The 20th Century British Literature: A Period of Peace, Prosperity, and Turmoil - Prof. Fo, Apuntes de Idioma Inglés

¡Descarga The 20th Century British Literature: A Period of Peace, Prosperity, and Turmoil - Prof. Fo y más Apuntes en PDF de Idioma Inglés solo en Docsity! THEME 1 20TH CENTURY HISTORICAL BACKGROUND The 20th Century in Britain began bath the death of Queen Victoria in 1901, she was succeeded by her son Edward VII (1901−1910) and this marked the beginning of the Edwardian Period of peace and prosperity; however, this was not too last for long, Edward died in 1910 and his successor George V (1910−1936) saw the outbreak of the first World War in history which lasted 1914 to 1918 and which cost Britain a great deal, consequently the 1920's were a period of general depression, both social and economical which culminated in the Wall Street Crash in the USA in 1929 and let to world wide economic chaos. The 1930's were not only a period of economic tension, but also vast political changes, Stalin came to power in Russia and Germany saw the development of Nazism ant the Hitler. These two factors were also in part responsible for the Spanish Civil War (1936−39). This war influenced many English intellectuals who came to Spain to fight for the republicans and to demonstrate their opposition to the Fascism. Almost as soon as the war in Spain has ended with Franco's victory, Britain, on the 3rd of September in 1939 was forced to go to war with Germany after she invaded Poland. This war, the Second World War lasted almost 6 years and saw various changes in Britain. The principal being the resignation of prime minister Chamberlain to make way for Winston Churchill in 1940, he was responsible for leading Britain and the allies to victory in 1945, however, despite this succeed Britain was almost economically ruined, and her people voted for a labour government headed by Attle, who proceeded to carry our the party program for a better world. By the time, Elizabeth the Second came to the throne in 1952, British life had already improved considerably and continue to do so until the end of the 1960's. THEME 2 THE 20TH CENTURY LITERARY BACKGROUND It is fairly difficult to known how to define 20th Century literature, as of course, many writers were already producing work at the end of the 19th Century and continued into the next one. The works of Thomas Hardy, A.E.Houseman, Robert Bridge (the poets) and Golsworthy and Arnold Bennett (the novelist) can be classified as belonging to the 20th century, and many of these were at the beginning of Edwardian Period (1901) hardly reflected the ideal of peace and prosperity, but was certainly inactive of English society which was still dominated by the social classes. Life, for the rich, was full of possibilities but also of restrictions and these restrictions are demonstrated in the early novels of E.M. Foster, also the complex Victorian laws of Christian faith, became more problematic, as did the different versions of Socialism, and these two factors were a great influence upon literature, many intellectuals were concerned with finding something to believe in and out of this grew a movement called Vortex. This was founded by T.E. Hulme (artist) Ezra Pound and Whyndham Lewis (writers) and had some of the aims of Futurism, a movement launched in 1909 by Marinetti, an Italian intellectual who called for recognition of modern technology, speed and noise in the art and an abolition of syntax in poetry. Futurism let to Dada in 1916 a movement that denied amongst other things progress, the past and all that was not the immediate product of spontaneity; this was naturally a tremendous influence upon all art and literature. The coming of the first World War in 1914 also produced and expertly good poetry, there were some who saw the war in a romantic and sentimental light, like Rupert Brooke and others who reflected the harsh reality, brutality and furtivity of war; Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sasson are excellent example of this. Postwar depression and the rise of Communism were abundant in the 1920's and Modernism was a product of 1 this. The Modernism movement is generally categorized as having existed between 1922−1925 and it was a reaction against the past, Newness became essential as beat the necessity for change; this is reflected in the work of James Joyce, D.H. Lawrence, T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound and Virginia Woolf amongst other. There was not direct link between politics and literature but the leaders of the modernism movement were biased towards the Right, although in different ways. W.B.Yeats' politics focus on Ireland, Lawrence referred to the need for aristocracy and the threat of the Jews; TS Eliot was an Anglo−catholic Tory and Ezra Pound identified with Italian Fascism. For the first time there seemed to be a unity between all modernist novels and poetry. Another aspect of novels during this period was the satirisation of English society, particularly the social class system. This can be seen to its effects in the works of Aldows Thuxley and later Evelyn Vaugh. The 1920's because one of the greatest movements of Literary development in history and ended in 1929 with the economic crisis and the continued depression. During the 1930's the intelligence on the hole began to move towards the Left, this was dude in many ways to the depression and the rights of Fascism and was heightened by the Spanish Civil War which, for the first time, demonstrated the confrontation between Left and Right. Many intellectual, the most famous been George Orwell and American Ernest Hemingway as well as ordinary people came to fight in Spain, the majority for the Republicans. The group of poets of the period was dominated by W.H.Auden whose poem Spain directed everybody's attention there as the center of the world crisis; this group was in favour of a popular front against Fascism, however, the political fervor soon past and the poets went their own ways. Novelist such as Orwell Greene and Beckett who could not be unified and defined as a specific movement dominated the end of the 1930's. The Second World War was not particularly prolific in the literary sense, apart from which paper was in short supply and therefore limited the amount of books that could be printed. Nevertheless Elliot's Little Gidding was written in 1941 and the Welsh poet DylanThomas began to obtain more recognition for his work. The best novel of the world period is considered to be Woolf's Between two acts (1941), which was her reaction against the crisis and after which se killed herself. After the Second World War, it maybe observed that there was no specific movement, although novelist and playwriters Reith Waterhouse, John Osborne, Allan Sillitoc, Kingsley Amis, reflected the middleclass revelation and the discontent against the society's hypocrisy of the British establishment. Drama made a resurgence in the 1950's with dramatist like Pintor, Weskeer and Osbornes. The 1960's had a second wave of modernism in Neo−Dada. But it had little more impact than the movement of the 1950's whose best poet was Philip Larkin. THEME 3 THE BIRTH OF MODERN LITERATURE THOMAS HARDY(1840−1928) Hardy was born in Dorchester, in the South West of England in 1840, and began his literary career as a novelist. His novels were extremely pessimistic, and were dedicated to the life of his native county of Dorset. They were full of the sense of man's bond with nature and with the past. Man never seems to be free of the forces of time and fate, which control his life. There is rarely any message of hope. His first novel was produced in 1871, and his last in 1896. 2 INTRODUCTION At the beginning of the First World War, most people thought that English youths would demonstrate their heroism and fight for what was good and right. However, as the war progressed and reports began to come back of the horrendous among of deaths and casualties of the terrible conditions in the trenches and of the stupidity of general which lead to flew victories and tremendous loss, many became more pessimistic. SIEGFRIED SASSOON (1886−1967) s. Sassoon was one of these people, at the beginning of the wart he had written several idealistic poems bur after he had been injured three times and had returned to battle, he began to demonstrate his critical view of event. Firstly, by throwing his military cross Medal into River Mersey and secondly, through his poetry. Sassoon's poems show the physical details and horror of war, and his feelings of uselessness of violence and death. He regrets that he cannot return to the past, laments for lost friends and displace contempt for those who have not seen the terribleness of combat and who speak of heroism. His most famous reactions to the war are a series of bitter satires against such people. Sassoon's work was original in its content but had nothing to offer in its style of form. Sassoon wrote angry poems about the war, Connter Attack, War Poems and Vigils are among his work. Today, his poems are not very well−known although on his own time he was the first poet of his kind. However, he's important because he had already had a lot of works published and it was he who encouraged Wilfred Owen to write poetry. WILFRED OWEN (1893−1918) W.Owen was born in Shropshire and studied al London University. He enlisted in 1915. Early the following year he was ended and convalesced in Scotland and England. It was during this convalescence that he met S. Sassoon who recognize his potential as a poet and helped him with his first poems: Dulce et Decorum (1917) being the most notable, however Owen went on to became a greater poet that Sassoon. Indoubtly the greatest to have been produced by the First World War. His poetry is at time classical in its for but he was also responsible for the development of para−rhymes (half Rhymes) which were a great influence upon the poets of 1930's. This can be seen in a strange meeting 1918 with rhymes such as hall and hall years and yours or mystery and mastery. His poetry also provided the prototype for subsequent visions of modern warfare, the reveals an ironic lack of trust of all the traditional ideologies which have kept soldiers fighting, but this lack of trust is expressed with the direct experience of pain, death and the sophisticated horror; For example, the use of gas. He tramits the horror and futility of war to the reader in a direct shocking manner, much more effected through poetry than prose. Strange meeting is not only unique in its rhyme scene, but also in its surreal dream−like quality, which would also become one of the themes and or the influences of later writers and artist. His fire main themes are: Man's separation from nature• The physical and psychological effects of war on soldiers.• The inaccuracy of conventional religious attitudes• Absence of separation from the people at home.• The growth of camaraderie among the troops.• 5 His work is dramatic and forceful and no one could read it without feeling something of his terrible experiences in the trenches. He was killed a week before the end of the war at the age of 25, and it is ironic that the greatest poet of this period should only have had four poems published during his short life. Had he lived he would certainly have been capable of greater themes. RUPERT BROOKE (1887−1915) R. Brooke stands in contrast to Owen and Sassoon in that his poetry reflected the typical romanticism of war that he later to dested and satirized. He was popular during the war, precisely because of this romanticism and also because of his extreme physical beauty and early death. His poetry was unquestionable patriotic as in, for example, The Soldier (1914). His popularity has now diminished but perhaps had he lived he too would had develop to critize and satirize war as Owen and Sassoon did. His best poetry, however is perhaps to be seen in the self−exploring poems that he wrote first before the war, which give evidence of his search for a more realistic and colloquial language. THEME 5 THE INTERWAR YEARS (THE 1920's) E.M. FOSTER (Edward Morgan, 1879−1970) Foster was born in London and he was educated at Tonbridge public school. Most of his novels were written before the 1st World War, and very much reflected the Edwardian way of life. They exam characters in social settings and situations, and show a sensitive acute and complete psychological awareness of the inner beings of his characters. He was concerned with the details that go to produce middle class' life. His constant thematic concerned is the importance in human life of personal relationship, the necessity that men connect personally with each other and the conviction that the tragedy of modern man is essential loneliness and these things can be seen in novels like A room with views (1918) and Howard's End (1910). It is difficult to associate Foster with any specific movement, his influence on the construction of the novel has been great, but he has no real message except about the value of individual life. He was, however, a highly influential member of the intellectual Blomsbury Group of London in 1920's which included among others, Virginia Woolf and philosopher Bestrand Russell. In 1924 Foster published A Passage to India which deals with the East and West duality and if the two can really meet. After a long analysis of the differences he comes to the conclusion that they cannot− At least not then. One of Foster's great preoccupations is that of homosexuality and that sexual relations between two people of the same sex should not be forbidden by law. This book Maurice (1913) is based on this theme, although it was not published until 1971. Foster's homosexuality is evident in his novels, in that he portraits female characters with tremendous compassion and understanding. 6 Between the 1920's and his death in 1970 he produced Abinger Harvest (1936) and Two cheers for Democracy (1951) but neither achieved any great literary fame. VIRGINIA WOOLF (1882−1941) The main line of development of the early 20th century novel represents a break with the naturalism school and a movement towards a more subtle and complex vision of man and his world. Two facts seem to be responsible for this, the total disruption after 1st World War of social, moral and intellectual values and new development in psychology, particularly Freud. Virginia Woolf was one of the people to state most fiercely the aims of the new writers, a stream of consciousness which shows the continuous flow of mind with its free play of images and associations. The reader is taken inside the mind of the character and follows these thoughts often not logical or lineal as they happened. Woolf was the daughter of the disthingued philosopher Sir Leslie Stephen and was married to Leonard Woolf, a central figure of the Bloomsbury Group, she grew up in an atmosphere of great cultural refinement, although she had an extremely fragile nervous system, and therefore never received a regular education. Her first novels The Voyage Out (1915) and Night and Day (1919) were firmly traditional, but two years later she was beginning to experiment with the stream of consciousness technique, with she develop to produce her best novels, including Mrs. Dalloway (1925) and To the lighthouse (1927). Woolf is not only known as a novelist but also as a critic deeply concerned with the problems of the writer what mattered to her was not external reality but the life of the mind, therefore she rejected the traditional form of the novel and we can see in her work that plot and external description are of little importance to her. Her prose is often more similar to poetry in its form. Her final work was Between the Acts (1941) which reflected the crisis of the 2nd World War and after which she committed suicide. DH LAWRENCE ( David Herbert 1885−1930) DH Lawrence was born in the mining village of Eastwood, Nottingham (Central England). His father was an illiterate miner but his mother was of a higher class and had once been a schoolteacher. Lawrence was a weak child owing to the tuberculosis that eventually killed him and thus expent little time with other children and expent his days with books or in the countryside close nature. He eventually qualified for a teacher's certificate an Nottingham University in 1908, meanwhile he maintained a relationship with a girl from his village called Jesse Chambers, which he later broke off. His relationship with his mother was also extremely closed and important to him, and this two relationship with mother and fiancée became the subject to his first major novel Sons and lovers (1913). However Lawrence eventually came to reject and escape from his mother's suffocating love. In 1914 he married a divorced German woman, cousin to the Red Baron, the German fighter pilot; this was seen in a very bad light considering that Britain was at war with Germany. This reaction was partly the cause of Lawrence's leaving Britain to expent his life first in Europe and the in Australia and America. Before all this, however, Lawrence had began working on another novel, it began as The Sisters but was eventually published as two books, which can be read together or separately, The Rainbow (1915) and Women in Love (1920). Both novels deal with the central characters of two sisters Ursula and Gudrun, but it is in the 7