Modernism ( 1900-1965) Post Modernism ( 1965-)

Historical Background
Death of Queen Victoria in 1901 Son Edward VII ( 1901-1910)Edwardian period of peace and prosperity Died in 1910- George V ( 1910-1936) George VI ( 1938) 1920s period of general social and economic depression Wall street crash in 1929- worldwide economic chaos 1930political changesStalin ---Nazism and Hitler Spanish War 1936-39influenced English intellectuals 1939Britain was forced to go to war with Germany(WWII) Changes in EnglandPrime Minister Chamberlain resigned Churchill took over in 1940despite success, Britain was almost economically ruinedlabor government by Clement Attlee Elizabeth II 1952

Literature
Thomas Hardy, A E Houseman, Robert Bridge , Galsworthy, Arnold Bennett ( of 19th century continued)hardly reflected the peace and prosperity of Edwardian period English society was dominated still by social classeslife for the richfull of possibilities but also of restriction Victorian laws of Christian Faith became more problematicdifferent versions of socialism impact on literature

 VortexAssociationT E Hume (artist) ; Ezra Pound and Wyndham LewisFuturism launched in 1909 by Italian futurist Marinettimodern technology, speed and noise in art and abolition of syntax in poetry intuition, analogy, irony, abolition of syntax, metrical reform, onomatopoeia, essential lyricism Futurism led to Dadaism (Dada) in 1916denied progress, past and all that was not the immediate product of spontaneity WWI produced some great poetryfew looked at it as romantic and sentimentalRupert Brooke, Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon

 1920Postwar depression, rise of communismled to modernism movement 1922-25reaction against pastemphasized newness James Joyce, T S Eliot, D H Lawrence, Ezra Pound, Virginia Woolf Modernist movement biased towards Rightsatire on societysocial class system

 1930sintelligence on the whole moved towards LeftSpanish Civil War confrontation between Left and Right Orwell, Hemingwayjoined in Spain for the Republicans W H Audens poem Spain caught attention his group favored FascismOrwell, Greene, Beckett dominated till the end of 1930s

 Literature not prolific during WWIIT S Eliots Little Gidding ( 1941)Dylan Thomas became popularbest novelWoolfs Between Two Acts (1941) her reaction against crisis No specific movement after WWIIJohn Osborne, Alan Sillitoe, Kingsley Amis reflected middleclass revelation and discontent against societys hypocrisy of British establishment 1950resurgence in DramaPinter, Wesker and Osbornebest poet Philip Larkin 1960second wave of DadaNeo-dadasome of the earlier objectives + emphasis on the importance of the work of art produced rather than on the concept of generating

 Sudden and unexpected break from traditional ways of viewing and interacting with the world Experimentation and Individualismcentral preoccupation inner self, consciousnesscares little for Nature, Being or overarching structures of historyinstead of progress and growth, sees decay and growing alienation Impersonal, capitalist, antagonistic to the artistic impulse Cultural shocksWWI (1914-18)

 Questioning nature doubting the principles on which Victorians based their social code First and foremost a visceral reaction against Victorian culture and aesthetic Assassination of Archduke Ferdinand of Austria Rapid increase in literacy rates; new paradigm between the two sexes and later between the cultural groups

new insights from the emerging fields of psychology and sociology anthropological studies of comparative religion theories of electromagnetism and quantum physics a growing critique of British imperialism, and the rise of independence movements in the colonies the increasing threat of fascism and doctrines of racial superiority in Germany the escalation of warfare to a global level the rise of internationalism, and pacifist and disarmament movements the extension of democracy, without discrimination as to race or sex the increasing dissemination, impact, and influence of non-white cultures the entrance of women into the broader work force, and the development of social feminism the emergence of a new "city consciousness" new information technologies such as radio and cinema the rise of mass communication, and the growth of newspapers and periodical literature

 Realismto present an accurate intimation of life as it is Naturalism1880-1940 --suggests social conditions , heredity, environment have inescapable force in shaping human charactermore accurate picture of life Expressionism and Symbolism -Germany-seeks to express meaning or emotional experience rather than physical realityin favor of spirituality, imagination and dream Futurism : Italy- Emphasized and glorified themes associated with contemporary concepts of the futurespeed, tech., youth, violence Dadaism: Dada: Zurich- Cultural movement during 1916-22-- -ve reaction to horrors of WWI-rejected reason and logic; prizing nonsense, anarchy, irrationality, intuitionto ridicule the meaninglessness of modern world SurrealismItaly--1920s--expressing real functioning of thoughtabsence of all control exercised by reason- pure psychic automatism Existentialismstarting point of philosophical thinking must be the individuals and their experiences Stream of consciousness

Prose
Thomas Hardy ( 1940-1928)mans bond with nature and the pastmans never free of the forces of time and fatenovels extremely pessimistic--Jude the Obscureturned to verse Henry James ( 1843-1916)Joseph Conrad and Jamespioneers of modern novelpreferred the old worldThe Portrait of a Lady, The Awkward Age, The Wings of the Dove, The Golden Bowl criticism , short stories--

Prose
Joseph Conrad ( 1857-1924)life at sea-Heart of Darkness, Lord Jimpolitical novels as well H G Wells ( 1866-1946)preoccupied with social and political problems 50 novels Time machine, Invisible Man, The War of the Worldsexplored the effects of modern science and technology on mens lives and thoughts also humorous and satirical novels

Prose
Edward Morgan Foster ( 1879-1970) Most of his novels before WWI-reflected Edwardian way of life ( examine characters in social settings and situations-analyze the inner thoughts; importance of personal relationship in human life; tragedy of loneliness; homosexuality Where Angels Fear to Tread; A Room with Views; Howards End ; Maurice; A Passage to India

Prose
Virginia Woolf ( 1882-1941) Novelist and critic Subtle and complex vision of man and his world Total disruption after WWI of social, moral and intellectual values; new development in psychology Stream of consciousness Initial novelstraditional External descriptions are of little importance to her Final novel Between the Acts ( 1940) 1941-committed suicide

Prose
D H Lawrence ( 1885-1930) The White Peacock (1911) ; Sons and Lovers two relationships The Rainbow, Women in Love Rejected liberalism and civilization; wanted man to go back to the natural world of instinct against science and religion Lady Chatterleys Lovercontroversial Trusted inspiration and instinct more than technique

Prose
Aldous Huxley 1894-1963 ( grand nephew of Arnold) Chrome yellowFirst Novel Brave New Worlddark vision of a highly technological society Island utopian novel Literature and ScienceEssay May be this world is another planets hell Science has no solution showing that if m an became completely happy and society completely efficient he would cease to be human and existence would became intolerable.

Prose
James Joyce ( 1882-1941) One of the most influential writers of modernist avant-garde of 20th C Ulysses, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Finnegan's Wake Dubliners (Short stories) meaningless and empty existence

Prose
Rudyard Kipling ( 1865-1936) Prose, Verse Celebrates British Imperialismtales about soldiers, tales for children Jungle Book, Kim, Just So Stories The Whitemans Burden, If ( Poems) Jingoist Eurocentric view of the world

Prose
George Orwell (1903-1950)-novelist, journalist Nineteen Eighty Four ( Dystopian); Animal Form ( Allegorical Satire) If you want a picture of the future imagine a boot stamping on the human facefor ever Numerous essays on language, politics, literature culture I am not, indeed, sure whether it is not true to say that the Milton who once seemed not unlike a seventeenth-century Shelley had not become, out of an experience ever more bitter in each year, more alien [sic] to the founder of that Jesuit sect which nothing could induce him to tolerate.

Poetry
Siegfried Sassoon ( 1886-1967) Initiallyidealistic poemsinjured several times in Warcritical viewphysical details of the horrors of waruselessness of violence and deathlaments his lost friendssatirizes those who speak of heroismCounter Attack, War Poems, Vigils

Poetry
Wilfred Owen ( 1893-1918) 1917first poem Dulce et Decorum est (pro patria mori)Sweet and honoroble it is to die for ones fatherland--Horace Para-rhyme / half rhyme influenced poets of 1930s ( Strange Meeting)visions of modern warfare; lack of trust of traditional ideologies; horror, futility of warin a direct shocking manner; Five Main Themes: Mans separation from nature, physical and psychological effects of war on soldiers, inaccuracy of conventional religious attitudes, separation from home, camaraderie among the troops

 If in some smothering dreams you too could pace Behind the wagon that we flung him in, And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin; If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est Pro patria mori.

Poetry
Rupert Brooke ( 1887-1915) Romanticism of wardetested and satirized Patriotic The Soldier (1918) Search for more realistic and colloquial language

Poetry
T S Eliot (1888-1965)poet, playwright, critic The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock, The Waste Land, The Hollow Man, Ash Wednesday, Four Quarters PlaysMurder in the Cathedral ( individuals opposition to authority) Unpleasant modern world, sterile, deathly, barren, half-deserted, lost-loneliness, spiritual dryness Images and allusions ( water as a symbol of lifeFear death by water; fertilityspring rain, wet hair sterilityarid and dry landscape)

 W.B.Yeats (1865-1939) Nobel The Tower, The Winding Stair and Other Poems Symbolist Poet, Influenced by Shelley, Spenser, Pre Raphaelite poets Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned. The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity The Second Comingdirge for the decline in European civilization

 W.H.Auden (1907-1973) Love, politics, citizenship, religion and morals, relationship between unique human beings and the anonymous, impersonal world of nature As I walked out one evening, In memory of W B Yeats, The Fall of Rome, In memory of Sigmund Freud

As I walked about one Evening

'I'll love you, dear, I'll love you Till China and Africa meet, And the river jumps over the mountain And the salmon sing in the street, 'I'll love you till the ocean Is folded and hung up to dry And the seven stars go squawking Like geese about the sky.

 Philip Larkin (1922-1985)Movement Poet1950s addressed everyday lifeplain, straight forward languageRobert Conquest, Kingsley Amis, Thom Gunn The Less Deceived, The Whitsun Weddings, High Windows Deprivation for me is what daffodils were for Wordsworthinfluenced by Auden, Yeats , Hardy detached, sometimes lugubrious, sometimes tender observerdark vision, underlying obsessions with universal themes of morality, love, human solitude

Church Going
Bored, uninformed, knowing the ghostly silt Dispersed, yet tending to this cross of ground Through suburb scrub because it held unspilt So long and equably what since is found Only in separation - marriage, and birth, And death, and thoughts of these - for which was built This special shell? For, though I've no idea What this accoutred frowsty barn is worth, It pleases me to stand in silence here;

Drama
G. B Shaw (1856-1950)more than 60 Plays Nobel + Oscar Social crusader and political analystexposes social hypocrisy--mostly against the established order Revival of dramaresurgent socialism, new faminist voice, fresh expression of liberal values Influenced by Henrik Ibsen Mrs Warrens Profession, Arms and the Man, candid, Man and Superman, Major Barbara, The Apple Cart, Saint Joan

Drama
John Galsworthy (1867-1933) Concerned more with social change than political Novelist, playwright The Silver Spoon, Forsyte Saga A family man, The eldest son, Loyalties, Justice, The Mob, The Fugitive

Drama
John Osborne ( 1929-94) Playwright, screen writer, critic A rebel with strong personality Luther, Look Back in Anger, West of Suez, A Sense of Detachment, Watch it come down, The Entertainerscript for Tom Jones Individuals conflict with authorityyoung generation crying for a better futurestruggle against Institutionsplea for justice , freedom and tolerance

Drama
Samuel Beckett ( 1906-89)playwright, director, poet, novelistinfluenced by Joyce Eleutheria (Liberty) , Waiting for Godot, Endgame (Plays) The Unnamable, Malone Dies (Novels) life means waiting, killing time and clinging to the hope that relief may be just around the corner. If not today, then perhaps tomorrow. each word is an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness. Doesnt rely on traditional drama

Harold Pinter ( 1930-2008) Playwright, screen writer, director, actor Comedy of menace The Room, The Birthday Party, The Home coming, Betrayal Loneliness, bewilderment, separation, loss Repression, repetition, breakdownin communication