More than one modernism: a journey through James Joyce, Virginia Woolf and Wyndham Lewis

Year 2021, Issue: 1, 21 - 31, 30.06.2021

Mehmet Ali Çelikel

Abstract

Modernist movement in arts and fiction dates back to the end of the nineteenth century. However, it was attributed to different decades in different countries by various critics. Modernist fiction in England displayed various characteristics differing from one another. This study explores the characteristics of modernist fiction as practiced in the works of Virginia Woolf, James Joyce and Wydham Lewis. These three monumental modernist authors wrote in distinctively experimental styles all of which differed largely from one another despite the similarities in their modernist techniques. The experimental language uses and stream of consciousness by James Joyce stood out among the others while Virginia Woolf’s language use and stream consciousness exhibited her own untraditional content. The purpose of this study is to argue that there are more than one modernism and these modernisms are not equal.

Keywords

Woolf, Joyce, Lewis, stream-of-consciousness, modernism, modernity

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