Revisiting Modernism: A Review of Modernism by Peter Childs

Modernism is one of the most significant and informative books written in the field of literary theory and criticism. It is an easy-access, wide-ranging and efficient book that tries to explore different aspects of Modernism and its neighboring concepts. Despite its limited space, it has fully rendered the humongous burden of Modernism and demonstrating its various aspects. The book comprises an introduction and three main chapters. It starts off with a set of definitions for Romance, Realism, Modernism, and Postmodernism. Childs endeavors to approach the discussion in a comparative light, particularly the comparison between Modernism and Postmodernism in the introduction. The book is more concerned with the close analysis of movements in contexts and literary works rather than entangling with pure abstract definitions. The discussion about Modernism is accompanied by adjacent movements such as Postmodernism and Realism and marginalized points are included as well. Instead of coming up with rock-solid definitions, Childs seeks to look for traces of each movement in the other and how these terms are overlapped and intertwined.