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| Post Graduate Diploma in Translation Studies |
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| UNIT 422-1: INTRODUCTION TO CONTEMPORARY LITERARY THEORIES |
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| All the dictionary and encyclopedia reveal this truth about modernism - that the term exists primarily as a theological and then as a political creed, that its complements, that it (being a political creed) is meant to serve the existing order of the states and societies from where it has originated, that it aims to introduce the same order to other states and societies, that it is rootless because the past is antiquated or obsolete. It is also to be noted that only aspect of time --- the new existing time --- has a relevance for modernism. In short, modernism is essentially the 'ism' of the chaos. Though at certain periods the chaos may even contribute in the creation, unknowingly or unwillingly, it is the 'ism' of disrupting the truth of irreversible time and the art of infinity space. |
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| By denying creation, chaos can only try to build up a make-belief world where infinity is supposed to be finite with a center point in it. When space is held as finite (and because of its finiteness points are traceable in it) each of its dimension thus gains points of beginning and the end, and other points too between Alpha and Omega. Drawn over the absurdities of straight lines, impossible points can only provide a scope for time divided into parts, parts divided into pre-modern and modern. As soon as 'the modern' draws a point, it settles to capture the rest of points on a dimension --- of time, for example, and the privilege of a sovereign monarch of the remaining time (to the omega point perhaps) due to its terminological advantage which has veiled the 'ism' of the modern. |
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| 422.1.5.5.3: THE MARXIST POSITION |
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| Drawn to this extent of aggression of space and time, bourgeois imperialism may appear only farcical. There is of course nothing to worry about it, though modernism has intended to (however ludicrous may be the intention) distort physics and philosophy to this purpose as it is finally faced with its own decadence. Mercantile bourgeoisie once needed the inception of Romantic egotism to mould the individual into the economic man, in latter years they needed the fascist justification of egotism for the sake of colonial imperialism --- throughout these periods modernism wore various marks of philosophy and logic. Middle-class intelligensia of the colonials, barring exceptions like Rabindranath Thakur who termed the philosophical view-point of modernism in literary practice as 'egoistic perversion (Tagore's 'Sahityer Pathe', 1936 : 115, reprint 1961)' so far as it insists on calamity about the universal order. In the same article (Adhunika Kabya', first published in 'Parichaya', 1932, included in his collection of essays 'Sahityer Pathe') he wrote, 'If I am asked what is faultless modernism, I would say that without looking at the world from an egoistically attached point of view, it should be detachedly engrossed approach to the world … But it will be an idle talk to call this (ideal approach) modern. This pleasure, derived from a detached and simple way of looking at the world, cannot be confined to a particular period'. Rabindranath's comment is followed by a citing from the poetry of Lipo, the Chinese poet, who had this ideal approach about a thousand years ago. True, Rabindranath had constraints in being totally critical of modernism as he did not have time enough to study the socio-economic character of modernism; he was also constrained by his sense of responsibility to the young Bengali poets and he had to be careful about his comments on modernism so that they did not hurt the sentiments of young poets. He was also discomforted by the politics of modernism's vocabulary and felt that he would cease to be a 'contemporary' if he totally rejected the 'modern'. |
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| No such constraint was there for Lenin when, as early as in 1920, he projected his thesis of neo-colonialism in the Second International. It may be remembered that modernism, in the span of preceding thirty years, had been shaped into a definite 'ism' through a theological movement, and a mutual understanding between the liberals and conservations led ultimately to the cultural campaign of modernism to serve the vested interest of imperialists states. In 1920, Lenin noted that the imperialists had already started to extend their influences on other states by maintaining the veil of independent states. In the fifty years to follow, this neo-colonial policy of modern imperialism achieved satisfying results by cultural aggression on countries which needed to be 'modernised'. |
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| Cultural imperialism, along with other exploitations on the socio-economic base of a number of states in Asia-Africa-Latin America has been proved to be the most beneficial mode of expansion for the Euro-American bourgeois power. Imperialism, according to Lenin, was the highest state of bourgeois capitalism. After the second world war at least one hundred and six nations had to be granted political freedom, but it could not be suggested that bourgeois imperialism had lost its final ferocity by the end of the Great War. On the other hand puppets governing 'independent' states and half-wits in those states 'producing' art-works served their interest well till a conscious or even an unconscious apathy for the chaos set million other hearts on fire, flaming up to burn out the chaos |
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