Meaning & use
modernist genre
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Meanings
nouncountabletechnicalspecialist
A category or type of art, music, or writing that uses the experimental methods of modernism.
Grammar: Countable: you can say 'a modernist genre' or 'modernist genres'.
Patterns
- a modernist genre
- modernist genres
- belong to a modernist genre
The stream-of-consciousness novel is a modernist genre that changed how stories are told.
Scholars often treat collage as a modernist genre in visual art.
Her early poems belong to a modernist genre that rejected regular rhyme.
nounsingulartechnicalspecialist
The general kind of work connected with modernism, considered as a group.
Grammar: Often used with 'the' to mean the whole category: 'the modernist genre'.
Patterns
- the modernist genre
- within the modernist genre
Within the modernist genre, writers often broke sentences into fragments.
The modernist genre is studied alongside realism and romanticism.
Critics place his later work in the modernist genre.
Word forms
| plural | modernist genres |
|---|
Common combinations
- a modernist genre
- The prose poem is a modernist genre that mixes poetry and everyday speech.
- the modernist genre
- The modernist genre includes many experiments with time and memory.
- belong to a modernist genre
- These paintings belong to a modernist genre called abstract expressionism.
- within the modernist genre
- Within the modernist genre, artists often questioned traditional forms.
Synonyms and how they differ
- modernist form
- This stresses the shape or structure of a work rather than its category, and is often used in close analysis.
- modernist movement
- This refers to the whole historical group of artists, not to one type of work.
Word family
- modernism noun
- The broad artistic movement of the early twentieth century.
- modernist adjective
- Belonging to or typical of modernism.
- modernist noun
- An artist or writer who works in this style.
Commonly confused: modernist genre or modern genre?
modernist genre vs modern genre
This simply means a type of art that is recent; 'modernist genre' means a type that uses the methods of modernism, which began over a century ago.
Practice
Which phrase correctly completes the sentence: 'The stream-of-consciousness novel is ___ that changed narrative style.'?
Choose one answer.
The noun 'genre' is countable, so it needs an article: 'a modernist genre'. Option 1 lacks an article, option 2 uses a plural with 'is', and option 3 has the wrong word order.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “modernist genre”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.