Overview of expressionism

Expressionism has never been a completely unified and coordinated movement, and its members have great differences in political beliefs and philosophical views. However, most of them are influenced by Kant's philosophy, Bergson's intuitionism and Freud's psychoanalysis, emphasizing anti-tradition, dissatisfied with the social status quo and demanding reform and "revolution". In creation, they are not satisfied with the imitation of objective things, but demand to express the inner essence of things; It is required to break through the description of human behavior and environment and reveal human soul; It is required to show eternal quality, not just to describe temporary and accidental phenomena. It has produced a number of influential writers and works in the fields of poetry, novels and drama. The theme of his poems is to hate the noise of the city, or to expose the chaos, depravity and sin of big cities, full of seclusion and sadness, or to preach "universal humanity" Its characteristic is that it does not attach importance to detail description, but only pursues the strong expression of subjective spirit and inner passion. Representative figures are Trakel of Austria and Heim and Bain of Germany. The characters and stories in his novels are abnormal deformation or distortion of real life, which is used to reveal the alienation phenomenon in industrial society and the serious spiritual crisis of people losing themselves. The representative figure is Kafka of Austria. His plays are absurd in content and scattered in structure, with no logical connection between scenes, sudden changes in plot, no clear boundaries between life and death, and dreams and reality. Use short, fast, high, strong rhythm and lengthy inner monologues to express the thoughts and feelings of the characters. At the same time, a large number of lights, music, masks, etc. are used to supplement the language effect. Representative figures include Strindberg in Sweden, Toler in Germany, O 'Neill in the United States, Capec in the Czech Republic, Duquesne in Britain, Yixiuwude in Ireland, O 'Casey and so on.