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What is modernity? 
 
 
The literature from the beginning of the 20th century and afterwards reflected the 
uncertainties of its time. Living in a world where time has become a convention, 
modernist writers searched for refuge in the depths of the human mind or decided 
to denounce the oppression of totalitarian and technocratic governments which 
dominated the first half of the twentieth. Among the numerous events which 
marked the first half of the 20th century we would like to point out the World War 
I, the development of totalitarian systems and World War II. 
 
 
What is Modern and Postmodern literature? 
 
In the work of many twentieth-century dramatists it is possible to see not only the 
products of the individual writer´s ideas and experience, but also several general 
tendencies. This does not mean that the writers are members of a group, but that 
they share enough beliefs and concerns for their work to have several important 
things in common. 
 
A second area of concern in twentieth-century drama is that of the individual´s 
search for identity in an unfriendly outside world, and the difficulty and fear of 
communicating with other individuals. 
 
A third general grouping in modern drama can be seen in those plays in which 
language is not only the means by which the characters´ feelings and beliefs are 
expressed but an important part of the play in its own right, particularly when it is 
used for a witty or comic effect to contrast with the seriousness of the themes of 
the time. 
 
 
 
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The history of poetry in the twentieth century needs to support the frequent 
remarks that poetry is essentially a private art form. Certainly, poets are often 
influenced by other poets, and those who live through the same social and political 
events may well share a common outlook on them, but in the end each poet 
works as a private and separate person who makes his or her own world from his 
or her own deep concerns. 
 
Necessarily, therefore, the story of poetry in the twentieth century is very much a 
story of individual figures. Although postmodern literature and postmodernists 
state that we cannot describe Postmodern literature as a movement, we recognize 
that it shows techniques like fragmentation, paradox, narrators who very often run 
away from the patterns established in the nineteenth century, representing a trend 
or style which appeared in the post-World War II period. 
 
Examples of this type of literature convey several kinds of critical theory, in 
particular the ones which deal with reader-response and deconstructionist 
approaches. The interaction among author, text and reader is subverted: 
Cervantes´ Don Quixote (1605, 1615) e Tristam Shandy by Laurence Sterne´s 
from the eighteenth century are pre-modern examples. 
 
Post modern literature questions the differences between high and low culture 
with the introduction of subjects and genres which have never been considered 
appropriate for literature. 
 
 
What is the quest for identity in the contemporary period? 
 
In the contemporary period, authors prioritize individual searches for identity in 
the following areas: legal, social, cultural, sexual and artistic. Postmodern narrative 
 
 
 
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styles generally present innovation and writers from this period look for places not 
only for themselves in the always-shifting canon of contemporary literature, but 
also for the communities they represent in the popular imagination´s concepts of 
contemporary societies. 
 
A good example of the search for individual identity is found in The house on 
Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros writes the story of Esperanza, a nascent Chicana 
feminist growing up in Chicago. Cisneros’s novel — actually, a collection of short 
vignettes that cohere to tell the story — highlights the multilayered processes of 
identification necessary for many Americans. 
 
The same idea of developing identity as a process can be found in Leslie 
Feinberg’s Stone Butch Blues. Establishing a combination between fiction and 
autobiography, Feinberg writes of Jess Goldberg, a transgendered individual who 
attempts to deal with her own confusion in the face of mainstream society’s often 
hostile reaction to her sexual variance. 
 
 There was a great challenge for contemporary authors to subvert the status quo 
to demand legal and cultural recognition as independent subjects with unique 
identities. Earlier feminist writers such as Margaret Fuller, Charlotte Perkins 
Gilman, and Kate Chopin had their work continued by feminist writers, as well as 
by writers who celebrated self-determination, democracy, diversity, freedom, 
diversity, such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman. Alongside the 
sweeping social revolutions of the 1970s, including the Black Power movement 
and the women’s movement, highlight individuals’ searches for identity — legal, 
social, cultural, sexual, and artistic — and for their historical roots. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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What´s the importance of alienation in contemporary 
literature? 
 
The theme of alienation serves to mirror the feeling within society that people 
have become increasingly disconnected. In contemporary literature, this does not 
mean that the world of the novel must necessarily be a reflection of the modern 
world, simply that no matter the setting the theme remains a preoccupation. 
Themes which sustain a harmonious balance of tension between interest and 
aversion, familiar and not familiar, closeness and distance. 
 
An important literary technique is the use of point-of-view which is a vehicle 
through which to explore issues of alienation through the both creation and 
eradication of distance. This distance can occur between characters in the story, 
character and event, or story and reader, with point of view being the tensile force 
that pushes and pulls the elements towards and away from one another. A good 
example of alienation is the book, Beloved, by Toni Morrinson. 
 
 
 
What is the role of Expressionism in contemporary literature? 
 
Expressionism arose in a period in which analyses of the alienation, reification, and 
dehumanization of the individual, and the fragmentation of the human personality, 
had become widespread. As a reaction to the crisis of subjectivity, Expressionism 
contained passionate reaffirmations of individuality. The expressionist rebellions 
contained impulses towards the fulfillment and spiritual realization of the individual 
combined with results against repressive social- cultural conditions. Herein is 
contained the ambivalent heritage of Expressionism that at once attacks bourgeois 
 
 
 
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society, yet it is excessively individualistic and thereby retools traditional bourgeois 
ideologies of subjectivity. For although most expressionist rebellions possess 
elements of social critiques, many of their categories and solutions borrow from 
traditional metaphysical and religion doctrine. According to Kellner (1983) 
Despite its deficiencies and failures, the expressionist 
heritage contains some emancipatory features beyond its 
liberating effects on artistic production. The Expressionists ‘ 
drive toward social change and the creation of new forms of 
life still provide us with images and ideas to animate radical 
individual and social change. Their utopian images of 
transcendence contain social and individual alternatives and 
project examples of struggles to liberate life and creativity 
from repressive social and cultural forms. 
 
As an example of characters who search for their identitieswe will present a passage in 
which Holden Caulfield shows how his inner feelings and thoughts are shown: 
“When I really worry about something, I don´t just fool 
around. I even have to go to the bathroom when I worry 
about something. Only, I don´t go. I´m too worried to go. I 
don´t want to interrupt my worrying to go.” 
 
 
 
What elements of style are mostly found in contemporary 
literature? 
 
 
We can state that contemporary literature is a large group of written works 
produced from a specific time in history through the current age. This literary era 
defines a time period, but it is very important to notice that it also describes a 
particular style and quality of writing. Some see this period as an extension of 
postmodern literature, but most refer to it as a literary era of its own. 
 
 
 
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We can define Prose as a term applied to any kind of discourse that is not poetry. 
Prose usually, but not always, refers to written rather than spoken language. As 
the format of everyday communication, the concept can be applied to anything 
from a business letter to a 500-page novel. Prose differs from poetry: the 
distinctions between the two are most evident in the structure. Prose does not 
have a rhythmical construction like most poetry, nor does it utilize the specific line 
breaks associated with verse. It does not require the use of rhyming words at the 
end of lines, and it is does not employ the brevity and economical use of words for 
which poetry is often known. But prose utilizes some elements of poetry such as 
the use of metaphor, the comparison of two unlike objects, and alliteration — the 
use of similar sounds at the beginning of words. Prose can also employ imagery, a 
term for the use of specific details that help to create the concrete visual world in 
the mind's eye. Imagery is like a painting made out of words. Rhythm is also an 
expression of emotional experience which can represent emotions. 
 
Any invented literary narrative or, more broadly, anything made up is called 
fiction. In literature, it refers to novels, short stories, and other works of art that 
do not purport to tell true stories. While they may be inspired by real events or 
people, fiction writers create characters, dialogue, and plots entirely from their 
imaginations. Storytelling forms the basis of most other entertainment media, 
including movies, television, and comic books. Science fiction, mystery stories, and 
romances are among the popular subsets, or genres, of fiction. 
 
What is juxtaposition? 
 
In the contemporary period, there is a definite shift from accurately portraying 
events in the physical world to accurately portraying the inner reality of humans. 
The goal of showing internal, psychological reality actually pushes aside the need 
 
 
 
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to accurately show events, and writers can get super creative when it comes to 
how they show the inner workings of the human mind. 
 
In order to show the complexity of human experience, writers will blend and mix 
up events out of order, juxtaposing images from different times or spaces 
together, in order to create a sense or feeling. The term juxtaposition means 
placing images that normally aren't seen together, together, and the clash 
between these images highlights their differences. The most classic example of 
juxtaposition is Arthur Miller's Death of a salesman. In this play, the main 
character, Willy Loman, is often confronted with people and sounds from his past 
in his day-to-day life. 
 
For example, Willy will be having a regular conversation with his wife Linda about 
his day at work, and then randomly you'll hear the sound of a woman laughing 
and talking to Willy — a woman, it turns out, with whom he previously had an 
affair. This laughter can seem really odd and out of place, and it will only make 
sense if you remember this would never happen in reality, but it gives us a sense 
of how Willy is feeling — in this case, guilty and embarrassed. In this scene, Willy's 
discomfort and guilt is highlighted by putting the two images together, and the 
tension in dealing with them at the same time is felt. 
 
 
Who were the notable influences in the late 19th and early 
20th century? 
 
The Latin American literary canon is hugely diverse and includes writers of various 
styles, genres and political persuasions; however, several iconic figures hold sway 
over this literary world, who, through their pre-eminence and influence, have 
come to define Latin American literature both within the Americas and beyond. 
 
 
 
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They are Latin America’s most famous literary exports: Mario Vargas Llosa, Pablo 
Neruda and Gabriel García Márquez. 
 
 
The Swedish dramatist August Strindberg, the Italian author Luigi Pirandello, and 
the German playwright and theorist Bertolt Brech belong to the late 19th and early 
20th century and represent an important influence on the aesthetic of 
postmodernism. 
 
In the 1910s, Dadaists contributed to literature by associating the Dadaist 
movement with playfulness, parody, chance and the opportunity to question 
artists´ authority. Collage which used elements from advertisement or illustrations 
from popular novels was also a Dadaist influence to contemporary literature. 
 
Surrealism went on with the experimentations with parody and chance with a 
close connection to works which explored the flow of the subconscious mind. 
 
Metafiction is often employed to undermine the authority of the author, for 
unexpected narrative shifts, to advance a story in a unique way, for emotional 
distance, or to comment on the act of storytelling. 
 
Fabulation is a term sometimes used interchangeably with metafiction and relates 
to pastiche and Magic Realism.