Fragmented Selves and Unstable Worlds: Introduction to Modernism and Postmodernism in English Literature

Abstract

Modernism and postmodernism represent two of the most transformative and enduring literary movements in the history of English literature, each arising from a profound sense that inherited artistic forms and philosophical certainties were inadequate to the experience of their historical moment. This theoretical and literature review offers an accessible introduction for undergraduate students to the defining characteristics, theoretical foundations, and landmark texts of both movements, tracing the continuities and ruptures between them and situating each within its broader cultural and historical context. Drawing on the critical frameworks of theorists including Friedrich Nietzsche, Sigmund Freud, Ferdinand de Saussure, Jean-Francois Lyotard, Jean Baudrillard, and Linda Hutcheon, and examining literary works by Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, T. S. Eliot, Samuel Beckett, John Fowles, Angela Carter, Don DeLillo, and Ali Smith, the review explores how modernist and postmodernist literature engages with questions of consciousness, time, language, representation, history, and the instability of the self. The paper argues that these movements, far from being confined to a particular historical period, continue to shape the formal and philosophical preoccupations of contemporary English literature, and that a working understanding of their key concepts and texts is indispensable for any serious student of the field.