Setting the Stage: The Modernist Break

Explain how new theories of the mind (e.g., Freud) challenged the 19th-century realist portrayal of a stable self.

Describe how WWI and urbanization created a sense of fragmentation that undermined realist narrative confidence.

Explain how late-realist fiction (e.g., Chekhov, Conrad) anticipated modernist concerns with subjectivity and moral ambiguity.

Distinguish the modernist focus on interiority and unreliable narration from 19th-century conventions of character portrayal.

Distinguish the modernist use of narrative fragmentation and the 'mythic method' from the structures of 19th-century realist plots.

Articulate Virginia Woolf's argument in 'Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown' that 'on or about December 1910 human character changed'.

Summarize the geography of early modernist fiction across key European cities like London, Paris, Dublin, and Prague.