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| English LiteratureEnglish LiteratureEnglish Literature in the 20-30’s of the XX c. The century is characterized by great diversity of artistic values & methods. This age had a great impact on the literary process. Variety of social, ethic & aesthetic attitudes. New achievements in science have their impact on literature. Literature absorbs & transforms the material of their influences: V The First World War V Russian Revolution V Freud’s psychoanalysis V Bergson’s philosophy of subjective idealism V Einstein’s theory of relativity V Existentialists thought V Economic crises 1919-1921 & consequent upheaval of social movement V Marxist ideology V Strike 1926 All these factors lead to literature of social problematics. There
existed three trends: critical realism, beginning of social realism,
modernism. The writers revolutionized, changed literary form, as well as
continued the traditional forms. This inter… is a distinctive feature of
the XX c. English literature reflected Britain’s new position in the world
affairs. By the end of the XIX Victorian tradition began to deteriorate. George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) He introduced intellectual play in the English theatre. He was much
influenced by Ibsen. “In 1889 British stage came into collision with English drama of the passed years was centered on some imaginary event. George Herbert Wells (1866-1946) A novel was also developing. In the beginning – a time of crisis for His lecture – “The Contemporary Novel”. Wells was a very prolific writer. He wrote more than 100 books, he is
best known for his science fiction. He had a very definite aim – political “The War of the Worlds”. He was considered utopiographer. To build
utopic they needed to destroy the relics of the past – class distinction “Ann Veronica: A Modern Love Story” depicts the problem of emancipation. “Tono-Bungay” is a novel about the life of gentry in the rural England. “Mr. Britling Sees It Through”(1916) was called by him “the history of his own concern”. The responsibility of everyone for the war. It is autobiographical. Tried to write about the evolution of consciousness of his contemporaries. Concentrates on the inner life of his heroes. Fantasy & reality mingles here. As to the reasons of the war – he brings his heroes to the conclusion that wars are inherited in human nature. He started as an optimistic liberalist but as he lived on he was very much disappointed. “You Fools” is his last word to humanity. * * * There are many novels & poetry about war. These writers are known as This was a certain tendency in poetry – Trench poetry. They wrote about
war. Young people who served as soldiers expressed their outcry: Wilfred The classical example of novel about lost generation is “The Death of a Richard Aldington (1892-1962) He started as a poet close to decadence, aestheticism, he belonged to imagist poets (formalism). He published “Old & New Images”- his first collection of poems. He propagated the doctrine escapism – movement to escape in to the world of beauty (in Ellinism) from the ugliness of the world. This ideal world was shattered by the WWI. He came from it another man, he broke with imagists & continued to work in realistic trend. In 1929 “The Death of a Hero” was published. The novel was started after the war but had not been completed until 15 years later. It’s a social novel disclosing tragic consequence & reasons of war. He made readers see that the war was inevitable. But the protagonist tries to find the answer for the question – who is responsible for that? Everybody was! Everybody is guilty for the rivers of spilt human blood. This book is a cry for redemption for the writer. It is a novel of big generalization. There are many autobiographical touches in the book. He starts farther in the war to unmask the hypocrisy of the English society, respected English families. Aldington wants to show that this is a pack of lies that the war is a noble deed, a salvation. He tries to show that lies started much earlier. His ideals are truth & beauty. Aldington says that this generation was lost before the war started. War was not the source of the tragedy but rather result of it. The life story of George Winterborne is given in a reverse order. We see Much is said about his love because love was the only harbour for other It is a sarcastic book. Aldington was eager to tell the truth about the
society openly. But it was impossible to overcome individualism, the author
is not objective, he shows the whole range of feelings. That’s why the end
of the book is so bitter & hopeless. The title itself is very sarcastic. “Colonel’s Daughter” “All Men Are Enemies” “Very Heaven” All are about those people who came back from the war alive but still
couldn’t find their place in life. The main characters are akin to George He also wrote some critical works on D. H. Lawrence, & other writings. He died in 1962. Modernism. The word “modern” means “up-to-date”. Critics & historians used it to denote roughly the first half of the XX century. The representatives of this movement were anxious to set themselves apart from the previous generations. They totally rejected their predecessors. The term was suggested by the authors themselves. The difference between past & present tradition is qualitative. Modernist writers clearly defined the borderline between Victorian age & modernism: in 1910 – the death of king Edward & the first post-impressionist exhibition in London (Virginia Woolf), in 1915 – the first year of World War I (D. H. Lawrence). They had a deep conviction that modern experience is a unique one. They tried to point the change in modernism. This change was – massive disillusionment, destruction of faith in a number of basic social & moral principles, which laid the foundation of Western civilization. This change was to some degree intellectual as the result of late XIX theories & discoveries. Karl Marx “Das Kapital”. He shaped the imperialistic ideology, he showed it was not the pattern of progress. He believed that the world would not be dominated by enlightened bourgeoisie. The struggle is inevitable. Charles Darwin “On Origin of Species”(1859) & “The Descent of James Frazer’s “The Golden Bough”(1890-1915) showed similarities between primitive & civilized cultures. The primitive tribes appeared to be not so savage as they seemed to be. They were just like the civilized ones. Nietzsche’s “Birth of Tragedy”. In this book he exposes dark sides of human psyche, glorified the belief in ancient heroic philosophers. Max Planck’s “Quantum Theory of Atomic & Subatomic Particles”. This model of discreet beats of energy behaving in apparently unpredictable ways seize the imagination of people so much that they extrapolated it beyond the limits of physics. They believed that human behaviour was also chaotic, disorderly & unpredictable. Freud’s “Interpretation of Dream”. This work created a new model of
human personality itself as a complex, multilayed & governed by irrational These theories were in fact not very new they were known in the XIX but in XIX they never destroyed the general principles & ideas. Modern writers after the WWI found themselves in so-called “empty world”. Their world was deprived of its stability. Nothing can be taken for granted. They didn’t believe that life they were living. Being disillusioned & contemplating the society & cosmos most of them looked within themselves for the principles of order. They turned to eternal things. For that matter we see modern literature being pre-occupied with its own self, process of perception, nature of consciousness. In its extreme subjectivity modern literature went parallelly with other modern arts (e.g. painting). The main feature – subjectivity & self-interest. Modernist aesthetics was formed under the influence of French symbolist poets : Charles Baudleúr Arthur Rimbaut Paul Verlaine Stephan Mallarmé Their aim was to capture the most perishable of personal experience in open-ended & essentially private symbols, to express the inexpressible, to express the slightest movements of the soul, or at least evoke it subtly if not express, create the atmosphere of the soul. The symbolist concentration upon single moments of individual perception. Life in their reproduction was reduced to small fragments of experience. This fragmentation influenced not only composition of the work but also the character. The character was disassembled in fragmentary pieces & these pieces of human character were not held together by any theory of human type, like a collagé, juxtaposition – all transitions are removed. You just put the fragments together. The widely used technique “stream of consciousness” takes the form from a fluid associations, often illogical moment to moment sequence of ideas, feelings & impressions of a single mind. Traditional literary forms & genres merged & overlapped. The introduction of poetry into prose became possible, imagery characteristic of poetry – into prosaic text. The forms of the past were also employed but to produce the satirical effect. An equally important principle – “the stream of unconsciousness” – the
use of irrational logic of dreams & fantasies, denies ordinary logic The authors employed myth very much as a kind of collective dream. Marsel Proust “Remembrance of the Things Past” Lawrence “Sons & Lovers” Joyce “The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man” James Joyce (1882 – 1941) He was born in Ireland (Dublin). Although he spent many years not in He started to attend an expensive private boarding school but his father
became bankrupt & he continued his education at home. Then he attended In the full form the collection was published in 1914 together with his
autobiographical novel “The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man”, which
was to be called “Stephen-Hero”. This book explores the story of the
formation of the artist’s consciousness. In criticism it is called “a
gestation of the soul”, for he tries to penetrate into people’s mind. It is
deeply psychological work. In form it is “buildungsroman” (German word
meaning “educational novel”). Life is shown chronologically. The main hero In the first part the language is very simple. Then some glimpses of family life are given. The disagreement between its members has political roots. Another stage is school & college. Stephen does not participate in boys’ games. He longs for the moment when he can be alone, he is weak & suffering. The Jesuit college bred an aversion for religion in the young artist. Everything was repulsive in the college: sermons, system of punishment, religibility + hypocrisy. It was an anguish experience. Stephen learnt to build a wall between him & all the rest of the humanity. The book has an open ending – we don’t know Stephen will do. It ends with the decision to leave Ireland. This exile, solitude are the ways in which Stephen opposes to the oppressing influence of the society. He rejects what life suggests to him – his choice is loneliness. The problem of correlating of artists & society is solved by Joyce from highly individualistic standpoint. The last pages express Stephen’s understanding of form & time categories. “The past is consumed in the present & the present is living because it has force in the future”. The name “Dedalus” is symbolic. It is a symbol of new art which is liberated from restrain of old art… He discovers & explores the possibilities of new art. Its aim is to create a new labyrinth of forms of new art. In 1922 ”Ulysses” was published. It started as another short story for |
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