Defining Modernism

[poliphilo]

I've been flicking through Cyril Connolly's The Modern Movement (1968) in search of a working definition of Modernism. It's a delightful- and very quotable- little book in which Connolly- the great flaneur- ambles through the decades, scattering apercus, separating the cool from the uncool and constructing a sort of a canon (or list of greatest hits) beginning with Baudelaire and ending with Orwell- than whom I can think of no two writers with less in common.  If both are Modernists then Modernism means whatever you want it mean.

Comments

[artkouros.livejournal.com]

I have no idea who Cyril Connolly is except for the lyric in Monty Python's Half a Bee song.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I don't remember ever hearing that before...

Lovely stuff!

[veronica-milvus.livejournal.com]

You could write a lovely essay on this for some publication like "PN Review" q.v. Maybe even get paid for it!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes, but why write a whole essay when you've said it all in 6 1/2 lines (as I just have)? :)

[veronica-milvus.livejournal.com]

Add it to the stuff you posted on Eliot, Yeats, Pound etc. and because you could get paid...