I think that you can find the presence of modernism in
much of the literature between the World Wars. The reality was that there was a
fundamental disbelief in the promises of totality and authenticity which were assured
following World War I. In his poem, "The Second Coming," Yeats writes that"the falcon
cannot hear the falconer." In this light, one sees much in the way of loss and
abandonment that is experienced by the Modernists following the First World War. The
intensity of challenge in seeking to find meaning in a setting where this was absent
becomes a dominant theme in Modernist literature of the time. These concerns bring
themselves out in Expatriate literature and they dominated much of the literature that
comes out of the Great Depression. The desire for structure and the futility that
results from such a quest is a concern in the literature between the great
wars.
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