Modernism: An Anthology of Sources and Documents

by Vassiliki Kolocotroni (Editor), Olga Taxidou (Editor), Jane Goldman (Editor)

From Bauhaus to Dada, from Virginia Woolf to John Dos Passos, the Modernist movement revolutionized the way we perceive, portray, and participate in the world. This landmark anthology is a comprehensive documentary resource for the study of Modernism, bringing together more than 150 key essays, articles, manifestos, and other writings of the political and aesthetic avant-garde between 1840 and 1950.

By favoring short extracts over lengthier originals, the editors cover a remarkable range and variety of modernist thinking. Included are not just the familiar high modernist landmarks such as Gustave Flaubert, Ezra Pound, and James Joyce, but also a diverse representation from the sciences, politics, philosophy, and the arts, including Charles Darwin, Thorstein Veblen, W. E. B. Du Bois, Isadora Duncan, John Reed, Adolf Hitler, and Sergei Eisenstein. Another welcome feature is a substantial selection of hard-to-find manifestos from the many modernist movements, among them futurism, cubism, Dada, surrealism, and anarchism.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, Theory, Art History, Anthologies, Reference

654 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

Reviews

[Anna Hiller · Rating 5 out of 5]

In teaching modernism, it is essential to have the manifesti, the cultural criticism, the political discourses right at hand when discussing what makes modernism so "different", so that students can understand why there is a "before" and "after" with regard to modernism. This anthology provides an economical way to access all those source documents that is convenient for both them and for the professor. The selection is broad enough that you can tailor the selections to whichever facet of modernism you may be covering in class, and students will still have ample documents to explore when researching final projects. My copy of this anthology is well-worn and beaten up, and that's always a good sign for any book.

[Ruby · Rating 2 out of 5]

This anthology has an absolutely fantastic selection of texts - as the blurb states, over 150 articles/essays/manifestoes etc. are included. However, fitting 150 texts in one book is not an easy task, which means that they have to be abridged. I found this very frustrating, especially because many were abridged to the extent that they became difficult to follow. Woolf's "Modern Fiction" is reduced to one measly page, for example. Moreover, the editing throughout was kept to a minimum - some references and historical context explained beyond the brief biographies would have been great. On the whole then, a great selection but not such a great execution, especially not for grad-level classes.

(Tl;dr: Copy the index and read the texts yourself!)