Romanticism and Modernism

1. Romanticism and Modernism The Great Gatsby

2. Wait, I thought we were in the Modernist Period! • Don’t worry – we are! • But Fitzgerald is a risk taker! • Romanticism seen as old, outdated, ideas are worn out

3. Why? • For Fitzgerald, Romantic terms/experiences/ perceptions/ perspectives were crucial: he couldn’t let them go! • Aimed to renovate them by assimilating them into a disciplined Modernist style and culture

4. Fitz wants to raise a question: • Is Romanticism valid in a Modern World? • The reader must then deal with two possibilities: • Romanticism is irretrievable for modernity • Modernity provides new Romantic possibilities • He sees the clash between the two cultures: how Modernity has stripped the world of Romantic ideals • In some instances, Fitzgerald believes that he can rejuvenate Romantic ideas/ make them more applicable by using Modernist style/imagery to clarify the true spirit of their meaning. • But he can’t always do that: he can’t always make the Modern hopeful. So then he asks the question: What do we do?

5. Okay, then, Modern Romanticism… • Fitzgerald does recognize the downfalls of Romanticism: it is bound up with capitalism, materialism, selfishness… • But he does strive for the goals of Romanticism: for transcendence, creativity, energy….

6. Clarifying Example 1: page 6 • Nick about Gatsby: “If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he were related to one of those intricate machines that register earthquakes ten thousand miles away” Modernist simile helps us understand Romantic ideas: working together!!

7. Clarifying Example 2: page 8 • Nick on moving to West Egg: “And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees – just as things grow in fast movies – I had the familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.” Modernist simile helps us understand Romantic ideas: working together!!

8. Problem-Creating Example 1: pg 40 • Nick about the “party” in Myrtle’s flat: “I wanted to get out and walk eastward toward the park through the soft twilight but each time I tried to go I became entangled in some wild strident argument which pulled me back, as if with ropes, into my chair.” Oh no! Modernism STRANGLES/CONFINES Romantic ideas: problems!

9. Problem-Creating Example 2: pg 73 • Nick in the car with Gatsby to the city: “The city seen from the Queensboro Bridge is always the city seen for the first time, in its first wild promise of all the mystery and beauty in the world. A dead man passed us in a hearse heaped with blooms, followed by two carriages with drawn blinds and by more cheerful carriages for friends. The friends looked out at us with the tragic eyes and short upper lips of south-eastern Europe and I was glad that the sight of Gatsby’s splendidcar was included in their somber holiday. As we crossed Blackwells Island a limousine passed us, driven by a white chauffeur, in which sat three modish Negroes, two bucks and a girl. I laughed aloud as the yolks of their eyeballs rolled toward us in haughty rivalry.”

10. Your turn! • Find an example from chapters 1-5 where Fitzgerald is wrestling with the ideas of Romanticism/Modernism. • You can find an example where Fitz seems to show that Modernism presents a new light through which to better understand Romanticism or… • You can find an example where Fitz raises a question about the validity of Romantic ideals in a Modern world • Hint: Romantic words include things like: deathless, enchanted, exhilarating, thrilling, wild, beauty, magic, melancholy, mystery and wonder.