As to the initial question, I find this quote from Tolkien interesting and germaine:
Quote:
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If there is any contemporary reference in my story (The Lord of the Ring) at all it is ... the most widespread assumption of our time: that if a thing can be done, it must be done. This seems to me wholly false. The greatest examples of the action of the spirit and of reason are in abnegation.
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This from the Letters. As usual, Tolkien is very careful and precise in his use of words, and shows that he understands modernism better than modernists do.
Suffice it to say, I think Tolkien is right.
And no, modernism is not dead. It just keeps morphing ... into new modes.