140
IRVING HOWE
monster exists - the modernist writer is post-Christian in the sense that
he has largely (no one could have entirely) shaken off the traumas which
had followed on earlier, nineteenth century improvisations of skepticism.
Poggioli also seems to me unsatisfactory in his assumption that
modernism will and indeed must remain the dominant culture of the
West for the indefinite future. He recognizes that "the avant-garde is
condemned to conquer, through the influence of fashion, that very popu–
larity it once disdained - and this is the beginning of its end." Precisely.
But then he posits a series of modernist recurrences in which "a new
fashion, movement or avant-garde appears." Here I
think
he succumbs
to a certain confusion: a new fashion, yes, as a parody-fulfillment of the
modernist impulse, but a new fashion isn't at all the same as a new
movement and still less the same as a new avant-garde.
Theorists of modernism often trap themselves in a dubious either/or:
either there will occur a phoenixlike renewal of modernist sensibility as
the necessary response to unabated historical crisis or there will be a total
disintegration leading to a new cultural epoch. But the evidence, I
STERLING TUCKER
Coordinator, Poor People's March on Washington
National Field Director, National Urban League
Sterlipg Tucker writes a powerful, militant
statement of the realities and dangers of our
racial situation, and offers sound, construc–
tive solutions.
"Angry .
..
a manifesto of mili–
tancy."
-
Washington
STAR.
"Interesting .
..
challenging .
..
a realistic picture of an unpretty scene."
-
FED–
ERAL TIMES.
$2.50 paper; $4.95 cloth - bookstores
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