Faculty of philology department of english philology viktorija mi

predispositions”. Thus, it was important to free the creative powers of the unconscious mind and to 
overcome reason. The concept, or idea, not external details, was considered to be the essence of art. 
The notion of unconscious mind had deeply influenced new tendencies in literature, 
philosophy, and psychology. In his study, Stevenson (1998) introduces some more important ideas 
contradicting the ones expressed by Sanders and Swinden. According to Stevenson, the intellectual 
underpinnings of Modernism emerge during the period of Renaissance when, on the basis of the 
study of the art, poetry, philosophy, and science of ancient Greece and Rome, humanists believed 
that human being is the nucleus of the existing world and that only human mind is able to measure 
the width and depth of physical and spiritual reality. Indeed, for humanists, the world was an 
ambiguous place full of dangers and mysteries, but a person was able to defend himself and to fight 
for his rights with the help of physical and mental power that he possessed. In other words, 
humanists were concerned with trying to understand human actions and with riving to improve 
themselves. Undoubtedly, Stevenson recognizes in Renaissance a humanistic expression of that 
modernist confidence in the potential of humans to shape their own individual destinies and the 
future of the world. He agrees with Izolda Rita Genienė who also notices that the majority of 
humanist philosophers claimed that humans are able to learn to understand nature and natural forces 
by means of mental cognition, and can even understand the mysterious nature of the Universe. The 

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modernist thinking which appeared in the Renaissance can be treated as an important aesthetic 
background for the pattern of thought in the twentieth century, during the period of Modernism.
(Genienė 2007:162) 
Peter Verdonk and Jean Jackues Weber (1995:104) agree with Stevenson and claim that we 
can come across the first signs of modern thinking in the philosophy of ancient Greece. In the 
linguists’ opinion, the variety of cultural and philosophical innovations transformed human 
conscience a great deal as a new way of leading life was introduced. A great interest in classical 
learning coincided with painting and sculpture showing real people in real places. Artists and 
writers were seen as important figures in society, and they were supported by noble families who 
wanted to display their own wealth and importance. Indeed, philosophers, mathematicians, and 
other scientists discussed new ideas concerning the issues of human nature and human role in the 
world and wrote them down in books and treatises, many of which were studied in the periods of 
Renaissance, Romanticism, Modernism, and Postmodernism. There is enough evidence to claim 
that growing interest and study of people’s thoughts, feelings, and other processes happening in the 
mind was the feature unifying the scope of science and art of all the aforementioned periods.
The deepest problems of modern life questioned and analysed by modernists derive from the 
claim of the individual to preserve the autonomy and individuality of his existence in the face of 
overwhelming social forces, of historical heritage, of external culture, and of the technique of life. 
Indeed, Verdonk and Weber (1995:86) interpret the picture of anxious and hesitating modern 
human presented in modern art as a manifestation of social disillusionment and lack of cohesion in 
the world. Besides, the critics say that the feelings of despair and hesitation do not only depict the 
individual human characteristics but portray the state of consciousness of the whole society during 
that period as well. However, as the linguists believe, these problems have always existed; they are 
not specific or unique for the period of Modernism. As we can see form above-mentioned 
Stevenson’s ideas concerning the periods of Romanticism and Renaissance, people perceived life as 
a constant struggle many years ago, and the same conceptions are valid in the philosophy of 
Modernism. On the other hand, Stevenson notices that in modern art reality changed its face as 
modern humans see the entire existing world as intangible and full of ambiguities more than ever 
before. The new concept of fragmented and shifted time becomes more and more important as it 
characterizes the fractured nature of person. Interestingly enough, theorists Vassiliki Kolocotroni, 
Jane Goldman, and Olga Taxidou in their interface study support Stevenson and suppose that 
“Modernism is not a movement. It is a term that masks conflict and upheaval and any number of 
contradictory positions”. (1998:17) By comparison, according to Verdonk and Weber (1995), there 

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is enough evidence to claim that modern reality actually becomes invisible as the art mirrors human 
himself, not the outer world.
In his study, Michael North (1998:14) draws a parallel between the authentic modernist 
features of art and the ones that Modernism inherited from the period of Realism either denying or 
modifying and employing them practically. Interestingly, North believes that modernist literature 
attempted to move from the norms and standards of realist literature and to introduce concepts such 
as freedom of literary form commonly received as understanding of plot, time, and identity. 
According to the theorist (ibid.), Realism in literature can be understood as a strict direct 
representation of reality. The main aim of realist fiction is to imitate and mimic everyday life, to 
evoke the impression that the fictional characters really exist and that the events narrated are the 
events of ordinary experience that could happen to every person. Besides, in Berman’s words, 
Modernism “enables us to see all sorts of artistic, intellectual, religious, and political activities as 
part of one dialectal process, and to develop creative interplay among them. It cuts across physical 
and social space, and reveals solidarities between great artists and ordinary people, and between 
residents of what we clumsily call the Old, the New, and the Third Worlds”. (1988:5) It is also 
worth remembering, as North claims, that the concept of Realism dominated during the Victorian 
era when writers assumed that readers will be interested in fiction which seems convincingly to be 
real. The effect of the realist novel is making the reader believe that what is being narrated is true or 
has really happened. Thus, obviously, the basic impetus of art in Realism focuses on the detailed 
presentation of daily life. 
Onega and Landa ( 1996 :25) support North’s ideas and claim that the specific feature of 
Modernism is its attempt to break free from retelling the events that happen in reality and to create 
an imaginary world of dreams, illusions, visions, symbols, and memories. Besides, according to the 
linguists, modernist literature can be viewed largely in terms of its formal, stylistic, and semantic 
movement away not only from Realism but from Romanticism as well. In the theorists’ opinion, 
modernist characters often suffer from the feelings of fear, hesitation, and pessimism; they refuse to 
believe in the bright future. Nevertheless, they desperately seek for consolation and hope, and the 
picture of bright imaginary future is apparent in the literature of Modernism. To prove this, let us 
consider the following example from Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse (1996):
(1) He wanted to be taken within the circle of life, warmed and soothed, to have his