There are arguments that Shakespeare himself was the first modernist and given his continued relevance, I can see it. It’s always a pleasure to wallow in Keats but it feels more like highbrow escapism these days.
I agree with what you wrote, it's nicely expressed too. I would add that Modernism was about about experimenting with new forms, and engaging with modern life, as opposed to Romanticism's tendency to nostalgia (although modernism was also about intertextuality, eg quoting older works, but this was done in a collage fashion, often confusing the reader eg The Wasteland). Modernism was quite consciously difficult - their argument was that art had to reflect the complexity of modern life, and if that meant being obscure then so be it. But this meant it also had a tendency to towards elitism, the avant garde etc. At the other extreme, it engaged with new technologies to produce work that was for a mass audience, film for example. For Walter Benjamin, the technological reproducibility of art in modernism meant the possibility of a whole new reaction to art - the destruction of its aura through reproduction - according to Benjamin this was a good thing, as it would democratise art.
There are arguments that Shakespeare himself was the first modernist and given his continued relevance, I can see it. It’s always a pleasure to wallow in Keats but it feels more like highbrow escapism these days.
I agree with what you wrote, it's nicely expressed too. I would add that Modernism was about about experimenting with new forms, and engaging with modern life, as opposed to Romanticism's tendency to nostalgia (although modernism was also about intertextuality, eg quoting older works, but this was done in a collage fashion, often confusing the reader eg The Wasteland). Modernism was quite consciously difficult - their argument was that art had to reflect the complexity of modern life, and if that meant being obscure then so be it. But this meant it also had a tendency to towards elitism, the avant garde etc. At the other extreme, it engaged with new technologies to produce work that was for a mass audience, film for example. For Walter Benjamin, the technological reproducibility of art in modernism meant the possibility of a whole new reaction to art - the destruction of its aura through reproduction - according to Benjamin this was a good thing, as it would democratise art.
Nice. Thanks. It’s a topic I’m certainly pretty interested in and keen to keep learning more about. Thanks heaps for this extra insight.