Modern to the Present
1. What did Modernism represent?
Ans:
Modernism represented a deliberate break with many traditional artistic and literary conventions. It reflected the tensions created by industrialization, urbanization, war, new psychology, and changing ideas about society and the individual. Modernist writers and artists experimented with form, language, perspective, and structure in order to express the uncertainty and fragmentation of modern life.
2. How did Ezra Pound inspire artists and writers?
Ans:
Ezra Pound inspired writers and artists through his famous call, “Make it new.” He encouraged them to question inherited traditions and experiment with new forms, techniques, and styles that could better express modern experience.
3. What were the important art movements around 1890–1910?
Ans:
Important movements around this period included:
-
Symbolism
-
Post-Impressionism
-
Art Nouveau
-
Fauvism
-
Expressionism
-
Cubism
-
Futurism
Cubism emerged around 1907 and Futurism in 1909. Dada began in 1916 and Surrealism became an organized movement in the 1920s, so they should not be included strictly within 1890–1910.
4. Which was the peak period of Modernism in literature?
Ans:
In the Anglo-American literary context, Modernism reached its most intense phase roughly between 1910 and 1925, though the broader Modernist period is often extended from the late nineteenth century into the 1930s or even later.
5. Which period is considered the beginning of Postmodernism?
Ans:
Postmodernism began to emerge after the Second World War and became especially influential from the 1960s onwards. There is no single universally accepted starting date.
6. Who wrote the play Three Sisters?
Ans:
Three Sisters was written by Anton Chekhov.
7. Who were Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida?
Ans:
Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida were major twentieth-century French thinkers associated especially with poststructuralism. Derrida is closely connected with deconstruction, while Foucault studied discourse, power, knowledge, and institutions. Postmodern criticism frequently draws on both thinkers.
8. Who introduced the term ‘Postmodernism’?
Ans:
Jean-François Lyotard did not invent the word “postmodernism.” However, he gave it major philosophical importance through his 1979 book The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge.
9. What do you mean by Meta-narratives and Mini-narratives?
Ans:
A meta-narrative or grand narrative is a broad theory or story that claims to explain history, society, knowledge, or human progress in a universal way.
A mini-narrative or little narrative is a limited and local account connected with particular communities, experiences, or situations.
Lyotard famously associated the postmodern condition with skepticism toward meta-narratives.
10. What is the meaning of Diaspora?
Ans:
Diaspora refers to the dispersal of a people from their original homeland to different regions or countries while they continue to maintain some cultural, historical, emotional, or social connection with their place of origin.
11. Who used the phrase “the ceaseless posing of the woman question”?
Ans:
The phrase is associated with Christina Crosby, a scholar known for her work on Victorian literature and the “woman question.”
12. What did the term ‘The New Woman’ refer to?
Ans:
The term New Woman referred to the late nineteenth-century image of an educated, independent, socially active woman who questioned traditional expectations about marriage, domesticity, education, work, sexuality, and women’s public roles.
13. Which period is known as Modernism in literature?
Ans:
Modernism in literature is generally associated with the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It became especially influential from around 1900 through the 1920s and 1930s. Its exact dates vary according to country, genre, and critic.
14. What caused a radical shift in both form and content in twentieth-century art and literature?
Ans:
A radical shift occurred because of industrialization, urbanization, technological change, the First World War, changing gender and class relations, and new theories in psychology, philosophy, and politics.
These developments weakened confidence in older Victorian certainties and encouraged writers and artists to experiment with fragmentation, multiple perspectives, symbolism, interior consciousness, and unconventional structures.
15. Distinguish the time periods of Modernism and Postmodernism.
Ans:
Modernism developed from the late nineteenth century and reached its strongest literary phase in the early twentieth century, especially around the 1910s and 1920s.
Postmodernism emerged after the Second World War and became particularly prominent from the 1960s onwards.
The two periods overlap, so their boundaries should not be treated as absolutely fixed.
16. Mention two factors that gave rise to Modernism and Postmodernism.
Ans:
1. Industrial and technological change:
Urbanization, mass production, new media, and modern technology transformed everyday life and older social structures.
2. War and political crisis:
The two World Wars, genocide, totalitarianism, and the nuclear age deeply damaged belief in inevitable progress and stable social order.
Modernism expressed this crisis through experimentation, while Postmodernism became more skeptical of universal truth and grand theories.
17. Briefly mention the difference between Modernism and Postmodernism.
Ans:
Modernism and Postmodernism both use fragmentation and experimentation, but their attitudes differ.
Modernism often treats fragmentation as a crisis and seeks new forms of order, meaning, or artistic unity.
Postmodernism is usually more skeptical about stable meaning and objective truth. It often uses irony, parody, pastiche, intertextuality, playfulness, and self-consciousness.
18. How is the past treated in Postmodernism?
Ans:
Postmodernism does not simply reject the past. It often reuses, rewrites, quotes, imitates, parodies, or mixes earlier styles and texts.
The past is frequently treated through irony, pastiche, and intertextuality, allowing older cultural forms to be reinterpreted rather than simply copied or discarded.
19. What is ‘Martian Poetry’?
Ans:
Martian Poetry was a British poetic tendency associated especially with Craig Raine and Christopher Reid.
It describes ordinary human objects and activities as if they were being observed by an outsider or visitor from another planet. This makes familiar things appear strange and fresh.
Craig Raine’s “A Martian Sends a Postcard Home” is its best-known example.
20. How did Jürgen Habermas look at Modernism?
Ans:
Jürgen Habermas defended the Enlightenment and the continuing project of modernity. He argued that reason, rational communication, democracy, and social progress should not simply be abandoned.
He described modernity as an “unfinished project,” meaning that its emancipatory possibilities had not yet been fully realized.
MCQs
1. Who gave the slogan “Make it new”?
A. T. S. Eliot
B. Ezra Pound
C. Virginia Woolf
D. James Joyce
Ans: B. Ezra Pound
2. In the Anglo-American context, the peak phase of Modernism was roughly—
A. 1750–1800
B. 1850–1870
C. 1910–1925
D. 1960–1980
Ans: C. 1910–1925
3. Who wrote Three Sisters?
A. Anton Chekhov
B. Samuel Beckett
C. Henrik Ibsen
D. Harold Pinter
Ans: A. Anton Chekhov
4. Jacques Derrida is most closely associated with—
A. Romanticism
B. Deconstruction
C. Naturalism
D. Realism
Ans: B. Deconstruction
5. Michel Foucault is commonly associated with—
A. Poststructuralism
B. Medievalism
C. Neoclassicism
D. Renaissance humanism
Ans: A. Poststructuralism
6. Who wrote The Postmodern Condition?
A. Habermas
B. Lyotard
C. Derrida
D. Foucault
Ans: B. Jean-François Lyotard
7. Lyotard connected Postmodernism with skepticism toward—
A. Poetry
B. Meta-narratives
C. Drama
D. Painting
Ans: B. Meta-narratives
8. Which of the following emerged around 1907?
A. Cubism
B. Dada
C. Surrealism
D. Minimalism
Ans: A. Cubism
9. Dada began around—
A. 1890
B. 1900
C. 1916
D. 1945
Ans: C. 1916
10. Surrealism became an organized movement mainly in the—
A. 1880s
B. 1920s
C. 1950s
D. 1970s
Ans: B. 1920s
11. Diaspora means—
A. A poetic metre
B. A dispersed community
C. A dramatic technique
D. A type of painting
Ans: B. A dispersed community
12. The New Woman challenged—
A. Traditional gender roles
B. Scientific laws
C. Planetary motion
D. Feudal society
Ans: A. Traditional gender roles
13. Martian Poetry is especially associated with—
A. Craig Raine
B. T. S. Eliot
C. W. B. Yeats
D. Samuel Beckett
Ans: A. Craig Raine
14. Postmodernism became especially influential from the—
A. 1760s
B. 1860s
C. 1960s
D. 1990s only
Ans: C. 1960s
15. Who described modernity as an “unfinished project”?
A. Lyotard
B. Habermas
C. Foucault
D. Derrida
Ans: B. Jürgen Habermas
__________________________________________________
Teacher Generate Question Answer
Modern to the Present
1. What did modernism represent?
Ans: Modernism embodied the tension between traditional values and emerging new ideas, reflecting a fundamental shift in art, literature, and thought as society moved away from established norms towards innovative and often experimental expressions.
2. How did Ezra Pound inspire artists and writers?
Ans: Ezra Pound’s call to “Make it new!” encouraged artists and writers to challenge and re-evaluate established cultural, aesthetic, and religious traditions, leading to transformative changes across various aspects of life.
3. What are the various movements in painting between 1890 and 1910?
Ans: Between 1890 and 1910, various art movements emerged, including Dadaism, Surrealism, Cubism, Constructivism, Minimalism, Vorticism, Futurism, and Fauvism, distinguishing themselves from earlier styles like Classicism, Gothic art, Baroque, Naturalism, Realism, and Romanticism.
4. Which was the peak time of modernism in literature?
Ans: Modernism peaked between 1910 and 1930, producing influential works by notable figures such as T. S. Eliot, W. B. Yeats, Ezra Pound, Wyndham Lewis, Virginia Woolf, Wallace Stevens, and Gertrude Stein in England and Europe.
5. Which period is considered to be the beginning of Postmodernism?
Ans: 1960s.
6. Name the writer of the play, ‘Three sisiters’.
Ans: Anton Chekhov.
7. Who are Michael Foucault and Jacques Derrida?
Ans: French Structuralists.
8. Who introduced the term, ‘Postmodernism’?
Ans: Jean Francois Lyotard.
9. What do you mean by Meta Narratives and Mini narratives?
Ans: A meta-narrative is a narrative that examines the nature of storytelling itself, highlighting its artificiality and exploring how stories are constructed and understood.
10. What is the meaning of Diaspora?
Ans: A diaspora refers to a population that has been dispersed from its geographic origin, identifying with a specific location while currently living in different regions.
11. Who says, ‘The ceaseless posing of the woman question’?
Ans: Christina Crostby.
12. What did the term, ‘The New Woman’ refer to?
Ans: It refers to a trend in novels focusing on the “modern” woman, addressing themes of women’s subjectivity and their roles in both public and private life.
13. Which period is known as modernism in literature?
Ans: The term “modern” refers to the present or recent times, contrasting with the distant past. In the arts—such as literature, visual arts, architecture, dance, and music—Modernism signifies a departure from traditional styles and a quest for innovative forms of expression. This movement became particularly prominent in literature following World War I (1914-18), although the end of the Victorian era (around 1900) also heralded the emergence of new artistic styles across all disciplines.
14. What caused a radical shift both in form and content in the 20th century art and literature?
Ans: Modernists experienced increasing alienation from Victorian morality, characterized by prudery and rigid gender and class hierarchies, along with the era’s optimism and conventions. Influenced by emerging ideas in psychology, philosophy, and political theory, they sought new modes of expression, leading to a radical transformation in both form and content in 20th-century art and literature.
15. Distinguish the time period of both modernism and postmodernism.
Ans: The modern period, roughly spanning from 1900 to 1930, marked a significant shift in artistic and literary movements, while the postmodern period emerged around 1945, following World War II, and gained prominence from the 1960s onward. It’s important to note that these movements cannot be strictly confined to specific dates, as artistic and literary developments evolve gradually and do not adhere to a precise timeline.
16. Mention two factors that gave rise to modernism and postmodernism.
Ans: Modernism emerged from several key factors:
(a) The rise of new industrial societies contributed to rapid urbanization, leading to significant social, cultural, and technological transformations.
(b) The devastating impact of the two World Wars, which resulted in widespread destruction and immense loss of life, particularly highlighted the horrors of racism and genocide, prompting a reevaluation of societal values and beliefs.
17. Briefly mention the difference between modernism and postmodernism.
Ans: Postmodernism shares an eclectic approach with modernism, utilizing fragmented forms, aleatory writing, and often lacking an omniscient narrator. However, the key difference lies in their mood, attitude, and outlook. While modernism tends to convey a sense of disillusionment and search for meaning amidst chaos, postmodernism embraces playfulness and irony, often questioning the very concept of meaning and rejecting grand narratives, thereby presenting a more skeptical view of truth and coherence.
18. How is the past treated in postmodernism?
Ans: In postmodernism, the past is revisited with irony rather than being wholly discarded, as seen in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, where the title itself is a pun on “God.” The two tramps symbolize a nostalgia for a lost sense of wholeness, waiting for a Godot that never arrives, reflecting a futile longing for faith. Lucky’s incoherent speech exemplifies this struggle, parodying the past’s certainty in language and religious belief, ultimately illustrating the derangement and ambiguity that characterize the postmodern condition.
19. What is ‘Martin Poetry’?
Ans: Craig Raine, along with Christopher Reid, created ‘Martian poetry’, characterized by unique perspectives on humanity. In “A Martian Sends a Postcard Home,” Raine presents observations of human life in puzzling terms that require the reader to decipher their meaning. This playful engagement with the text allows readers to derive enjoyment from unraveling the poet’s insights into everyday experiences.
20. How did Jurgen Habermas look at modernism?
Ans: In 1980, German theorist Jürgen Habermas viewed modernism as an extension of the Enlightenment, emphasizing reason, a break from blind adherence to tradition, and the use of rational discourse to reform society. He critiqued French Structuralists, such as Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida, for rejecting Enlightenment ideals, arguing that they undermined concepts of reason, clarity, truth, and progress.
এই Post টো Update কৰাত সহায় কৰিব বিচাৰে নেকি?
ইয়াত কিবা ভুল, অসম্পূৰ্ণ তথ্য বা নতুন তথ্য থাকিলে আপুনি এটা উন্নত version প্ৰস্তুত কৰিব পাৰে। Live Post তৎক্ষণাৎ সলনি নহ'ব।
Update This Post