MODERNIST

MANIFESTOS
ENGLISH 2323
SWARTHOUT

Beginning of 20th c.
Traditions and boundaries were beginning to
evolve or dissolve
Rapid developments in technology and
science were transforming everyday lives
Conceptions of the universe (psychology,
anthropology, and philosophy) were
challenging old ways of conceiving the
human mind and religion
Empire, migration, and city life were forcing
together diverse people

20th c. Art and Literature

Changes
The dizzying pace of change, this break with tradition,
this eruption of modernity can be seen in the cuttingedge art and literature of the time.
Arguably modernism started in Europe a decade prior to
WWI.
Pablo Picasso (Spanish expatriate)- cubist painting Le
Demoiselle dAvignon (1907)
Italian poet F.T. Marinette published first futurist manifesto
blasting the dead weight of museums, libraries, and
academia and glorified the beauty of speed. (1909)
Igor Stravinskys ballet Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rite of
Spring) (1913) departed from harmonic and rhythmic
traditions and when it was first performed in Paris it
sparked riots.

The spread of Manifestos

Early in the 20th c. modernisms rebellious
energies and convention-defying activities
swept through major European cities, from
Moscow and Milan to Munich, Paris, and
London.
Leading modernists published manifestos,
public declarations explaining, justifying, and
promoting their ambitions and revolutionary
views.
Political
Trumpeted iconoclastic ideas in terms that
were meant to not only rally but also to
shock.

London and Manifestos

London became a central site in
the formation of modernism.
Many publishers
Literary hub
Attracted many modernist artists
and writers

Leading the modernist writersImagism

Ezra Pound (arrived in London in 1908)

Called for harder and saner verse like granite

T.E. Hulme

Denounced romanticism as whiny

Proposed hard, dry literature

T.S. Eliot (arrived in England in 1914)

Asserted new from and subject matter while holding up to the

standard of classic texts

The desire to break from the Romantic and Victorian eras

was often times more theory than practice.
Pound, Hulme, and others created imagism- a London-born
movement that advocated clear and immediate images,
exact and efficient diction, and inventive and musical
rhythms.

Modernist Writers -Vorticism

By 1914 Pound was growing tired of imagisms static and
insufficient rigor.
Pound and London-based painter and writer Wyndham Lewis
formed a new modernist movement in the arts, vorticism,
which emphasized dynamism of content.
Pounds vortex: an image of whirling, intensifying,
encompassing energy
Like imagism, vorticism only lasted a few years.
The most notable example of vorticism is the 1914 vorticist
manifesto in Lewiss journal Blast

Blast
founded and edited by Wyndam Lewis
Clearly influenced by modernism
Blast meant "blowing away of dead ideas and worn-put notions"
Blasts:

Conventions

Dull people

Middle class attitudes

Perpetuating Victorian taste

Published twice- On June 20, 1914 released on July 2, one month

before Great Britain entered WWI, and one year later
Rhetorically and typographically embody the violent iconoclast
of vorticism
Includes lists of those "blasted" followed by lists of those
"blessed" (not included in anthology).

Mina Loy(1882-1966)
Born in London to Protestant mother and
Jewish father
Visual artist
experimental poet
poems created a stir because of their
literary, linguistic, and sexual iconoclasm.
"Song of Joannes" re-idealizes and
desentimentalizes sex while freeing
poetry of conventional diction, syntax and
punctuation

Feminist Manifesto
Loy considered this a draft and never wanted it published in
this form
Sent it to Mabel Dodge, American author, art patron and
friend of Loy
Written a decade after feminist activism had intensified in
England (Suffragettes in the Women's Social and Political
Union)
Was a result of Loy's quarrels with Italian futurists'
misogynistic stand
Tries to harness for feminism the radicalism and
individualism of the avant-garde, calling for nothing less
than a revolution in gender relations.
Trades idea of equality for adversarial model of gender,
claiming that women should not look to men for a standard
of value but should find it within themselves\.

Your Manifesto
1.Think of something in our culture that
you think needs to be revolutionized
2.Create your statement of change
3.Create a list of those
people/places/concepts/ideas that
need to change (this will be your
"blast" list
4.Think about the way it should look- the
typography