Arms and the Man is a comedic play that draws upon the literary conventions of both late Romanticism and early Modernism. In particular, Arms and the Man represents a pivotal moment in Western literary and cultural history—this being, of course, the transition into Modernism and breaking away from literary convention that occurred at the turn of the 20th century. Modernist writers became known for shattering the prior literary molds that held them captive to set form and structure. Authors such as James Joyce and Virginia Woolf would pioneer "stream of consciousness" writing in novels, deviating from the rising action/climax/falling action structure that had been conventional for prose fiction writing since the advent of novel form. Similarly, poets such as T.S. Eliot would begin writing poetry that deviated from set rhyme schemes and metrical structures, opting for looser forms that came to represent the chaos and uncertainty of modernity.
Arms and the Man is a transitional work, both diverging from and maintaining traditional forms. On the one hand, the play is still divided into Acts, maintaining some of the established hallmarks of drama writing. On the other hand, as a comedic play that does not divide its Acts into separate scenes, Arms and the Man breaks from traditional Shakespearean notions of drama writing. This moment of transition is documented within the themes of the play, which comments on the clash between antiquated ideals and the harsh realities of modernism.
