Modern
Literature Intro Lecture
A) Victorian
Age 1832 to 1901
1) Main
characteristics:
a)
Shift
from land ownership to urban economy based on trade
b)
Emerge
themes of industrialization vs. human happiness
(Tennyson/Arnold)[1]
c)
Assurgency of creative
energy which would later be mocked by following generations (i.e. modern writers)
d)
Stereotyped
as prudish, though this is a misnomer as is not so much prudish as a time
when uniform social codes existed, especially in literary/educated circles.
e)
The
world: laissez faire economy and “Origin
of Species,” and survival of the fittest
2) End
of Victorian Age (1890’s):
a)
b)
Disillusionment
of the stability and structure of the world
c)
Rise of labor party
and socialism
3) Literary
characteristics
a)
Continued ideas of Romantics (intellectualism
vs. religion) but in more disciplined forms/structure
b)
Reaction
against the excesses of Romanticism
c)
Emphasized practicality,
respectability, conformity over instance
d)
Victorian
Novel: reporters of society, manners,
morals, money
B) The
Twentieth Century:
1) New
aesthetic movement:
a)
Art
for art’s sake,
b)
Gap
between artists and philistines;
c)
Bohemian life versus
respectability
d)
Emergence
of the idea of the alienated artist
2) Education
Act of 1870: universal elementary education
a)
Increased
literate population
b)
3
classes of literature emerges: high,
low, middle-class
c)
Emergence of ‘popular’
literature
3) Criticism
of Victorian Values
a)
Questions
Victorian assumptions of what is proper/improper
b)
Rise
of push for Women’s Suffrage (vote) and right to own property
c)
Reaction against the
British Empire/British rule questioned –
(i)
Boer War of 1899-1902
(ii)
Irish Nationalism (Yeats/Joyce)[2]
4) Pre
WWI –
a)
Alienation
of artists and intellectuals from high society
b)
Initially
a period of flashiness later tempered with Victorian reserve
c)
Last phase of stability
d)
Beginning
of experimentation with new forms
e)
Lull
before the war
5) Post
War Disillusionment through 1920’s
a)
T.
S. Eliot “The Waste Land”
b)
Depression
and unemployment
c)
Rise of Hitler, Nazism,
Fascism
d)
Rise
of leftist politics in art/literature
e)
Passionate
ideas over new techniques dominated writing
6) WWII
a)
End
of the
b)
Irish
c)
Disillusionment with
socialism
C) Poetry
in the 20th Century
1) Imagist
Movement: (pound, stein)[3]
pre WWI
a)
Against
fuzziness of Romantic poetry
b)
Direct
treatment of the thing
c)
Minimalist
d)
Irony
and wit
2) French
Symbolist Movement
a)
Revived
metaphysical appreciation and wit (ala Donne)[4]
b)
Dreamy
suggestiveness
c)
More conversational
3) T.S.
Eliot
a)
Mastered
both imagist, symbolist, metaphysical revival poetry into a unique style of
poetry
4) Poetic
revolution 1911-1922
a)
Influence
by French Impressionists and post-impressionists and cubist painters.
b)
Re-examination
of the nature of reality
5) French
Surrealists/New Apocalypse (WWII)
a)
Took
the revolution one step further
b)
Cool,
neutral tone gave way to one of vehemence, audacity, violence
c)
Express the subconscious
mind
d)
Dylan
Thomas,[5]
Dali, Picasso
6) 1950’s “The Movement”
a)
Reaction
to the surrealists
b)
Pendulum
swings back to neutral tone
c)
Back to tradition
D) Fiction
in the 20th Century
1) 1912-30
Heroic Age of Modern Novel
a)
Disappearance
of common background & beliefs between the readers and writers and society
b)
More
emphasis on personal (rather than societal) values as themes
c)
Emergence of author’s
personality in writing
d)
New
techniques used (Woolf/Joyce) such as varying point
of view and stream of consciousness
e)
Idea
of subconscious/multiple levels of consciousness explored in novels
f)
Less direction of reader
by author – story unfolds via consciousness of characters
g)
Rise
of individuality and isolation/alienation as themes
(i)
Love
(ii)
Individual vs. society
(iii)
Privacy vs. community
h)
Deal with meaning of
ordinary life
E) Drama
in the 20th Century
1) 1890’s
– comedies/satires of Victorian society (Oscar Wilde0
2) Dry,
critical wit (Shaw)
3) Symbolism
vs. Realism (Ibsen)
4) More
experimental, existential (Beckett, Stoppard)