Modernism describes the developments in literature, art, and music that peaked in the first half of the twentieth century. Traditional values and morals, along with any basis for hope in the future, which had already been eroded by nineteenth-century skepticism, were shattered by the apocalyptic struggle of World War I. In the Modernist perspective, one of the most basic assumptions of Western culture concerning human nature was no longer credible; this was the assumption that human beings are rational and can thus solve their problems and discover and control their world through reason. Primitivism was another manifestation of the Modernist rejection of the sovereignty of reason. The conclusion drawn by many Modernist from discoveries of the unconscious, the primitive, and the irrational in human nature wass that it is foolish, even absurd, to retain faith in human reason. Contributing to this pessimistic view of the human lot held by Modernists was their equally pessimistic view of the universe. This pessimistic Modernist conception of the world and human nature was reflectede in their art. Since the human longing for knowledge and understanding could only be frustrated by external reality, the Modernists turned within, to their own psyches, as a source of truth. The intense focus of the Modernist on the inner life led to a self-consciousness at odds with society, a sense of alienation or estangement from what Modernists regaurded as materialistic, banal, anf hypocritical behavior of the middle class. Finally, Modernism was characterized by a pervasive and sometimes corrosive skepticism, a radical questioning of the value of society, of morality, of reason, or religion -- indeed, of life itself. Darwiiniaan evolution, Marx's attacks on the values of middle-class commercialism, Dostoyevsky's ambivalent dramatization of the human condition, and Freud's discovery of the unconscious are all the specific artistic sources of Modernism. The reader should be aware, however, that this is intended to characterize the movement as a whole; not all Modernist writers and artists reveal all of these characteristics. Also, keep in mind that Modernism is not a chronological designation but refers to a number of tenddancies in the arts, especially evident in the first half of the twentieth century but not confined to that period.