The modernist revolution with authors and works., Appunti di Inglese

Scarica The modernist revolution with authors and works. e più Appunti in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! THE MODERNIST REVOLUTION MODERNISM The term ‘Modernism’ usually indicates 20th century literature and art which expressed the reaction against 19th century ideas in new forms. The most important characteristics are: • The breakdown of traditional literary genres; • The fragmentation of the traditional ideas of time and place; • The consequent collapse of the traditional plot with a story that has a beginning and an end; • The use of complex language; • A new idea of the representative function of literature, with the emphasis on psychological truth; • An eclectic use of myth; • The adoption of free verse instead of traditional metres. The impact of psychoanalysis A fundamental influence on artists and intellectuals was the psychoanalysis, developed by Sigmund Freud; he begun to explore new areas of sensibility, which came to be known as the unconscious. His theories revealed that, consciously or unconsciously, human behaviour was in accordance with universal patterns. The stream of consciousness The stream-of-consciousness technique changes from one writer to another, but has become world-famous through the novels of James Joyce; in Ulysses, ideas and images are put together. They are presented without a rational order, but as they would pass through the unconscious mind. The stream-of-consciousness is so called because it tries to reproduce the continuous flow of human thought. Joseph Conrad Life Joseph Conrad was born in the Ukraine. His father was a patriot and a man of letters who was later exiled to Russia for his political activities. Both parents had died by the time Conrad was 12, and he was brought up by a maternal uncle, mostly in France. Despite his family’s opposition, he was allowed to go to Marseilles where he joined a French ship carrying guns to Spain. Conrad joined an English merchant ship. He started to learn the language, which was his third, after Polish and French, and he became a British citizen. A modern novelist Conrad’s work stand on the dividing line between the traditional and the modern novel. In Conrad’s novels, his characters’ adventures center on the moment of crisis when the individual is alone and cannot rely on social institutions, so he analyses the moment of isolation. Heart of darkness A novella Heart of Darkness is a novella, based on personal experience. Conrad sailed up the River Congo and in doing so he discovers the nature of his own personality and came to a pessimistic conclusion about the nature of ‘civilised’ man. A voyage of discovery into the self Africa was often referred to as the ‘dark Continent’; Conrad’s story, however, is also about the darkness that lies at the centre of human nature. When freed from society, the white man reverts to his true self: savage and instinctive rather than rational. In fact, he can be more savage and cruel than the black man he claims he is trying to civilise. The identification of colonisation is personified by Mr. Kurtz that embodies the extremes of European colonialism. The story Marlow, the narrator, tells his story to some friends on a boat anchored on the River Thames. Years before, Marlow had been hired by a Belgian trading company to sail up the River Congo and get Kurtz, an official of the company but that now lived among the natives who wanted to revere him as a god. Marlow’s trip brings him into close contact with the brutal exploitation of the natives. When Marlow reaches Kurtz, he finds a dying man who has become an idol to the natives. Marlow is fascinated by him and his courage but, on the other hand, he is disgusted by the other colonists’ hypocrisy. In the end Marlow resumes his journey down the River Congo towards the ocean, and then back to Europe. The same boat also carries Kurtz, who is slowly dying. Back in Brussels, Marlow goes to see Kurtz’s fiancée who regards him as a God-sent angel. Marlow lies to her, saying that Kurtz’s last words were her name, while they were “the horror! The horror!” That sum up the life he had lived and seen. James Joyce Early life in Dublin James Joyce was born in Dublin in an Irish Catholic family, so he attended a religious school. His father had been a supporter of Charles Parnell, but after Parnell’s death, he had retired from politics and social life. Joyce attended two Jesuits schools, then he went on to study modern languages at University College, Dublin, where he graduated. A life of self-imposed exile He went first to Paris, then to Pola and and finally to Trieste. He moved to Paris and when France was occupied by the Germans, Joyce and his family returned to Zurich, where he died in 1941. Joyce and ireland The relationship between Joyce and Ireland is complex. He seems to have rejected everything that was Irish; all of Joyce’s works are centred on Ireland and, more specifically, on Dublin, that was for him the centre of paralysis and of failure. For Joyce the epiphany is a sudden revelation, when a character becomes aware of his condition that is always a miserable one. Joyce, in his life, rejected family and religion; his literary production may be divided into two periods: 1. Still linked to the literature of the 19th century, there is still the presence of a sort of plot (Dubliners, that is presented in four stages: childhood, youth, maturity and public life; and his autobiographical work where the main character is Daedalus); 2. The modernist one where he writes Ulysses and Finnegans wake. Ulysses In particular, there are two ordinary people, Leopold Bloom and Stephen Daedalus, during a whole day and he uses the epic model to stress the lack of heroism, of ideals, of love and trust. The story Ulysses tells the story of a day, June 16. Leopold Bloom is the Ulysses of the title; Stephen Daedalus is the central character of the first part of Ulysses; Molly Bloom, Leopold’s wife, is the central character of the last part of the novel. She corresponds to to Ulysses’ wife Penelope but, unlike her, Molly is a woman who is unfaithful to her husband. Virginia Woolf Life Virginia Woolf was born in London and she was educated at home. She used to spend the summer in Cornwall and her passion for the sea entered much of her later fiction. Virginia’s mother died and this was followed by a long period of depression. His father’s death produced another period of deep depression, and a further one brought her first suicide attempt with drugs. After their father’s death, the Stephens moved to Bloomsbury, their house became a center for important literary, artistic and philosophical meetings by a group of writers known as the Bloomsbury Group. She married Leonard Woolf, where she got her surname. She drowned herself in the River Ouse in Sussex. MRS. DALLOWAY She describes a single day of June of Clarissa Dalloway who spends the day preparing for a party she is giving that evening at her house in Westminster.