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Literatura-inglesa-moderna.
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LITERATURA INGLESA MODERNA
1º Grado en Estudios Ingleses
Facultad de Filosofía y Letras

Universidad de Alicante
Reservados todos los derechos.

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13 de enero de 2020
Roman occupation (no effect on English literature)
Of the Roman conquest and occupation of Britain (England and Wales) it produced
virtually no effect on English literature.
For over 300 years, from the first century A.D. to the beginnings of the fifth, the is-
land was a Roman province with latin as the language of the ruling class of Roman immi-
grants, who introduced Roman civilization and later on Christianity, to the Britons of the
towns and plains.
De Alemania fueron a Gran Bretaña, y de ahí surgieron influencias en el lenguaje.

5th century

Germanic invasions by Jutes, Saxons and Angles
Angle-Saxon conquest and settlement
The process which Britain became England was a part of the long agony which
transformed the Roman Empire into the modern Europe.
In the 4th century a.D. the Angles, Saxons and Jutes began to harry the southern
and eastern shores of Britain, where the Roman were obliged to maintain a special military
establishment against them.
Before 449, Jutes, Angles and Saxons began to come in large bands with deliberate
purpose of permanent settlement.
First period: Old English (450-1100 A.D.)
Germanic tribes spoke similar languages, which in Britain developed into what we
know as Old English. Old English did not sound or look like English today. Native English
speakers now would have difficulty understanding Old English. Nevertheless, about half of
the most commonly used words in Modern English have Old English roots (e.g. be, strong,
water).
The first literary genre was poetry. The Anglo-Saxons doubtless brought with them
from the continent the rude beginnings of poetry. It consisted largely of brief magical
charms and of rough “popular balllads” (ballads of people). The charms explain themselves
as an inevitable product of primitive superstition; the ballads probably first sprang up and
develope, among all races, in much the following way. This poetry was a product of primiti-
ve superstitions.
Not much Anglo-Saxon poetry of the pagan period has come down to us. The most
important remaining example is the epic Beowulf. It’s the first sample of Old English and it
has got Scandinavian influence. This poem seems to have originated on the continent, but
when and where are not to be known.
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It may have been carried to England in the form of ballads by the Anglo-Saxons; or
it may be Scandinavian material, later brought in by Danish and Norwegian pirates.
Beowful presents an interesting though very incomplete picture of the life of the up-
per, warrior, caste among the northern Germanic tribes during their later period of barba-
rism on the continent and in England, a life more highly developed than that of the Anglo-
Saxon, now more usually described as Old English. It is incomprehensible to a reader fami-
liar only with modern English.
Second period: Middle ages. Middle English (1100-1500 A.D.)
In 1066 William the Conqueror, the Duke of Normandy (part of Modern France), in-
vaded and conquered England.
The new conquerors (called the Normans) brought with them a kind of French,
which became the language of the Royal Court, and the ruling and business classes. Lower
classes spoke English and the upper classes spoke French.
In the 14th century English became dominant in Britain again, but with many French
words added. This language is Middle English. It was the language of great poet Chaucer
(1340-1400) but it would still be difficult for native English speakers to understand today.

One of the most striking general facts in the later Middle Ages is the uniformity of life
in many of its aspects throughout all Western Europe. It was only during this period that the
modern nations, acquiring national consciousness, began definitely to shape themselves
out of the chaos which had followed the fall of the Roman Empire.
The Roman church, firmly established in every corner of every land, was the actual
inheritor of much of the unifying power of the Roman government, and the feudal system
everywhere gave to society the same political organisation and ideals.
In a truer sense, perhaps, Western Europe was the great brotherhood, thinking
much the same thoughts, speaking in part the same speech, and actuated by the same be-
liefs.
At least, the literature of the period, largely composed and copied by the great army
of monks, exhibits everywhere a through uniformity in types and ideas.
“Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”. This is the brief and carefully constructed work
of an unknown but very real poetic artist, who lived probably a little earlier than Chaucer.
French and Germanic influences subsequently compete for the mainstreams role in
English literature. Both traditions achieve a magnificient flowering in England in the late 14th
century, towards the end of the Middle English period.
Of the century and a half, from 1350 to 1500, which forms our third period, the most
important part for literature was the first 50 years, which constitutes the age of Chaucer (era
literaria). The Church exercised in the spiritual sphere, and to no small extent in the tempo-
ral, a despotic tyranny, a tyranny employed sometimes for good, sometimes for evil.  
As the only even partially democratic institution of the age it attracted to itself the
most ambitious and able men of all classes. In its numerous secular lordships and monastic
orders it had become possessor of more than half the land in England, a proportion cons-
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13 de enero de 2020
tantly increased through the legacies left by religious-minded persons for their souls’ salva-
tion.
Geoffrey Chaucer (1338 -1400). The name is French. Chaucer came into the world
probably in 1338, the 1st important author who was born and lived in London, which with
him becomes the center of English literature. About his life, as about those of man of our
earlier writers, there remains only very fragmentary information.
Chaucer’s poetry falls into three rather clearly marked periods. First is that of French
influence, when, though writing in English, he drew inspiration from the rich French poetry
of the period, which was produced partly in France, partly in England.
Chaucer experimented with the numerous lyric forms which the French poets had
brought to perfection. The great work of the period, however, and the crowning achieve-
ment of Chaucer’s life, is The Canterbury Tales. Every one is familiar with the plan of the
story (which may well have had some basis in fact):
How Chaucer finds himself one April evening with thirty other men and women, all
gathered at the Tabard Inn in Southwark (a suburb of London and just across the Thames),
ready to start next morning, as thousands of Englishmen did every year, on a pilgrimage to
the shrine of St. Thomas a Becket at Canterbury.

He loved external beauty (some of his most pleasing passages voice his enthusiasm
for Nature – universal theme in literature; fear, hope, freedom, religion, corruption, existen-
ce, sins, death, time, concept of family, erotism, love, beauty -); he penetrated directly th-
rough all the pretenses of falsehood  
and hypocrisy; in a word, Chaucer is an artist of broad artistic vision to whom art is its own
excuse for being. His poetry is also essentially and thoroughly dramatic, dealing very vividly
with life in genuine and varied action.
To be sure, Chaucer possesses all the medieval love for logical reasoning, and he
takes a keen delight in psychological analysis.
Periods of English literature
Middle Ages (500 a.D.-1500)
Old English (500 a.D. to the 12th century) The greatest literary achievement of the
age is the epic Beowful.
Middle English (from the end of the 12th century to 1500) A new period begins with
the Norman Conquest (1066). The greatest poet of this period was Geoffrey Chaucer (1338-
1400).
Renaissance
Period that covers the 16th and the 17th century in England; in Italy the Renaissan-
ce started as early as the 14th century. The most famous English authors in this periodos

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were Sir Thomas More, Edmund Spenser, William Shakespeare, John Donne and John Mil-
ton.
The monarchy of the Queen Elizabeth (1558-1603) is considered to be the high point
of the English Renaissance and is referred to as the Elizabethan era.
Paradise lost by John Milton is the most important poem of the English language.
The Restoration and the 18th century (1660-1800)
This period is considered as Neo-Classical in its aesthetic attitude (specially the Au-
gustan age 1660-1740) and rationalistic in its outlook. This is the reason why this era is also
often referred toas the Age of Reason or the Enlightenment.
The most important authors are John Dryden, Alexander Pope, Jonathan Swift, Sa-
muel Johnson (1st dictionary of the English language).
The 18th century also saw the rise of the English novel. The most important English
novelists of the period were Daniel Defoe, Samuel Richardson, Henry James and Lawrence
Sterne.

Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe (1719) and Guliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift
(1726) → Utopian literature, travel literature or adventures literature.
Romantic and Victorian period (the 19th century)
Romanticism (1789-1832). Probably started earlier in England than in any other Eu-
ropean country. The most important genre was poetry with authors like William Blake, Wi-
lliam Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, George Gordon Byron and Percy Bysshe She-
lley… In America this period is mirrored in the Trascendental period from about 1830-1850.
Trascendentales include Emerson and Thoreau.
Gothic writings (1790-1890). Overlap with the Romantic and Victorian periods. Two
of the most famous writers of Gothic novels were Radcliffe, Monk Lewis and victorians like
Bram Stoker in Britain. In America were Edgard Allan Poe and Hawthorne.
With queen Victoria, British Empire was born.
Victorian period. It covers the years os Queen Victoria’s monarchy (1837-1901).

One of the most important poets was Alfred Tennyson, more or less a continuation of the
traditions of English Romanticism. The Victorian novel had numerous writers such as Char-
les Dickens, the Brontë sisters, William Thackeray, George Eliot or Thomas Hardy. They all
wrote their masterpieces in this period. The end of the Victorian period is marked by the
intellectual movement of Aestheticism in the writings of Oscar Wilde, one of the precursors
of it.
Charles Dickens was a universal writer because he wrote about universal topics
(death, poor…)
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20th century
Pre World War II. Perhaps, the most characteristic literary achievement of British
literature before 1945 is Modernism: James Joyce, Henry James, Joseph Conrad, Virginia
Woolf, etc. It is characterized by experiments in form and style and a breaking away from
established rules and conventions. In America, the modernist period includes Robert Frost
and Flannery O’Connor as well as the famous writers of The Lost Generation or the Jazz
Age (1914-1929) such as Hemingway and Fitzgerald. In America we have Robert Frost,
Flannery O’Connor
Post-War literature. Also known as Post-Modernism. It’s very difficult to define

because there’s no clear dividing line between modernism and postmodernism. It produced
experimental techniques in all genres such as the theatre of the Absurd, associated with

Samuel Beckett, and new models in poetry and fiction too. Some outstanding authors in
English literature are Philip Larkin and Red Hughes.
Multiculturalism leads to increasing canonisation of non-caucasian writers such as

Toni Morrison, Sandra Cisneros and Zora Neale Hurston.
The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents. H. G. Wells (1866-1946)
H.G. Wells was considered a futurist, essayist, socialist and a great teacher.
He wrote his most popular novel The War of the Worlds in 1898. He also wrote The
Time Machine in 1895, it’s a parody of the English class division and one of the first modern
science fiction stories.
He’s known along Jules Verne (1828-1905) with Journey to the center of the Earth
(1964) as the fathers of the modern science fiction.
H.G. Wells wanted for the abolition of the class barriers. His ideal society is explai-
ned in A modern utopia (1905) where the property would be owned by the state and there
would be equality of the sexes.
Well’s socialism in this early period of his career asked for the ‘abolition of class ba-
rriers’, but also ‘free competition between individuals in society regardless of their social
backgrounds.
He considered the political form of the modern science as socialist and he was also
engaged with the campaign of the female suffrages, portrayed in Ann Veronica (1909). For
all these reasons he was considered a humanist.
He showed his disagreement in the Fabian Society (socialist intellectuals) in 1880.

However, he joined it in 1903 but he thought that it didn’t pursue a real change. While being
in this Society, he met the playwright George Bernard Shaw. The turning point was when he
defended the payment of mothers, the Fabian Society refused to adopt this and Wells was
resigned.
He drafted Universal Rights of a Man during the second World War and it was pu-
blished in a letter to the ‘’TIMES’’. This helped to develop The Universal Declaration of Hu-
man Rights in 1948.
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H.G.Wells began to study biology in Darwinism under Thomas Henry Huxley (British
biologist).
The Stolen Bacillus asked Victorian readers to consider what kind of people are res-
ponsibility for containing these newly discovered life forms. Wells himself was a Late-Victo-
rian figure.
It’s interesting to notice the description of the foreigner in the text suggesting that
he’s perhaps Eastern in origin. This shows the anxiety population was feeling at the fin de
siècle: the foreigner is ‘pale’ and possess a ‘limp white hand’.
The story conflates political, biological, and foreign threats to social order, suggests
that British technological developments are perhaps becoming as much a danger for the
safety of the Empire.
Overall, Wells deals with themes of eugenics (ethics of scientific experimentation),

Darwin’s theories and religion in The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896), another of Wells’ sto-
ries that inspired movies.
News from Nowhere. William Morris (1890)

Utopia is a plan or ideal system of government in which there is a perfect and just
society, where everything runs smoothly and in harmony. The word comes from Greek EU +
TOPOS, that means “good place”.
In literature, the utopias are clean, healthy and happy with no viruses. The text pre-
sents the reader in a perfect society in the physical world, as opposed as the wanted but
not reached perfect society.
The first utopia was shown in Plato’s Republic (400BCE), in which a group of deba-
ting philosophers want to define justice to create a perfect ‘’polis’’ or self-governing city of
8000 citizens. The philosophers would rule, and gods and women would be owned and the
slavery still existed. Artists, actors and poets would be exiled.
Sir Thomas More’s book Utopia opened the genre in 1516 and his name was always
referenced when talking about the genre. ‘’A modern utopia’’ by H.G. Wells is also an
example for literary utopias.
1890 is the turning point of the century, where the society is exhausted of their rules
and lifestyles. Authors use utopia to show their ideal worlds. It’s a way of protest, a way of
hiding from reality, implying that they want more calm lives.
News from Nowhere by William Morris (1890) tells a story of an English man of 1890
that wakes up to find himself in a post-revolutionary and post-industrial 21st century En-
gland. The new England is communist and there isn’t money, no private property and there
is equality. Work is shared equally and it’s a pleasurable task rather than a necessary one.
There isn’t industrialism and science, instead people use low-technology crafts.
The main character, Guest, learns that: Money has been abolished, Salaries have
been pushed aside by craftworks, there’s governmental co-operation, marriage has been
replaced by flexible bonds of affection.

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For Morris, marriage was a type of business, like a contract.
The society doesn’t have much hope, they’re cynics and despaired, this fall signals
their transition from innocence to death. The cynical attitude is the result of those who are
too lazy to fight for growth. The antidote to this attitude would be News from Nowhere ac-
cording to some studies. The novel inspires the society to fight to reach paradise.
Morris’s generation responds to pessimism saying that we must embrace art over
religion. Morris says that we all must live as artists, according to the end of News from
Nowhere.
He challenges us to change the world by asking ourselves philosophical questions

like: “What would be like to live in heaven, to live a heavenly life?” He wants us to take this
seriously and don’t see it like a childish thing. He wrote News from Nowhere as a response
to this fundamental question about the way we live our lives.
Morris’s subtext wasn’t about if the utopia could ever become reality, he was horri-
fied that the society didn’t wish it to happen.
In the lecture of How I Became a Socialist, Morris explains how capitalism has redu-
ced men a pitiful puppet, that doesn’t know any better life. The answer for that is in art. A
reasonable life is possible thanks to art, where the perception and creation of beauty and

the enjoyment of real pleasure should be necessary to live.
The first and last chapter of News from Nowhere tells the desire for an ideal utopia
when the narrator’s friend repeats his anxious wish to envision what would happen if there
was a revolution, asking himself if it could be possible. In the last chapter, filled with hope,
agrees that it could happen and it may be called a vision rather than a dream.
The books’ transformation is built through a dream-vision, where the readers is un-
sure who is speaking. Morris uses multiples levels of narrative to build his utopia strategy:
he writes a story to spread as an apostle spreads the Bible. Morris uses his utopia by pro-
viding psychological explanations, with dream-visions (who were a popular way of storyte-
lling in the Medieval age).
News from Nowhere isn’t an escapist utopia, but a political act. It’s opening lines are
a reference to the debate Anarchism of the Socialist League, which shows of since the start
its revolutionary purposes.
The White Man’s Burden. Rudyard Kipling (1899)
Kipling was born in India in 1865 during the British Empire. He was educated in En-
gland but he considered himself Anglo-Indian.
The main motifs of his poetry are: imperialism, confusion of identity and national
allegiance. During his life, Britain was unchallenged and possessed a great empire. Kipling
thought that the empire should act as a global law force.
The White Man’s Burden is an example of how Kipling portrays his time and instills it
into future generations. Although many will find the racial prejudice (Negative attitude to-
wards a group) repugnant, it was considered a social norm in the 19th century. The poem is

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considered an artifact for which we can relate to the social, emotional and personal
thoughts of Kipling, taking a peek into his world.
The poem was the original poem that he planned to write for Queen Victoria’s Dia-
mond Jubilee. It was published in 1899 in an American magazine ‘’McClure’s’’ as a respon-
se to the American controlling Philippines, which was taken after the Spanish-American
war. This poem raised a controversy about if the Empire was beneficial or not.
Although Kipling’s poem told about the empire’s costs, imperialists within the USA
used the phrase ‘’white man’s burden’’ as a characterization for imperialism and it justified
the policy of the empire.
It was like a natural thing for white men to colonize and rule people of other nations
for their own benefit (this may be what Kipling wanted to say by ‘’burden’’ in the tittle). Be-
cause its content and tittle, it has become a symbol of Eurocentric racism and Western as-
pirations to dominate the developing world. A century after its publication, the poem still
produces strong emotions in their readers and it can be analyzed from a variety of perspec-
tives.
The poem’s tittle was embraced by colonists in America and White Man’s Burden
almost became their slogan. They decided to ignore the warnings that Kipling wrote in his
poem, and instead it became an anthem for Imperialism defenders. The poem became a

euphemism for Imperialism. Some Americans liked the poem, while others were against it.
Some academics agree that Kipling had a very Eurocentric view of the world. Lines
such as ‘’Your new-caught people’’, ‘’Half devil and half child’’... showed that those who
didn’t have a Eurocentric education and other beliefs were savages. The poem talks about
how white men have the ‘’burden’’ to control the savages and teach them the proper ethnic
and cultural Western ways.
Since the debut of the poem, the term White Man’s Burden, has been interpreted as
a racist phrase. It shows the ‘’altruist view’’ of European societies, where the wealthy ones
are morally obliged to help the less fortunate, regardless if the helped ones needed or wan-
ted that help. This view explains the dominant mindset that allowed colonialism to happen.
Kipling’s writing was also satiric. The poem is used as a reflection of the burden of
being a white person rather than teaching those who are not white. Kipling was regarded as
a pro imperialist being, even though he knew the ugly sides of it.

The Picture of Dorian Gray. Oscar Wilde (1890)

La belleza es una idea subjetiva cuyo propósito es producir sentimientos agradables
o no en la persona que la percibe, por ello es diferente pues presenta múltiples y diversas
perspectivas. Se puede concebir mediante la literatura, la pintura, las personas o cualquier
elemento creado o no por el ser humano.
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (1854-1900) was a writer, poet and dramatist of
Irish origin. Wilde is considered one of the most prominent playwrights of late Victorian
London; In addition, he was a celebrity of the time due to his great and sharp wit. Today, he

13 de enero de 2020
is remembered for his epigrams, his plays, his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray and the tra-
gedy of his imprisonment, followed by his early death.
He was really innovative. He was a good writer, he showed the people the way he
wanted to live in his plays and his only novel.
As Wilde states in the preface to the novel “There is no such thing as a moral or an
immoral book. Books are well written or badly written. That’s all”. In other words, any moral
disgust or vicarious pleasure derived from the book reflects more upon us as readers than it
does on the novel itself. The book is a tale, pure and simple. It is we, the readers, who force
it to bear the weight of a moral dimension
The Preface of the Picture of Dorian Gray is where he declares his intentions; Utility
and uselessness. The concept of art, the role of the art and what is an artist. He also talks
about the way he lives; the way he writes... He also talks about the different perspectives of

beauty, beauty for Wilde was the form and not the content. He wanted to live according
pleasurable things (hedonism).
The picture of Dorian Gray first appeared in July 1890, number of Lippincott’s
Monthly Magazine and immediately caused an outcry (scandal) due to its perceived refe-
rences of homosexual/homoerotic desire. This novel is a perfect example of Late- Victorian
gothic fiction.
He mended the text with a toned-down version that was published in 1891. This
mended version is the light one that we read nowadays.
The novel was used against him in two trials, where the English society considered
him guilty of sodomy (anal sex). For many people, Wilde and the central character of his
novel, Dorian, mirrored each other because their public persona and their privates lives.
The novel ranks alongside Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and
Mr. Hyde and Bram Stoker’s Dracula as a representation of the dark aspects of the Victorian
society and its hypocrisy, this literature is called Fin-De-Siècle.
TPODG explores the idea of beauty. It portrays the relationship between art and
reality, between ethics and aesthetics, as well as the link between an artist and the result of
his work of art. The Preface tells us that any moral issue or pleasure derived from the book
reflects more upon us than it does in the novel itself. The book is pure fiction, according to
scholars.
Its aestheticism was something controversial and trendy. Its main goal was that the
art should be judged purely by its beauty and form rather than by any underlying moral
message (art for art’s sake). An example of this would be in the novel of the dandyish, Lord
Henry Wotton (character).
Lord Henry Wotton advocates the hedonistic pursuit of new experiences as the main
objective of his life. His behavior influences Dorian; he stands before his decaying portrait,
comparing the moral degradation with his innocence. The contrast gives him a thrill of plea-
sure; he grew more and more in love of his own beauty and more interested in the corrup-
tion of his soul.
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Dandyism: someone dandy is someone of personal elegance and refinement. He/
She seeks perfection. Oscar Wilde was one. He called for beauty, style and craftsmanship
in the design of all things in order to make life a creative place. He dressed to shock (large
collars, long hair...)
Paintings play a sinister role in Gothic fiction. In the 1st gothic novel, The Castle of
Otranto by Horace Walpole in 1764, includes a figure stepping from a painting into reality. In
Melmoth the Wanderer by Oscar’s great-uncle Charles Maturin, we find a description of the
haunting gaze of a portrait as it follows the viewer around the room.
For centuries, gothic fiction has provided authors imaginative ways of addressing
contemporary fears. As a result, the nature of Gothic novels has altered considerably from
one generation to another. Early gothic novels like The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole
or Ann Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho were set in exotic landscapes and distant ti-
mes; the action takes place in crumbling castles and torch-lit monasteries while the villains
tended to be Catholic noblemen and corrupt and sex- crazed, urban slums with dark, na-
rrow streets...
Later, in the early Victorian period, authors such as Dickens, used typical gothic mo-
tifs like the innocent abandoned in a threatening environment or the mysterious stranger
with secrets to hide... Authors used all of this to reflect the contemporary concerns. They

were concerned about the beginning of modern times.
Oliver Twist and Black House by Dickens used this imagery to draw attention to the
social classes; there was really rich people and really poor ones.
In the Victorian fin-de-siècle, the gothic it’s no longer the physical landscape that
provides the location for Gothic stories but rather it becomes the human body itself. This
happens because they’re worried about the human body, because of that science becomes
important.
Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson, TPODG by Os-
car Wilde, The time machine by H. G. Wells and Dracula by Bram Stoker, all explore the
theme of the human mind, body changing, developing, mutating, corrupting, decaying...
This happens in response to the evolutionary society and science theories that were on the
rise at that time.
The Late-Victorian society was haunted by implications of Darwinism. His ideas in

On the origin of species and The descent of Man had been assimilated by 1880s and
1890s, initially by the scientific community, then by the general public. The balance bet-
ween faith and doubt was difficult and questions about the origins, nature and destiny of
humankind had become matters of science.
The image of Gothic, with fantastical nature, allowed authors to explore indirectly
trendy themes that were taboo in the discussions in respectable society.
The character of Dracula, can be read as a fear of foreign immigrants moving unno-
ticed through London, spreading crime and diseases. Vampirism could be read as an
analogy for syphilis –a subject that wasn’t up for discussion in a novel published in England
at the time.
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Gothic fiction has the ability to adapt to its environment. It mutates to reflect the ti-
mes in which it lives, and the Victorian fin-de-siècle with his aestheticisms, dandies and
new women. It fears the implications of Darwinism. It has theories of criminal cases and
consequences of old, decayed Europe haunting new Britain in the form of immigration. All
of this allowed Gothic fiction to reach new heights of imagination and terror.
Mrs. Warren’s Profession. George Bernard Shaw
The Irish playwright and critic George Bernard Shaw, is known in English literature for using
satire on political and social topics. These topics include: social class, war or feminism in
plays such as Arms and the Man, Major Barbara and Pygmalion.
He developed an intellectual comedy of manners, Mrs. Warren’s Profession being a good

example for this. Like Wilde, Shaw wrote about hypocrisy in English society as one of his
mains themes.
He left Ireland for England as a young man in 1876 and, like many modern dramatists, he
started writing novels and criticism before turning into the theater.

He has inspired many authors and poets and he became one of the most popular playw-
rights of his time. His main literary resources were wit and irony.
He wrote a total of 50 plays, many of them are still in production today. He was also a bri-
lliant photographer, social reformer, advocate of woman’s rights, satirist, popular public
speaker...
Although he could have gotten a job at 16, he found it boring. He noticed the disparity
among the social classes, at the same time he managed to go to the theatre, read and read
poetry of Byron and Blake. Shaw’s humanitarian politics and sometimes contradictory and
controversial opinions were always criticized.
Shaw was a socialist and member of the Fabian Society, which he joined in 1884. This So-
ciety was revolutionary and their main objective was to protect the interests of the poor
classes against what they considered to be exploitative; the capitalist society. His political
interests led him to build the Independent Labour Party in 1893.
In 1895, he was one of the funders of the London School of Economics and Political Scien-
ce. He often lauded the writings of Tolstoy and Gorky. An advocate of Stalinism, he trave-
lled with his wife Charlotte to the USSR in the 1930’s. He wrote many political essays and
articles during his lifetime. Defender of Stalin politics.
He was also an ardent supporter of social reforms, and was an activist in campaigns of
women’s rights and the abolition of private property.
Shaw’s plays were written to shock audiences and to teach new social and moral values.
He used paradox (odd idea) and shuffled the common patterns of judgement (the conven-
tional hero became the villain). Even Shaw’s light work contained a socio- political dimen-

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sion. “Pygmalion” is an example, which exposes the class divisions in British society. This
play is a mixture of comedy and social observation.
The Women’s social and political Union (WSPU) was funded in 1903 to make a campaign
for women’s right to vote. The members of this movement, the suffragettes, were outspo-
ken and some employed violent tactics in order to be heard. This story is explained in the
2015 film, ‘’Suffragette’’ with Helena Bonham Carter and Carey Mulligan.
Shaw thought about marriage as a ‘commercial contract of property and slavery’ which was
subjected to religion and where the two people will suffer until death does them appart:
“...the service was really only an honest attempt to make the best of a commercial contract
of property and slavery by subjecting it to some religious restraint and elevating it by some
touch of poetry. But the actual result is that when two people are under the influence of the
most violent, most insane, most delusive, and most transient of passions, they are required
to swear that they will remain in that excited, abnormal, and exhausting condition conti-
nuously until death do them part” – Preface to Getting married (1908)
About Mrs. Warren’s Profession Shaw first describes it in terms of his intentions:
“Mrs. Warren is much worse than a prostitute (Shaw was a socialist, against capitalism). She
is an organism of prostitution – a woman who owns and manages brothels in every big city

in Europe and is proud of it. With her gains she has had her daughter highly educated and
respectably brought up in complete ignorance of the source of her mother’s income. The
drama, of course, lies in the discovery and its consequences (lies, confrontation). These
consequences, though cruel enough, are all quite sensible and sober, without suicide nor
sensational tragedy of any sort. Nobody’s conscience is smitten except, I hope, the cons-
cience of the audience. My intention is that they shall go home thoroughly uncomfortable...
The play has horrified everyone who has heard it, but only as an honest treatment of such a
subject ought to horrify them”.
Shaw goes on to proclaim his invention of a distinctive New Woman, Mrs. Warren’s daugh-
ter:
“I have sought to put on the stage for the first time (as far as I know) the highly educated,
capable, independent Young woman of the governing class as we know her today, working,
smoking, preferring the society of men to that of women simply because men talk about the
questions that interest her and not about servants and babies, making no pretense of caring
much about art or romance, respectable through sheer usefulness and strength, and playing
the part of the charming woman only as the amusement of her life, not as its serious occu-
pation.”
Vivie also represents the image of the “New Woman” in the 1880’s. She was the kind of
woman interested in her own education, personal dignity and growth, and who is not much
interested in the traditional ideal of having children or a husband.
Mrs. Warren’s profession stands as a condemnation of society at large, with several of its
characters portrayed with negative connotations. Who are they?
Mrs. Warren’s Profession is seen both as a defense of women and as a condemnation of

Capitalism. It is only people like Crofts (the monied upper classes) who get a benefit from

13 de enero de 2020
Capitalism. While the poor, like Mrs. Warren, must trade dignity and morality for success.
Mrs. Warren’s profession is what Shaw’s image of what great and terrible lengths Capita-
lism forces people to go to; forcing them into hypocrisy and into hurting the ones they love.
He also stated that: “My first three plays, Widowers’ Houses, The Philanderer, and Mrs. Wa-
rren’s were what people call realistic. They were dramatic pictures of middle class society
from the point of view of a Socialist who regards the basis of that society as thoroughly rot-
ten economically and morally. And he says in reference to Mrs. Warren’s Profession:
“I am convinced that fine art is the most seductive, the most effective means of moral pro-
pagandas in the world, excepting only the example of personal conduct; and I waive even
this exception in favor of the art of the stage, because it works by exhibiting examples of
personal conduct made intelligible and moving to crowds of unobservant...”

English modernism
Definitions by some critics:
“Just as authority has been undermined in religion and morals, so too in art. The old accep-
ted standards cannot satisfy a changing age…"
“The old fixed canons of taste have lost their validity... The novelist ignores the earlier con-
ventions of plot, vocabulary, literary structure, and orthodoxy of opinion…”.”
Modernism is, above all, an attitude, a way of living.
Modernism is a philosophical movement that, along with cultural trends and chan-
ges. This movement made far-reaching transformations in Western society during the late
19th and early 20th centuries. In includes different trends and radical changes; in literature
we have some trends like; art, philosophy, politics, economics, psychology and society
changes.
The Modernist Period in English literature was first a reaction against the Victorian
th
culture and aestheticism, which had prevailed during all the 19 century. There was a
change of traditions, intellectuals and artists at the turn of the twentieth century believed
the previous generation’s way of doing things was a cultural dead end.
th
In the 19 century, like several centuries before it, was a time of privilege for the
wealthy Caucasian (white) males. Women, minorities and the poor were marginalised to the
point of utter silence.
The essence of Modernism was international; although its aesthetics roots can be
found in France (Flaubert, Baudelaire (French symbolist that was admired for his sophistica-
ted imagery), modernism was also spread in many countries, mainly in England (T.S. Eliot,
Virginia Woolf...) and Ireland (Joyce, Yeats) but also in Germany (Munch, Thomas Mann),
13 de enero de 2020
Poland (Kafka), Spain (Valle Inclán, Buñuel, Picasso), and the United States (Ezra Pound,
W.C. Williams, Gertrude Stein)
In the first quarter of the XX century, we have writers such as Virginia Woolf, TS Eliot,
Katherine Mansfield, André Gide... Some modernist writers who were all very aware of their
modernity, tried to identify the crucial events around which modernism started. Virginia
Woolf argued that “on or about December 1910 human nature changed, all human relations
shifted”.
She mentioned that it may be because it was the death of King Edward but also be-
cause it was the first Post-Impressionist Exhibition held in London which caused a great
deal of interest and anxiety. For D.H. Lawrence modernism started in 1915, at the beginning
of the First World War (1915-1918).
As a sociological phenomenon, modernism is connected with the Bohemian Paris of

the 1920s, a type of art practiced by artists and writers who were outside the mainstream,
outsiders, people who rejected conventional art and its institutions. Some of these artists
are; Joyce (exiled himself); Lawrence’s social background was of a working class family,
Virginia Woolf, Dorothy Richardson, Katherine Mansfield... Being women writers, were au-
tomatically outside the conventional (masculine) order. And, of course, their linguistic stra-
tegies: Disruption of the established uses of language.

-How can we define Modernism? According to Ray Bradbury, modernism is a self-
conscious art of high aesthetic value, usually non-representational and non-mimetic. It is a
realistic and humanistic representation towards the problematics of language, style, techni-
que, form, in pursuit of a deeper penetration of life.
The French Philosopher M. Foucault claims that we should imagine modernity (rat-
her than an attitude) as a period of history. And by “attitude” he means a mode of relating to
the contemporary reality (a way of thinking and feeling, like what the Greeks called ethos).
According to him, Modernity is a break of the traditions, a feeling of originality, of vertigo of
the passing moment (present, new things that are coming to our lives) ... Modernity is the
attitude that makes it possible to grasp the “heroic” aspect of the present moment.
There is a set of features which could be applied to modern novel:

Disruption of Aristotelian categories: Modernist literature destroys the traditional conven-
tions of the novel (a well-defined plot, linear development and characterization, and shifts
from the realistic to the symbolic). An especially modernist issue is the realization that the
self does not exist as a full entity (multiple perspectives, there’s not only one identity): Law-
rence, Woolf, Proust, Joyce rejected the notion of a central self, of a fixed and stable iden-
tity, an idea of self that can be fully defined and fully analyzed.
The new focus of interest will be not on characters and facts,
but on feelings and impressions. Virginia Woolf cared a lot about impressions (which claim
no validity as facts).
If there is a plot in modernist novels, it should be called a “psychological plot” (their

point of interest being very likely in the psychic). In this sense, some critics have defined
modernism as ‘’the spirit of psychological analysis’’.

13 de enero de 2020
Modernism introduced a new kind of narration to the novel, it would change the en-
tire essence of novel writing. The “unreliable” narrator supplanted the omniscient, and
readers were forced to question even the most basic assumptions about how the novel
should operate. James Joyce’s Ulysses is the prime example of a novel whose events are
really the happenings of the mind; its goal being translate the human consciousness. Same
as in Mrs. Dalloway of Virginia Woolf.
This new emphasis of the inner life involves a reduction of action in modernist no-
vels: when we read them we often have the impression that little happens in them: action
and events never fully materialize, and this absence of events reflects a contemporary sen-
se of irony, a refusal to make the event the motivation of reading.
Modernist fiction, then, is concerned with consciousness and the subconscious.

That is why the structure of external events of traditional fiction is presented in a crooked
way.
Instead, we have introspective analysis, reflection, suggestions and dreams. In con-

sequence, the structure of time has to change, to adapt itself to the requirements of the
new interests. They usually present a stream of consciousness, also named “interior mono-
logue’’. And the end is usually open and ambiguous: it does not provide a final resolution.

Temporality: Narrative unavoidably has to deal with time, but in modernist literature
time has to do with the changes of the inner life. It helps us to comprehend the complexity
of modern experience, which is less logical, more incoherent in our appreciations of reality.
For 19th century novelists, time is the medium in which people grow or develop. In moder-
nist writing the “normal” temporality (with beginning, middle and end) is usually frustrated.
Temporality is not a linear, progressive thing but physic, repetitive or cyclical. Mo-
dernist writers substitute the logic of the traditional logic for metaphors, symbols and ima-
ges.
Historical time isn’t completely absent, but it is combined with subjectivity. What
modernism does is to raise the notion not only of significant time, which responds to the
desire to reappraise the operations of the mind. This notion of temporality suggests the idea
that contemporary experience resist coherent temporal order. It also reflects the new
preoccupations of the age, which is being underlined by Freud, Jung, Nietzsche, Kierke-
gaard.
Point of view: If we take a look at contemporary thought, we can see how in the
20th century Western culture has moved away from dogma, assurance, stability towards a
cultural climate of relativism. All of this has led us to see the truth, beauty and goodness as
relative.
As a result of this uncertain mood, there is a shift in the narrative voice. In modernist
fiction, the author has not “disappeared” in absolute terms (like in some postmodern narra-
tive) but given him/herself a fictional shape; he/he becomes one more character, conse-
quently it loses the authority traditionally granted to an omniscient narrative voice.
Joyce’s narrator in Ulysses is a good example of this: he is a chameleon, always

adapting to the situation, blending himself, so that the narrative voice becomes “a voice

13 de enero de 2020
without an origin”. The questions “who is speaking?” “whose voice is this?” cannot be ea-
sily answered.
Sometimes we even have multiple narrators, which is another sign of the drop of
“realism”. As narrators are multiplied or made suspect, evidence becomes gossip; empiri-
cism becomes relativism, facts become interpretations. Also typical of the modern novel is
the exploitation of the unreliable witness which is also an aspect of the author’s desire to
make the reader participate in the work.
Virginia Woolf wrote, “such is the complexity of things”. In this respect, Ezra Pound’s
defines the image as: “something which presents in an instant of time, an intellectual and
emotional complex, a juxtaposition of the two tendencies”.
This analytic scheme became an aesthetic prototype. In one of his novels, Henry
James wrote that the most human themes are those that reflect for us, out of the confusion
of life, the close connection of bliss and bale, of opposites. This notion corresponds to what
Nietzsche called ‘’The Janus face, at once Dionysian and Apollonian’’.
In modernism we have 2 tendencies that overlap and link together: reason and un-
reason, intellect and emotion, consciousness and subconscious, the objective and the sub-
jective...

Modernism and novel quotes about Modernism
1. On or about December 1910, human nature changed... (Virginia Woolf, “Modern

Fiction”)
2. It was in 1915 that the old world ended (D.H. Lawrence, Kangaroo)
3. There have been revolutions in the history of art before today. There is a revolution
with every new generation, and periodically, every century or so, we get a wider and deeper
change of sensibility which is recognized as a period – the Baroque, the Rococo, the Ro-
mantic, the Impressionist, and so on. But I do think we can already discern a difference in
kind in the contemporary revolution: it is not so much a revolution, which implies a turning
over, even a turning back, but rather a break-up, a devolution, some would say dissolution
(Herbert Reid, A history of Modern art)
4. The theory of relativity applies in full to the universe of fiction. There is no more
place for a privileged observer in the novel than in the world of Einstein (J. Paul Sartre)
James Joyce. The beggining of Modernism
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (1882 –1941) was an Irish novelist, short story wri-
ter, and poet. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde and is regarded as one of the
most influential and important authors of the 20th century.
Ulysses (1922) and Finnegan’s Wake (1939) are two of his most significant novels, as
well as being really important in the 20th century.

13 de enero de 2020
Joyce is praised for his total re-envisioning novel and of the world. But before these
two ideas happened, Joyce published his first major work; “Portrait of the Artist as a young
man” (1916). This novel is short and more approachable than others of him.
Portrait of the Artist unleashed the massive power of Joyce’s innovation upon the
literary world. The novel starts to make use of techniques that would make Joyce famous
(and infamous) with Ulysses, such as consciousness narrations, interiority (reveals the cha-
racter’s inner thoughts) and a frank realism that socks some readers of the time. The novel
also introduces us to Stephen Dedalus, who will also appear in Ulysses. Joyce introduces
us to his world and how he sees it.
POFTA is not Joyce’s autobiography, but the story has some similarities with his life.
Even the character Stephen could be also seen as an elder James Joyce.
POFTA is Joyce’s work of the classic coming of age topic (Bildungsroman in Ger-

man), and it mirrors the author’s life up to the age 20, when he left Dublin for Paris. His cha-
llenging attitude to family, homeland and the Catholic Church, all gave the novel fame and
reputation when it was published. Joyce treats youth with a directness and honesty. He ta-
th
kes us through the everyday events of one boy’s life in the early 20 century Dublin.
Plot:
The novel drops us straight into Stephen’s early home life. He lives with his parents,
Aunt Dante and Uncle Charles. He leaves for a Jesuit boarding school early in the book,
and we see him struggle with schoolmates and teachers there. His family runs out of money
for the boarding house and Stephen is sent to a Jesuit school, Belvedere College (these are
the actual schools that Joyce himself attended).
While at Belvedere, Stephen gains a reputation of being smart and mature. He had a
crush on a girl and creates a poem for her, but he doesn’t know how to act around her.
Stephen grows more and more dissatisfied with his life and feelings are made worse be-
cause his father sinks in alcohol.
One day, Stephen and his father visit Cork to settle some business and Stephen is
sickened by how sad his father’s life is. When they return to Dublin, he loses his innocence
with a prostitute and experiences a sexual awakening.
After a short period of guilt, he attends to a religious retreat at his school. One of his
old teachers, Father Arnall, nags at him about death, hell and punishment. Stephen is horri-
fied by his sins and thinks he will go to hell. He immerses himself in strict Catholicism to
avoid his fate. His religious period takes control of most aspects of his life, from senses to
emotions. However, when he decides to join a priesthood, decides that it isn’t his path. He
hopes to go to university instead; in this moment, he turns away from religion.
Stephen goes to the river and sees a beautiful young girl, who reminds him of a wild
seabird. He is astounded by the beauty of the moment and decides to devote his life to
create art, becoming a writer.
13 de enero de 2020
As a student at University College in Dublin, Stephen feels more alienated from his
family and Ireland. Stephen must leave Ireland in order to discover his vocation. His class-
mates are all into Irish nationalism, but he doesn’t share their beliefs. He admits his disen-
chantment with nationalism and religion. We witness him arguing and explaining himself
with his school friends, who don’t understand his attitude. In the end, we see him prepare
for his department from Ireland, hoping that his exile will allow him to experience life.
Themes:
● IDENTITY: Portrait of the Artist is ultimately the story of a search for true identity.
We know from the tittle that the protagonist shows the emotional suspense of his periods of
confusion. He struggles with the sense that there is some great destiny waiting for him, but
he has difficulty perceiving what it is. His feeling of difference and increasing alienation
shows that he sees himself as someone marked by the fate to stand outside society.
● TRANSFORMATION: One might argue that the only things that happens in the
novel are the transformations in a young person. One might then argue that this demonstra-
tes that growing up is simply a series of transformations. Either way, the concept of trans-
formation in this novel is associated with two things. Frist, it’s related to the slow shift from
childhood to adulthood. He had to pass through different phases before becoming an inde-
pendent adult. Secondly, transformation is linked to the process of artistic development to

create his identity as an artist and shape his future writing.
● DISSATISFACTION: Joyce defines dissatisfaction as a necessity of the develo-

ping artist. His unhappiness in fundamental to his eventual transformation from observant
child to blooming writer. Until he realizes he wants to become a writer, he feels aimless,
alone and uncertain.  
● LANGUAGE: Stephen’s fixation on language shows his artistic inclinations from

the beginning. Both Joyce and his protagonist demonstrate a deep fascination with the pu-
rely aesthetic elements of language. Sometimes elements like repetitions, rhythm, rhyme
take over the narrative completely. It highlights the ways that language work and doesn’t
work.
While the goal of language is to clarify and enlighten, it doesn’t always succeed and
is often used wrongly. Joyce and many modernists were very concerned with the failure of
language to successfully communicate ideas.
● RELIGION: Religion is rejected as a solution to life’s questions of Joyce and

Stephen. They realize that the rules of Church can’t explain everything. The novel implies
that no religion can provide solutions and it limits the possibilities of human accomplish-
ments.
● SIN: sin and temptation play important roles in this novel. Joyce highlights the
harshly dual nature (sin or not to sin) of the Catholic Irish culture. In the end, the hero comes
to the necessary conclusion that sin is a fundamental and unavoidable part of human natu-
re, rather than something that can simply be eliminated through religious practice. One
suspects that Joyce hoped that the reading public of the time would come to the same
conclusion.

13 de enero de 2020
● HOMELAND: The concept of home is really important on levels. First of all, the
familial home is a constant source of instability and unhappiness during the book. The De-
dalus family loses wealth and status during the novel, and they have to move a lot to save
money. Secondly, the uncomfortable idea of Ireland as home influenced both Stephen and
Joyce.
The novel asks us to examine how connected one should be to a homeland, espe-
cially when that homeland is trying to clarify its own political and cultural identity.
VIRGINIA WOOLF (1882-1941)
Adeline Virginia Woolf was a British writer, considered one of the most important
th
modernist 20 century authors and a pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness as a
narrative device.
Her father was Sir Leslie Stephen and he was the editor of The English of National
Biography. He was also talented for drawing and story-telling, both of his daughters (Virgi-
nia and Vanessa) inherited those talents.
She grew up in a literary and intellectual atmosphere. For example, her father’s

friends were some of the most important 19th century writers; Thomas Hardy, George Me-
redith, Henry James...
Virginia was the third of four children, and they all received their elementary educa-
tion at home from their parents or Swiss and French governess.


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Literatura-inglesa-moderna.

LITERATURA INGLESA MODERNA

1º Grado en Estudios Ingleses

Facultad de Filosofía y Letras

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De Alemania fueron a Gran Bretaña, y de ahí surgieron influencias en el lenguaje.

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Angle-Saxon conquest and settlement

First period: Old English (450-1100 A.D.)

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Periods of English literature

Middle Ages (500 a.D.-1500)

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Romantic and Victorian period (the 19th century)

With queen Victoria, British Empire was born.

Victorian period. It covers the years os Queen Victoria’s monarchy (1837-1901).

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Post-War literature. Also known as Post-Modernism. It’s very diﬃcult to define

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Multiculturalism leads to increasing canonisation of non-caucasian writers such as

The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents. H. G. Wells (1866-1946)

He showed his disagreement in the Fabian Society (socialist intellectuals) in 1880.

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Overall, Wells deals with themes of eugenics (ethics of scientific experimentation),

News from Nowhere. William Morris (1890)

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He challenges us to change the world by asking ourselves philosophical questions

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The White Man’s Burden. Rudyard Kipling (1899)

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The Picture of Dorian Gray. Oscar Wilde (1890)

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The Late-Victorian society was haunted by implications of Darwinism. His ideas in

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Mrs. Warren’s Profession. George Bernard Shaw

He developed an intellectual comedy of manners, Mrs. Warren’s Profession being a good

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Mrs. Warren’s Profession is seen both as a defense of women and as a condemnation of

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Definitions by some critics:

Modernism is, above all, an attitude, a way of living.

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