Lament of Modernism and Celebration of Postmodernism While each movement claims its own name and its own group of authors, the characteristics of the literary postmodern period are quite similar to those of the literary modernist movement, and the Their differences are more those of attitude than of form. Modernism and postmodernism strongly emphasize a new standard that distances itself from and rejects the ideas of the Romantic period about how art should be created and how art should be perceived. Annie Dillard's Holy the Firm and Virginia Woolf's "An Unscript Novel" are both excellent examples of the modern and postmodern literary movements and can be used to illustrate their overall similarities and subtle differences. To examine how Woolf's Holy the Firm and Virginia Dillard's "An Unwritten Novel" represent modernist and postmodernist writing, one must understand the characteristics of these literary movements. Contrary to one of the hallmarks of the Romantic period, modernism and postmodernism both place emphasis on how the process of perception occurs, rather than on what is perceived. Furthermore, rather than focusing on the physical sense of what is perceived, modernism and postmodernism focus on the individual thought process and mental impressions of the writer. Typically, modernism and postmodernism move away from objectivity and fixed narratives. Modernist and postmodernist literary works are fragmented, almost discontinuous. They contain collages of seemingly random and spontaneous content, but they contain a much deeper meaning. One of the most distinct and unique qualities of modernism and postmodernism is the way they allow genres to blend together, blurring the lines between prose and poetry, fiction and nonfiction. Virginia Woolf's "An Unwritten Novel" is definitely a modernist piece of literature. “An Unwritten Novel” is written in a way that leaves the reader wondering if what they just read makes any sense. “An Unwritten Novel” has a sense of spontaneity and randomness, as if you were reading the thoughts of a person with attention deficit disorder. For example, in "An Unwritten Novel," Virginia Woolf writes: Did I read you right? But the human face – the human face at the top of the fullest sheet of print – contains more, holds more. Now, eyes open. She looks out; and in the human eye – how would you define it? – there is a break – a division – so that when you have grasped the stem the butterfly falls away – the moth that hangs on the yellow flower in the evening – move, raise your hand, away, up, away.