(1) Avant-garde

New ways of making art must get tiring… but the Modernists had more energy than a triple-shot mocha with a RedBull chaser. Much of these artists' edgy work still challenges us today.

(2) The City

Modernism and the big city go together like champagne and bubbles, or flappers and Louise Brooks haircuts.

(3) Imagism and Vorticism

Poet Ezra Pound wrote the book on these literary movements—Vorticism was based on Cubism (think Picasso's pretty gals with two eyes on one side of their head and their mouth on their foreheads) and Imagism was more like a photo: clear, crisp and image-tastic.

(4) Jazz Age

Your Great Gatsby-themed party ain't got nothing on this. The Roaring 1920s were exactly that: howling with jazz and a lack of innocence. The Modernists thrived in this crazytown environment.

(5) The Lost Generation

Those crazy mixed-up boys who came back from World War I to find the world a totally different place. Think Hemingway; think Fitzgerald. Think a really bleak attitude towards life and a club kid attitude towards partying.

(6) Make it New

Ezra Pound's awesome advice: "Any work of art which is not a beginning, an invention, a discovery is of little worth." You heard the man: get innovative or get lost.

(7) New Paradigms

Is there an echo in here? Weren't we already told about newness and how important it is? Well, some things bear repeating. Modernist writers were influenced by new scientific theories like Einstein's Special and General theories of Relativity and Heisenberg's (no, not that Heisenberg) Uncertainty Principle.

(8) Revolution

Sometimes social change isn't just on the page or the canvas. Real revolutions and major social change were a part of this time too.

(9) Stream of Consciousness

Novelists used this technique to get deep (and we mean deep) into the heads of their characters.

(10) The Unconscious

Sigmund Freud's theories offered a whole new way of explaining why people behave the way they do. And—bonus!—these theories gave Modernist writers an excuse to delve even deeper into their character's filthy little minds.