the modern novel english, Appunti di Inglese

Scarica the modern novel english e più Appunti in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! MODERNISM It’s a cultural movement spread in the first two decades of the 20th century not only in Europe but also in the USA. It broke with the past so with the tradition and the key-word is “unconventionality”. This movement develops mainly in painting with Picasso, Matisse, Kandinsky and in particular they shared: - The breaking down with the limitations in space and time so the introduction of new theories about the time (Einstein) - they preferred the interior monologue so the stream of consciousness and not the objectivity of the reality, but only the analysis of the human mind (Freud) - the collapse of certainty so the reality presented is no more objective but subjective The modern novel broke up with the past so with the traditional novel and the main features are: - The narrator is unobtrusive so characters introduced themselves - the lack of plot, so it deals only with the characters’ mind with thoughts, feelings, emotions, sensations, and as a result we have the birth of a psychological novel - we have a new concept of time, before we have past, present and future but now we have a mix of past, present and future with flashback and flash for award. Also the time isn’t anymore chronological, measured by the clock and objective but is only subjective - we can find the interior monologue that is the verbal expression of the stream of consciousness -there isn't no moral aim and no realism - finally we have the impersonality of the narrator that isn’t an intermediator between the reader and the characters because the latter presented themselves MODERN NOVEL the structure of the novel remained basically unaltered till the second decade of the 20th century when there was the shift from the Victorian to the modern novel. This change was characterised by a gradual but substantial transformation of British society, which in a few years passed from the comfortable, prosperous world of the Victorians to the inter-war- years marked by unrest and ferment. This new “realism”, influenced by French and Russian writers tended to shift from society to man, regarded as a limited creature. Other Two factors contributed to producing the modern novel: the new concept of time and the new theory of the unconscious deriving from the Freudian influence. the novelist had a new role, which consisted in mediating between the solid and unquestioned values of the past and the confused present, highlitghing the complexity of the unconscious The novelist rejected omniscient narration and experimented new methods to portray the individual consciousness. The stream of consciousness technique or the interior monologue was introduced to reproduce the uninterrupted flow of thoughts, sensations,memories, associations and emotions in a flux of word, ideas and images quite similar to the mind’s activity. It is possible to distinguish at least three groups of novelists of the first decades of the present century. • The first group consists of the psychological novelists who concentrated their attention on the development of the character’s mind and on human relationships. The most important are: Joseph Conrad, whose novels record the mystery of human experience; D.H.Lawrence, who centred his work on the inner conflicts of working-class people, and the liberating function of sexuality. • The second group includes the Modernist novelists, who chose subjective narrative techniques, exploring the mind of one or more characters, like James Joyce and Virginia Woolf. • The social and political problems of the Thirties forced the writers’ attention back to the society around them. The most important writer is George Orwell. THE AGE OF ANXIETY was a period of great transformation when the cultural atmosphere was fragmented. There was the breakdown of the Victorian values like Positivism. The most important event of this century is the World War One, that caused more deaths than all previous wars put together. This event created disillusion and the 1920's was comfortable only for the privileged class. The problem that stay behind all these manifestation of uncertainty was the inability to arrive at a commonly accepted picture of Man. Nothing seemed to be right or certain; even science and religion seemed to offer little comfort. The first set of new ideas was introduced by: - Sigmund Freud with the power of the unconscious in “The Interpretation of Dreams”.He discovered psychoanalysis, the unconscious , the idea that man’s action could be motivated by irrational forces. Freud provided a new method of investigation of the human mind through the analysis of dreams and the concept of free association which influenced the writers of the modern age. Jung continued Freud’s studies and developed the idea that there is a collective unconscious, a sort of cultural memory that contains some figures or objects of the everyday world. Only hte psychologist or the poet could understand these symbols and explain that. - The introduction of “Relativity” in science by Albert Einstein that discarded the concepts of time and space as subjective dimensions. This theory contributed to the development of a new form of novel, the modern novel. EASTER RISING he Easter Rising was a rebellion in Ireland during the Easter week of 1916. During the Easter Rising the Irish military tried to gain independence from the United Kingdom by force, during an action organized by the Irish Republican Brotherhood that lasted from 24 to 30 April 1916. Pádraig Pearse, poet, teacher and lawyer led the Irish volunteers, united with James Connolly's Irish Citizen Army during the occupation of Dublin's focal points, proclaiming the Irish Republic independent of Great Britain from the General Post Office. The Easter Revolt was sedated in six days, the leaders of the insurrection, underwent a trial before being executed. But despite the lack of military success, in the current Republic history, this episode is considered one of the firm points for the future of the Republic. In fact, there was a rise in consensus around the nationalist party Sinn Féin, organized by Arthur Griffith in 1905, which in the 1918 elections obtained the majority, refusing to sit in Westminster (English Parliament). PROTEST MARCHES 1969 During 12–17 August 1969, intense political and sectarian rioting took place in Northern Ireland. There had been sporadic violence throughout the year arising out of the civil rights campaign, which was demanding an end to discrimination against Irish Catholics. The disorder led to the Battle of the Bogside in Derry, a three-day riot in the Bogside district between the RUC and the nationalist/Catholic residents. In support of the Bogsiders, nationalists and Catholics launched protests elsewhere in Northern Ireland. The most bloody rioting was in Belfast, where seven people were killed and hundreds more wounded. In addition, thousands of mostly Catholic families were driven from their homes. In certain areas, the RUC helped the loyalists and failed to protect Catholic areas. The British Army was deployed to restore order and state control, and peace lines began to be built to separate the two sides. The events of August 1969 are widely seen as the beginning of the thirty- year conflict known as the Troubles