The Modern City: An Introduction
It would be difficult to discuss the development of British literary modernism without noting the important contributions of the modern conception of the city. Quickly receding were the days of pastoral supremacy, with an increasing number of British authors becoming fascinated with the growth of the city and movement away from the country, a theme Bennett explored in Anna of the Five Towns. Scholar Malcolm Bradbury remarked how “[cities] had acquired high activity and great reputation as centers of intellectual and cultural exchange” (96). This new conception of the city impacted the literary output of British authors in several important ways.
The ascent of the city may have allowed British writers to break from their predecessors and experiment with new styles of writing. Bradbury notes many authors were “feeling increasing separation from the dominant social orders” (98). Moving to the city to live among those who felt similarly allowed writers to begin “a total process of dissolution of old feudal and class relationships and obligations” (98). The experience of living in a modern city also aided in creating a new modern style of literature as “the buildings, the noises, the sights and smells… [formed] this single and racing consciousness” (99).
Not only did the modern city help create the literary techniques that characterize modernist literature, it also supplied many of the subjects modernists addressed in their works. Among the most important themes supplied by the modern city is the idea of urban alienation. The idea of urban alienation can be seen in the alienation that pre-Modernist women felt within their social classes during this time period. Additionally, the modern city provided an outlet for women such as Miriam in Dorothy Richardson's Dawn's Left Hand to search for their true identities in an often sexually-divided world. In the sense that she boldly carves her own path with general disregard to sexual convention, Miriam is in many ways the definitive New Woman.
Critic Raymond Williams observed that the modern city enabled the protagonist to feel like “an individual [who is] lonely and isolated within the crowd” (16). This feeling enabled works such as The Secret Agent, where the author, Conrad, wants the reader to question whether any event, even an explosion, could hamper the unknown masses of everyday Londoners. Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway also illustrates this concept through its portrayal of the post-war traumatized Septimus. Additionally, the modern city provided authorial material on a smaller scale. Scholar Tyrus Miller writes that the modern city provided authors with subjects ranging from “the spectacles of metropolitan commodity culture to the erratic violence of mass political movements” (1). In many cases, Modernist authors took broader themes and concrete subject matter from the British urban environment.
Regardless of how it was harnessed by individual authors, the city was an important factor in British Modernism as a literary movement. The city provided a haven for disaffected literati to gather and exchange hopes and ideas for the future of their craft. As these ideas began to coalesce, the city provided subject matter for the emerging Modernist movement. Often, it presented the characters with simply a choice: whether to defend their autonomous interests or those of their larger community. Whether the city is manifested in the social alienation of Conrad, Ford, and Woolf, or the physical setting of Bennett and Joyce, it rapidly became evident that one could not easily discuss the development of Modernism outside the influence of the modern British city.
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Works Cited
Bradbury, Malcolm, and James McFarlane. Modernism: 1890-1930. 1. New York, New York: Penguin Books, 1976. Print.
Tague, Gregory. Origins of English Literary Modernism 1870-1914. 1. Palo Alto, California: Academica Press, 2009. Print.
Timms, Edward, and David Kelley. Unreal City. 1. New York, New York: St. Martin's Press, 1985. Print.
Williams, Raymond. Politics of Modernism: Against the New Conformists. 1. New York, New York: Verso Press, 1989. Print.
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