The modern novel The origins of the English novel, Appunti di Inglese

Scarica The modern novel The origins of the English novel e più Appunti in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! The modern novel The origins of the English novel The origins of the English novel where essentially bourgeois during the 18th and 19th centuries. It was deeply connected to society, and the recurring theme was the gain or loss of social status. The novelist was a mediator between the characters and the reader, who could know about significant events thanks to him/ her. There was a common social pattern (accepted values and behaviours) between the writer and the reader. The new role of the novelist The transformation of British society led to the shift from the Victorian novel to the modern novel. In the inter-war years there was unrest and ferment, so the situation was very different from the prosperity of the past. The novelist now seeked new forms of expression, in order to mediate between the values of the past and the confused present, where the unconscious had a role. The new “realism” tended to focus on the individual. Authors like Marcel Proust, Dostoevsky and Tolstoy regarded the individual has a limited creature whose moral progress was inferior to the advances in technology. A new concept of time and the new theory of the unconscious were further factors that influenced the modern novel. Experimenting with new narrative techniques In the modern novel there wasn’t the omniscient narration anymore. Now the viewpoint shifted from the external world to the internal world of the character’s mind. The new theory of the unconscious highlighted how past experiences influenced the present personality of human beings. A different use of time In the modern novel, time was subjective and internal, with no chronological sequence of events. The sudden revelation of an interior reality, caused by trivial events of everyday life, was called “epiphany” by Joyce. The stream of consciousness technique The narrative technique used by modern novelists was called “stream of consciousness”, an expression coined by William James. There was a continuous flow of thoughts and sensation, then called by literary critics the “interior monologue”. Il romanzo moderno