Structure and chaos in modernist works

by Bruce E. Fleming

The works of Modernism (ca. 1910-1930), in the last years of our century, tend to be treated as mere facts, mines for history and biography. In fact the Modernist work, whether of literature, philosophy, film, or dance, is a radical and potentially powerful entity. Fleming analyzes the works of Modernist artists as actions in the world, processes rather than static objects, that mediate between the artist and the world. Among the more striking analyses is a reading of Wittgenstein's Tractatus logico-philosophicus as a Modernist drama.