Key Terms and Values from Modern Art and Literature

A.

abstraction

absurdist

alienation

allusion

ambiguity

anti-conventional

anti-hero

anti-traditional

atonal

authenticity

automatic writing

 

B.

break with the past

bricolage

 

C.

cerebralism

chaos

classical (vs. romantic)

collage

crisis (of language, liberalism, realism, representation)

 

D.

defamiliarization

dehumanization

depersonalization

detachment

difficulty

disillusionment

“dissociation of sensibility” (Eliot, Times Literary Supplement, 20 October 1921)

divided consciousness

 

E.

encyclopedic

epic

epiphany

 

F.

flashbacks

flux

foreshadowing

fragmentation (fragments)

free indirect discourse (“style indirect libre”)

 

G.

 

H.

“heroism of modern life” (Baudelaire)

 

I.

impersonality

individualism

innovation

intellectualism

interior monologue

irony

 

J.

jazz

jazz age

juxtaposition

 

K.

Künstlerroman

 

L.

literature of crisis

loneliness

 

M.

mock heroic (mock epic)

“mythical method” (Eliot, “Ulysses, Order, and Myth,” Dial 1923)

 

N.

narrator, first-person (vs. omniscient)

narrator, unreliable

nonlinear time, narration

 

O.

obscurity

originality

 

P.

persona

point of view

problem plays

psychological realism

 

Q.

 

R.

ragtime

 

S.

self-consciousness

self-referentiality

serialism

spatial novel

stream-of-consciousness

subjectivity

 

T.

theater of ideas

twelve-note composition

twelve-tone scale

 

U.

ugliness

unreliable narrator (vs. omniscient narrator, unified speaker)

 

V.

Verfremdungseffekt (alienation or estrangement effect: Brecht)

 

W.

 

X.

 

Y.

 

Z.