2011م - 1444هـ
Saul Bellow‟s Seize the Day: A Modernist Study



The study starts with a brief introduction to modernism, modernist fiction, and a short analysis of Bellow‟s Seize the

Day, which is followed by the modernist study of Seize the Day.

II. MODERNISM

Literary modernism is a twentieth-century movement which takes new aspects of literature, as concerned with the

changing situation of the society, into account. The exact period in which the movement appeared is much debated by

critics. Brooker argues that some critics extend the period from 1880 to 1950, while some others divide the period and

“give priority to the prewar years," or” post-war years". (1972, p.4) some other critics believe that the movement started

in 1890 and finished in 1945 when the second world war was over. The debate over the beginning or end of modernism

is not as significant as its literary ideology which is to be discussed in this research.

Modernism as a “creative violence" (levenson, 2002, p.2) deviates from the literary tradition and turns the holistic

and taken-for- granted literary concepts into new internal and mental trends. The significant point to be made here is

that "modernist" must be distinguished from “modern". Modern can denote anything





.