The Modernist Movement

Paper Summary:

The paper discusses T.S. Eliot's "Murder in the Cathedral" and George Bernard Shaw's "Saint Joan" within the scope of the modernist movement. The analysis uses these works as the context for discussing ideas about the development of literary modernism. The paper presents a brief exploration of modernism and defines it as a general term applied to experimental and avant-garde trends in the literature of the early 20th century. The paper explains that within literature, modernism is characterized by a rejection of 19th-century traditions such as religious norms and conventional beliefs. The paper offers modernist parallels between "Murder in the Cathedral" and "Saint Joan."

Outline:
Abstract
Modernism Defined
Eliot's "Murder in the Cathedral"
Shaw's "Saint Joan"
Modernist Parallels Between "Murder in the Cathedral" and "Saint Joan"
Closing Thoughts on Modernism

From the Paper:

"In 1935, TS Eliot wrote "Murder in the Cathedral", a work that encapsulated many of the themes of the modernist point of view: the examination and questioning of modern religious beliefs, the faith of people in the essential goodness of their fellow human beings, and the validity of the submission of free thinking people to the will of God. When the Knights in the tale kill the priest within the cathedral itself, there is more than human flesh being put to death; rather it is feasible that Eliot was showing the death of faith and the fading away of the religious institutions that shaped the lives of so many, and as such, was showing support for the core of the modernist mindset."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Despres, D. L. (2004). Joan of Arc and Sacrificial Authorship. Christianity and Literature, 53(2), 267+.
• Do They Mean Us?. (2000, April 22). The Birmingham Post (England), p. 50.
• Eliot, T. S. (1935). Murder in the Cathedral. New York: Harcourt Brace.
• Everdell, W. R. (1998). The First Moderns: Profiles in the Origins of Twentieth-Century Thought. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• George Bernard Shaw''s Saint Joan (H. Bloom, Ed.). New York: Chelsea House. Retrieved March 1, 2006, from Questia database: http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=98112495

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