The modern age

• THE CULTURAL CONTEXT

1901: King Eduard II, a period of social reforms (education act 1902). This was the beginning of
tensions within Europe that caused the forming of alliances to keep a balance power: TRIPLE
ENTENTE (Britain, France and Russia) and the TRIPLE ALLIANCE (Germany, Italy and
Austria).
1902: end of Boer wars in south Africa between Britain and Germany.
1903: begins the suffragettes movement to secure the vote for women.
1905: Einstein formulated the theory of special relativity.
1908: the first moving assembly line by Henry Ford.
1910: George V King and TRADE UNIONISM began.
WORLD WAR I: the assassination of Franz Ferdinand at Sarajevo the 18th June 1914 was the
spark for the war which lasted 4 years and killed nearly a million soldiers from all over the British
empire.
1916: a rebellion broke out in Ireland with the Easter Rising in Dublin.
1917: the fall of the Russian empire caused by the socialist revolution.
1919: after the end of the war the TREATY OF VERSAILLES was signed redrawing European
borders with the need to preserve peace.
After the war in the USA there was a period of economic recession: the ROARING TWENTIES
followed by the stock market cash in 1929 and the great depression solved by Roosevelt with an
economic plan called New Deal.
In India Mahatma Gandhi started a non-violent protest against the British government which led to
the government of India Act in 1935.
1922: Benito Mussolini came to power as Duce after the March of Rome 22nd October and
established a dictatorship government called FASCISM.
1933: Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany and established Nazism (violent nationalism, racism,
anti-communism and anti-semitism).
1936-1839: in Spain after a blood civil war was set up another FASCIST TOTALITARIAN
STATE led by Francisco Franco.
WORLD WAR II: Germany was led by Hitler’s policy of aggression and expansionism to
réoccupante the Rhineland in 1936, to occupate Austria in 1938 and to invade Poland in 1939 which
provoked the declaration of war from Britain and France. The war eventually ended in 1945 after
the dropping of the atomic bombs in Japan by the US.

KEY CONCEPTS
• Advances were made in the US in terms of transport —> the first flight by the Whrigt’s brothers
aircraft and the first mass-production of Ford Motor Company.
• After WW1 to a percentage of women in Britain was granted the RIGHT TO VOTE with the
representation of people act, the right then became equal to men’s whit the EQUAL FRANCHISE
ACT.
• In the 1920s Britain was facing mass employment and a drop in production levels, in this century
is witnessed a consolidation of UNIONS OF WORKERS who supported the liberal party and
began to call strikes.
• In Ireland the easter rising failed but initiated the process of division between Ireland and
Northern Ireland.

KEY AUTHORS AND TEXT

Feelings of supremacy, righteousness and optimism of the previous century were questioned by
different challenges (military and economic) that Britain had to face.
With the devastating experience of WW1 the old outlook of life was completely demolished
bringing rejective reaction to the uncritical faith in progress in the social system.
—> in fact it emphasized the individual sensibility and consciousness of the human being opposed
to the commitment to the conventions and tradition which characterized the previous victorian age.

FICTION
Characterized by 2 main trends:
1) Following the tradition of the realistic novel but with more focus on psychological realism of
social and political engagement for example the author of Sons and Lovers, David Herbert
Lawrence rejected Victorian values but remained a realistic novelist.
2) Reaction of the Victorian traditions became even more apparent with some authors who shifted
their interest on the individual consciousness (new physical theories). A good example is
Joseph Conrad who wanted to investigate on man’s nature but also criticized Victorian Age.
MODERNISM: emphasis on the individual point of view in the minds of the characters “stream of
consciousness” —> the flow of thoughts. The conventional structure of the story disappeared, the
story revolved round sensations and dreams.

POETRY
A fragmented general picture
—> english sensibility
—> European sensibility influenced by French symbolism
—> MODERNISM (Anglo-American movement)
—> WAR POETRY: patriotic, pacifist, traditional, experimental. Brooke who was patriotic, Owen
and Sassoon who described the violence and the misery of soldiers.
WORLD WAR I: RECRUITMENT
The secretary of state for war: Lord Kitchener created a new volunteer army known as “Kitcheners
Army”, because he noticed that Britain needed a bigger army. Soldiers had to be at least 18 y/o but
a lot of younger teenagers lied about their age to take part to the war. In the first week end of the
war 3000 day enlisted.
“YOUR COUNTRY NEEDS YOU”: posters and journals encourage men to go as volunteers to
support the homeland. Then in 1916 passed a law which obliged man to join the war.
CONSCIENT OBJECTORS: there were also people who refused to fight on moral and religious
grounds, they had to appear before a kind of court and explain why they wouldn’t go to fight. Some
were allowed to do no-combatant work, others were sent to the battle fields to rescue wounded
soldiers, other were imprisoned.
LIFE IN THE TRENCHES
Four different types of trenches: the front-line, support, reserve and communication trenches.
Soldiers were supposed to rotate spending eight days in the front line before moving to the tranches
further back.
LIVING CONDITIONS: were cramped and filthy. All soldiers were infested with lice which
caused trench fever. The bottom was filled with mud and water and caused trench foot. When the
feet was too infected it had to be amputated. It was always very cold so they put newspapers under
their clothes to keep themselves warmer.
DAILY ROUTINE: life was tedious broken by the attacks or going over the top. Before down all
the soldiers had to stand to, one soldiers would remain on sentry duty while others had breakfast.
Then the officier would check the equipment and organise the duties for the day. The stand to was
repeated at night fall, then men were able to move doing the trenches visiting others.
SIW AND TRENCH SUICIDE: SIW stands for self-inflicted-wound: there were a lot of cases of
soldiers shooting themselves tir be sent home, but the punishment for SIW was death. 3894 were
guilty of SIW during WW1, others were too horrified by their life in the trenches that committed
suicide either by shooting themselves or allowing the enemy to shoot them.

WAR POETS
• RUPERT BROOKE: (1887-1915) he is a leading figure between all the war poets. He had a
privileged life, he went to a prestigious school and his social circle included lots of young literary
and political figures. He joined the navy, he wrote 5 poems (war sonnets) PEACE, SAFETY,
THE DEAD, THE SOLDIER. He died in 1915 so we understand that his experience with war is
superficial.
HIS STYLE: he has an optimistic and strongly nationalistic sentiment towards the war, he is the
symbol of nationalistic poetry. He became idealized as England’s noblest son.
• SIEGFRIED SASSOON: Was educated at Cambridge and moved to London to follow a literary
career. He enlisted in the army and was sent to the western front. In 1916 he wrote a soldier’s
declaration published in the newspapers. The authorities decided to sent him to the military
hospital to prevent his death declaring he was suffering from shell shock. He met Owen.
Sassoon is considered one of the most outspoken poets of ww1 since his poetry and prose attacks
military authorities, he accuses them of prolongs the war. SUICIDE IN THE TRENCHES
• WILFRED OWEN: (1893-1918) he denunciated the war, so he was admired for his poetic
techniques cause mixes both a romantic style but with very realistic themes.
His family suffered financial difficulties, he restarted to write as a teenager for financial reasons in
1915 he he enlisted in the infantry and he was sent to France. He was in the front-line trench,
including a period on Ypres salient which he described as “seventh hell”. He was invited and then
diagnosed with shell shock so he was sent to the military hospital where he met Sassoon, just one
week before the armistice.
“My subject is war and the pity of war. The poetry is in the pity”.
Thanks to his poetry but also to his letters written for his mother we can have a realistic
representation of what life in the trenches was like, as he had first hand experience.

JOSEPH CONRAD
(1857-1924) His family is polish, his parents died when he was young. He worked for m merchant
navy and sailed to many counties, especially to the far east, this travels are very important
inspiration for his novels in which characters finds themselves in a foreign and fighting with hostile
external forces and their own nature.
SOME OF HIS WORKS: Almayer is folly, Lord Tim, youth, heart of darkness, nostromo, the
secret agent, chance
HEART OF DARKNESS: Conrad was inspired by one of his trips he made for a Belgian company
to Congo River that turned out to be traumatic. He uses 2 first-person narrators, at the beginning the
story introduced is introduced by a fiend of Marlow who is listening to his story. Marlow tells about
his journey up the Congo where he had to face many difficulties connected yo the environment but
also the people who lived there. He witnesses the exploitation of the native by the white ivory-
traders. He hears of Kurts the best agent of the company who fell ill and has to be relieved from the
inner station. Marlow is sent to help Kurts. The wilderness has had devastating effect on Kurt’s
personality who’s tormented by two contrasting feelings “diabolic love and unearthly note”, he may
have participate of witnessed unspeakable rites. The title refers both to AFRICA (the dark
continent) and the darkness of the humor heart. THEMES: denunciation of the European
colonialism in Africa journey into the unconscious, te savage.

DAVID H. LAWRENCE
(1885-1930) He is a key 20th century author is style can be considered both realist and symbolist. In
his works he explores the relationship between: man and and environment, man and woman and
man and its parents/children.
He comes from a working class family in Nottinghamshire. He started his literary career with poetry
and a first novel THE WHITE PEACOCK. He feel into depression when his mother died and
struggled to work on his current novel PAUR MOREL, so he gave up work and decided to focus on
wrighting and finished the novel which has renamed SONS AND LOVERS. He feel in love with a
married woman Frieda Weekly and they eloped to Germany. During the war Laurence wrote The
Rainbow and the Women in Love. He travelled worldwide and eventually settled in Italy where he
wrote is last novel lady Chatterly’s love. He died in 1930 in France of tuberculosis.
SONS AND LOVERS: It’s an autobiographical novel which tells the story of Paul Morel his toxic
relationship with his mother (too possessive) and his relationship with two women: Miriam and
Clara. Miriam represent spirituality and her passionate purity frustrates Paul. Clara is separated
from his husband and she’s much more physical.
The novel is written in a realistic style but contains highly poetic and symbolic descriptions of
nature and its effect on humor characters. Focus on the psychological characteristic. Language is
both colloquial and simple and sensuous figurative. The view of life and relationship is pessimistic.
OSCAR WILDE
He is a late victorian author. He strongly believed in “Art for Arts sake”: art should not be judged
for its moral or immoral contents, but only for its beauty.
This idea is strongly opposed to the victorian mentality, people wee extremely moralistic, immoral
thoughts were censured, he denounces this mentality and fought against conformism and educated
for the freedom of artist and art.
THE AESTHETIC MOVEMENT: The aesthetic is someone devoted to the pursuit of beautiful, art
was considered self-sufficient and without moral, the artist did not have to justify his artistic
choices.
DECADENTISM: aestheticism was associated to the decadent movement, a darker form of beauty,
is no surprise to find in aesthetic works decadent elements such as gleamy atmospheres, madness,
drugs and alcohol and GOTHIC ELEMENTS.
SYMBOLISM: Through the art man could escape the suffering (Schopenhauer). In general this
movement was an anti-victorian reaction, the main British authors wee PATER and WILDE both
believing in “Art for Arts sake and beauty for beauty sake”.
HIS LIFE: He was born in Dublin in 1854, studied at Trinity college and Oxford where he had
been influenced by John Ruskin and especially waller poter.
In 18881 his first publication: POEMS
In 1890 his best-known work: THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY
Then he wrote plays (comedy of manners): THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNING
He was imprisoned after an homosexual affair, and then he self-imposed exile in Italy and France.
He died in 1900 in Paris.
THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY: This novel really shows Wilde’s love for the DECADENT
VISION OF LIFE and AESTHETICISM, it offers many themes life purpose of art, the theme of the
double, corruption…
LORD HENRY: embodied the aesthete successful man who promotes the search for pleasure and
the decadent heroism, he influenced Dorian.
DORIAN: A young handsome man who becomes obsessed with the with the idea of losing his
youth, so he sells his soul to the devil so that he wold not get old and ugly but instead, his portait
made by BASIL will change revealing his physical and moral decay.
He leads a sinful and immoral life until he decides to get rid of the horrible portrait but when he
stabs it he kills himself and re-assumes his true appearance.
THE PREFACE: added later on the novel, is considered the MANIFESTO OF THE AESTHETIC
MOVEMENT, it is an important point of reference for Europe. Wilde explains is aesthetic point of
view. It was harshly criticized.