Modernism Essay

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A New Age and a New Philosophy
As the gears of American society turned ever forward, a new ideology in literature-known as Modernism-shifted authors of the time to create different works that reflected the new ideas that it encompassed. America, in the course of 70 years, had turned from a bunch of rebellious farmers into one of the largest and most powerful nations in the world. As the “American Century” of the 1900s went on by, new technological achievements in radio, television and health care helped to change the ideals and even mindsets of writers everywhere. Despite all of this success, many people viewed all of this rapid change in a negative way spurring a new type of thinking that would develop into Modernism. One such person that was influenced by the advent of modern society was Arthur Miller, a struggling playwright who would go on to write some of the best dramas since Shakespeare himself and become a legend while doing it. Through the literary criticism of Christopher Bigsby, Harold Clurman and anonymous, it becomes clear how the ideals an points of Modernism are reflected in the masterpieces that are the plays of Arthur Miller.
Modernism in literature was a new form of expressing one’s opinions that would go on to change the world and the many authors on it, forever. Modernists focused on new ideals on the world and the society that people live in and how it had many problems that people seemed to overlook. Modernists, in other words, looked for the areas of society and of human nature itself that weren’t always pushed out in front and showcased them all for the world to see. This almost cynical view of the world came from a variety of factors, the most prominent to many modernists being World War I. World War I...

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...ler’s own personal ideals ad beliefs on modernism despite it being his first staged play.
In conclusion, the famed twentieth century playwright Arthur Miller is a complete modernist. Throughout his many works, he uses modernist ideas of the worst of human nature to create very strong characters that establish and work in the roles he makes for them well. All of these points can be further exemplified by the literary criticism of Christopher Bigsby, Harold Clurman and anonymous who all help to show further the path of modernism that Miller undertook in the creation of his many landmark plays. Overall, Arthur Miller’s influence as a modernist playwright not only had an effect on the entire theatre industry but also much of the modernist literature of the entire twentieth century as well leaving a profound image of what modernism truly is on American culture.

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