(modernperiod)20thCentury_English_Literature20世纪英国文学

1、20th Century English LiteratureThe Modern Period social, ideological background (1) The influences of the First World War on English literature:Modernism rose out of skepticism and disillusion of capitalism. The First World War had greatly influenced the English literature. The catastrophic First Wo

2、rld War tremendously weakened the British Empire and brought about great sufferings to its people as well. Its appalling shock severely destroyed peoples faith in the Victorian values; The postwar economic dislocation and spiritual disillusion produced a profound impact upon the British people, who

3、came to see the prevalent wretchedness in capitalism.social, ideological background(2) Ideologically, the rise of the irrational philosophy and new science greatly incited modern writers to make new explorations on human natures and human relationships. (a) Darwins theory of evolution exerted a stro

4、ng influence upon the people, causing many to lose their religious faith. The social Darwinism, under the cover of survival of the fittest, vehemently advocated colonialism or jingoism. (b) Einsteins theory of relativity provided entirely new ideas for the concepts of time and space. (c) Freuds anal

5、ytical psychology drastically altered our conception of human nature. Realism in the 20th century English literatureThe realistic novels in the early 20th century were the continuation of the Victorian tradition, yet its exposing and criticizing power against capitalist evils had been somewhat weake

6、ned both in width and depth. The outstanding realistic novelists of this period were John Galsworthy, H. G. Wells, and Arnold Eennett. The three trilogies of Galsworthys Forsyte novels are masterpieces of critical realism in the early 20th century, which revealed the corrupted capitalist world. Mode

7、rn English poetryThe 20th century has witnessed a great achievement in English poetry. In the early years of this century, Thomas Hardy and the war poets of the younger generation were important realistic poets. Hardy expressed his strong sympathies for the suffering poor and his bitter disgusts at

8、the social evils in his poetry as in his novels. The early poems of Pound and Eliot and Yeatss matured poetry marked the rise of modern poetry, which was, in some sense, a revolution against the conventional ideas and forms of the Victorian poetry. The modernist poets fought against the romantic fuz

9、ziness and self-indulged emotionalism, advocating new ideas in poetry- writing such as to use the language of common speech, to create new rhythms as the expression of a new mood, to allow absolute freedom in choosing subjects, and to use hard, clear and precise images in poems.Modern English novels

10、The first three decades of 20th century were golden years of the modernist novel. In stimulating the technical innovations of novel creation, the theory of the Freudian and Jungian psycho-analysis played a particularly important role. With the notion that multiple levels of consciousness existed sim

11、ultaneously in the human mind, that ones present was the sum of his past, present and future, and that the whole truth about human beings existed in the unique, isolated, and private world of each individual, writers like James Joyce and Virginia Woolf concentrated all their efforts on digging into

12、the human consciousness. Modern English novelsThey had created unprecedented stream-of-consciousness novels such as Ulysses (1922) by Joyce, and Mrs. Dalloway (1925) by Woolf. One of the remarkable features of their writings was their continuous experimentation on new and sophisticated techniques in

13、 novel writing, which made tremendous impacts on the creation of both realistic and modernist novels in this century.Modern English novelsJames Joyce is the most outstanding stream-of-consciousness novelist; in Ulysses, his encyclopedia-like masterpiece, Joyce presents a fantastic picture of the dis

14、jointed, illogical, illusory, and mental- emotional life of Leopold Bloom, who becomes the symbol of everyman in the post-World-War-Europe. D. H. Lawrence is regarded as revolutionary as Joyce in novel writing; but unlike Joyce, he was not concerned with technical innovations; his interest lay in th

15、e tracing of the psychological development of his characters and in his energetic criticism of the dehumanizing effect of the capitalist industrialization on human nature. Modern English novelsHe believed that life impulse was the primacy of mans instinct, and that any conscious repression of such a

16、n impulse would cause distortion or perversion of the individuals personality. In his best novels like The Rainbow (1915) and Women in Love (1920), Lawrence made a bold psychological exploration of various human relationships, especially those between men and women, with a great franknessModern Engl

17、ish novelsLawrence claimed that the alienation of the human relationships and the perversion of human nature in the modern society were caused by the desires for power and money, by the shams and frauds of middle-class life, and, above all, by the whole capitalist mechanical civilization, which turn

18、ed men into inhuman machines.Modern English DramaThe most celebrated dramatists in the last decade of the 19th century were Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw, who, in a sense, pioneered the modern drama, though they did not make so many innovations in techniques and forms as modernist poets or nov

19、elists. Shaw is considered to be the best-known English dramatist since Shakespeare whose works are examples of the plays inspired by social criticism. Modern English DramaJohn Galsworthy carried on this tradition of social criticism in his plays. By dramatizing social and ethical problems, Galswort

20、hy made considerable achievements in his plays such as The Silver Box (1906,银匣) and Strife (1910,斗争), in which Galsworthy presents not only realistic pictures of social injustice, but also the workers heroic struggles against their employers.Modern English DramaW. B. Yeats, a prominent poet of the 2

21、0th century, was the leader of the Irish National Theater Movement. He was a verse playwright who desired to restore lyrical drama to popularity. With the heroic portrayal of spiritual truth as his main concern, Yeats wrote a number of verse plays, introducing Irish myths and folk legends; but the p

22、lot in his plays was seldom very dramatic.Modern English DramaThe 1930s witnessed a revival of poetic drama in England. One of the early experimenters was T. S. Eliot who regarded drama as the best medium of poetry. Eliot wrote several verse plays and made a considerable success. Murder in the Cathe

23、dral (1935), with its purely dramatic power, remains the most popular of his verse plays, in spite of its primarily religious purpose.ModernismModernism is a general term applied retrospectively to the wide range of experimental and avant-garde trends in the literature and other arts of the early 20th century, inc