyce's “Ulysses” is presented as the ultimate paleomodernist novel. Joyce's goal was to capture the full circle of history and the novel's structure uses chaos and opposing themes to create one phenomenon. Even postmodernists admire the work because of the use of chaos.
06: Modernist Theater
While modernist literature thrived, we learn from this lecture that modernist drama failed to win popular support. Some poets such as Yeats decided to battle the middle class through drama. By the 1940s, T. S. Eliot had decided that art should respond to the public, and he was able to find commercial success.
07: Apocalypse
The Depression and World War II altered the focus of the modernists. Most were involved in politics, but the movement was represented on both the right and left. The Spanish Civil War had a tremendous impact on the writers. The politics of Ezra Pound are examined at the end of the lecture.
08: Postwar, Postmodern, Postculture
This final lecture takes us from Evelyn Waugh, who presented us with a “Hollywood metaphysics” in which the fake world is ideal, to Samuel Beckett, who unites the themes of modernism and thus helps define modernism's end. The modernists are no longer against the bourgeoisie and are seeking to understand and influence the middle class.
Overview Course No. 292
About
Dr. Jeffrey Perl is Professor of English Literature at Bar-Ilan University, Israel. He earned his A.B., summa cum laude, from Stanford University, did postgraduate work at Oxford University, and earned his Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Princeton University. Prior to taking his position in Israel, Professor Perl held teaching positions at Columbia University and the University of Texas at Dallas. He has been a Guggenheim Fellow, a Rockefeller Foundation Fellow in the Humanities, a visiting Fellow at Mansfield College at Oxford, a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow, and a Fulbright Professor at Hebrew University. He is the author of numerous books, articles, reviews, monographs, and anthologies, including Skepticism and Modern Enmity: Before and After Eliot (1989) and The Tradition of Return: The Implicit History of Modern Literature (1984). He is the founder and editor of Common Knowledge: A Journal of Intellectual History and Cultural Studies. Common Knowledge is winner of the Award for Best Journal in the Humanities and Social Sciences from the Association of American Publishers.
