INTRODUCTION TO TWENTIETH CENTURY BRITISH LITERATURE

Modernism….Postmodernism…..Postcolonialism

Modernism - Anglo-American Movement 1920’s-1960’s

Mood/Tone: Negative

loss of old values: disconnection from central moral and religious core – which may or may not have previously existed, or may have just been an illusion

criticism of new values: individualism, materialism, mass culture

new awareness of shifting perspectives of reality

preoccupation with alienation, loss of identity

continued belief in the validity of universal moral truths

Style

Experimental within the framework of the text as a unified work of art with clear artistic control

plot breaks up the logically developed plot of the nineteenth century novel, offers instead unexpected connections or sudden changes of perspective – ultimate resolution

language: uses interior monologues and free association to express the reality of the conscious and subconscious mind, usually sophisticated , rich in allusions and imagery

style: may blend fantasy with reality while representing real social or psychological dilemmas – dream-like sequences

wholeness of the text: despite an apparently discontinuous experimental style, the text resolves itself aesthetically – expresses the writer’s belief in a shared moral core which can and should be recaptured

Postmodernism – Global Movement 1960’s onward

Mood/Tone: may be negative or positive

interest in projecting varied versions of reality –

cultural perspective, particularly in terms of changing, conflicting cultures

unprecedented recognition of different ethnic, sexual and cultural identities

morality is ambiguous, relative – suspicion of moral judgements

characteristic mood: impersonal, coolly decentered, ironic

Style:

Attempt to present the text as reality: incomplete, uncontrolled

plot maintains discontinuity – may not have closure or resolution

language: may reflect the characters’ perspective, may project the writer’s ironic perspective – challenges boundaries of acceptable language

style: varies: realistic, playful – “gamelike” construction

open text – questions but not answers

Postcolonialism – Global Movement 1960’s onward

Mood/Tone: often negative

personal and social reality from the perspective of colonized culture

anger at the racism of the colonizing culture

sadness, frustration at the loss of national, cultural and linguistic identity

search for a new identity forged from the colonial experience

Style

realistic, social and personal relationships

language may include dialect, non- English

strong reflection of specific cultural styles – in language, imagery, plot

usually but not always more traditional in narrative plot structure

POLITICS AND SOCIETY IN 20TH CENTURY BRITAIN

World War I 1914-1918/ World War II 1939-45

  • post-war disillusionment
  • extreme right: T.S. Eliot, D.H. Lawrence, Wyndham Lewis, W.B. Yeats
  • extreme left: Auden, Orwell

Break-up of the Empire/Loss of International Power

  • Boer War 1899-1902
  • British Empire - British Commonwealth
  • India’s Independence 1947
  • Irish Republic leaves Commonwealth -1949
  • South Africa leaves Commonwealth – 1961
  • Hong Kong handed back to China - 1997
  • Britain’s heavy personal and economic losses over two world wars

-post-war defeated countries of Germany and Japan do much better than

UK as a result of foreign (mainly American) aid

Contemporary Britain

  • ongoing Irish “troubles”
  • wave of immigrants from previous colonies - Jamaica, India, Pakistan
  • second wave from eastern Europe
  • post-war welfare state, strong trades unions, later challenged by Margaret Thatcher, current “new labor”government- Prime Minister: Tony Blair
  • economy shifts from industry to service, tourism, very few nineteenth century industries left: coal, steel, cotton
  • from dominant world power to European Union member?
  • challenges to the monarchy

Class in Contemporary Britain

  • far more fluid
  • accents and popular culture
  • the influence of the immigrant population

POETRY

World War I poets (1914-20): new realism about war, questioning patriotism empire

Wilfred Owen (1893-1918): “Anthem for Doomed Youth” “Dulce et Decorum Est”

Siegfriend Sassoon (1886-1967): “They” “Glory of Women” “The General”

Rupert Brook (1887-1915): “The Soldier”

Modernist Poets (1915-1950)

Experimentation in language and rhythm, complex imagery, loss of values/communication

T.S.Eliot (1888-1965) :” The Waste Land” “The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock”

“The Hollow Men”

W.H. Auden (1907-1973) : “The Unknown Citizen” “Musee des Beaux Arts”

W.B. Yeats ( 1865-1939): “ The Second Coming” “Sailing to Byzantium”

Robert Graves (1895-1985): “The Cool Web”

Dylan Thomas (1914-1953): “Do Not Go Gentle”

Stevie Smith (1902-1971): “Not Waving But Drowning”

1960’s: Working Class Poets - dialect, gritty social realism

Philip Larkin (1922-1985): “MCMXIV” “Talking in Bed” “Aubade”

1970-ContemporaryPoets– politics, contemporary life, cultural roots and cultural conflict

Seamus Heaney (1939-present): “Punishment” ”The Skunk” “Digging”

Derek Walcott ( 1930-present): “A Far Cry From Africa” “The Glory Trumpeter” “Midsummer”

FICTION

Modernism – 1920’s-1960

Joseph Conrad, James Joyce, D.H. Lawrence, Viginia Woolf, E.M. Forster
  • shattering of confidence in the old certainties about the deity and Christian faith
  • attempt to rebuild credible new alternatives to the old belief systems
  • prevailing notions of ordinary reality came under attack - focus of the modernist novel turns inward “its large concern being now with consciousness - a flow of reflections, momentary impressions, disjunctive bits of recall and half-memory, simultaneously revealing both the past and the present (stream of consciousness)”
  • the truths of the inward life: tricky, scattered, fragmentary, spotty, impressionistic (James Joyce: Ulysses)
  • free indirect style: writers can enter their characters’ minds to speak on their behalf
  • marked feature of modernism: existential loneliness - Lord Jim, Stephen Daedalus, Paul Morel

WWII and After

  • new Welfare State “Angry Young Men” and Working Class Fiction

Alan Sillitoe The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning

  • continued moral and social questioning: William Golding, Iris Murdoch, Graham Greene, Evelyn Waugh, Anthony Burgess, Muriel Spark
  • political questioning: George Orwell

Contemporary Novelists : Postmodern and Postcolonial

Postmodern: Martin Amis, Julain Barnes, Jeanette Winterson

Postcolonial: Doris Lessing, Jean Rhys, , V.S. Naipaul, Hanif Kureishi, Salman Rushdie, Alice

Munro, Kazuo Ishiguro

New Irish and Scottish writers: Irving Walsh,

DRAMA

Early 20th Century: Shaw late Victorian humor/satire/social criticism

Post World War I: Existentialism/Alienation

Samuel Beckett Waiting for Godot

Harold Pinter

1950’s: Angry Young Men

John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger, The Entertainer, Sheila Delaney A Taste of Honey

1960’s-Present

Postmodern: Tom Stoppard - Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Arcadia