the twentieth century background

7/24/2019 The Twentieth Century Background

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EL 102

The Twentieth Century


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The Twentieth Century

20th century: begins with the late 19th century.Weakening of traditional stabilities

Different from victorian age

1.he aesthetic movement in 20th century:

insistence on !art for art"s sake.": it caused thewidening of the ga# between the artists and the

#ublic. $Alienation of the artist%. &rom &rancecame the tradition of the bohemian lifethat

scorned the limits im#osed by conventional ideasof res#ectability

2.rise of #essimism and stoicism


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Important Historical Events in the erio!

The "oer #ar $1%&&'1&02()fought by the(ritish to establish #olitical and economical

control over the (oer )e#ublics of *outh

+frica, marked both the high #oint of andthe reaction against (ritish im#erialism. -t

was a war against which many (ritish

intellectuals #rotested and one which the(ritish in the end were slightly ashamed of

having won.


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Important Historical Events in the erio!

The Irish *uestionalso caused a great deal

of e/citement from the beginning of the

#eriod until well into the 1920s.

+ steadily rising -rish nationalism

-n World War - some -rish nationalists

sought erman hel# in rebelling against

(ritain.


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#omen+s ,ole in -ociety ra!ually Chan/e

he arried Woman"s 3ro#erty +ct of 1442,which allowed married women to own #ro#erty intheir own right

the admission of women to the universities atdifferent times during the later #art of the century

the fight for women"s suffrage, which was not wonuntil 1914 $and not fully won until 1924%

these events marked a change in the attitude towomen and in the #art they #layed in the nationallife as well as in the relation between the se/es


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E!war!ian an! eor/ian erio!s in 20th Century En/lan!

E!war!ian En/lan! $1&01'10( a #eriod of en6oyment and flashiness and it was

marked by 7dward 8--"s e/trovert and selfindulgentcharacter.

a##lies to a #eriod in which the social and economicstabilities of the 8ictorian age remained unim#aired,though on the level of ideas there was a sense ofchange and liberation.

)efers to the social and economic stability of the8ictorian +ge and the flourishing of the middle class

eor/ian perio!the last #hase of assurance andstability before the storm of World War -.


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20th century En/lan! Later Historical evelopments

1920s: #ostwar disillusion 19'0s: de#ression and unem#loyment, followed by

the rise of ;itler and &ascism

*econd World War: Winning a war, reat (ritainlost an em#ire. -nde#endence of -ndia $19%

+lthough -ndia and 3akistan elected to remain

within the (ritish


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Art in 20th Century o!ernism

odernism: =+ style or movement in the arts

that aims to break with classical and

traditional forms>

+ new age, with new values, needed a new

art.


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9Leonardo da Vinci, Mona Lisa,150306

Willem de Kooning, Woman, 1950


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ablo icasso) Guernica) 1&34


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o!ern art 5eo'primitivism

7nd of 19th century into 20th

?ot a movementper se@ a growinginterest in +frican, Aceanic, and ?ative

+merican art

-m#osition of abstract forms on nature


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ablo

icasso)Les

DemoisellesdAvignon)

1&04


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o!ern Art Cubism ,evolt a/ainst space

3o#ular 190B1920

*imultaneous #ers#ective $fragmentationinto multi#le view#oints%


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ablo

icasso)

Still Lifewith a

Bottle of

Rum) 1&11


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6ean

et7in/er)

Table by aWindow)

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oetry

Ima/ismhe years leading u# to World War - saw

the start of a #oetic movement. -nfluenced by the

#hiloso#her#oet .7. ;ulme"s insistence on hard,

clear, #recise images and encouraged by themodernist +merican #oet, 7Cra 3ound, fought

against romantic fuCCiness and facile emotionalism

in #oetry.

7arly members: +my owell, )ichard +ldington,;ilda Doolittle, E.. &letcher, &.*. &lint


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oetry ima/ism

Direct treatment of the thing, whether sub6ective

or ob6ective

+voidance of all words that did not contribute to

the #resentation $=use no su#erfluous word, no

ad6ective, which does not reveal something>%.

&reer metrical movement


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Ima/ist oem H.+s 89rea!:

#hirl up) sea;

#hirl your pointe! pines)

-plash your /reat pines9n our roc


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Ima/ist oem

E7ra oun!+s 8In a -tation of the etro:

The apparition of these faces in the crow! =

etals on a wet) blac< bou/h.


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oetryother !evelopments

he revival of interest in meta#hysical wit

;igher degree of intellectual com#le/ity than had

been found among the 8ictorians or the eorgians.

?eed to bring #oetic language and rhythms closer to

those of conversation. Develo#ments in literature are not isolated from

other arts. Writers were influenced by the &rench

-m#ressionist, 3ostim#ressionist, and


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>iction he years 1912 to 19'0: the ;eroic +ge of the

modern novel $Eose#h


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ore personal notions of value rather than public

opinion

he novelists" realiCation that the generalbackground of belief which united them with their#ublic in a common sense of what was significantin e/#erience had disa##eared.

he #ublic values of the 8ictorian novel, in whichma6or crises of #lot could be shown throughchanges in the social or financial or marital statusof the chief characters, gave way to more

#ersonally conceived notions of value, de#endenton the novelists" own intuitions and sensibilitiesrather than on #ublic agreement.


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A new view of time

-n the modern novel, time was not a series of

chronological moments, but as a continuousflow in the consciousness of the individual.

the view of time as a constant flow ratherthan a series of se#erate moments.


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A new view of the nature of consciousness

influenced by the e/#lorations of the subconscious by*igmund &reud and


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-tream of consciousness

-n this narrative techniFue, the author tries to renderdirectly the very fabric of a character"s consciousnesswithout re#orting it in formal, Fuoted remarks.Develo#ed in 1920s.

?o !#orch" was constructed at the front of the novel to#ut the reader in #ossession of necessary #reliminaryinformation: such information emerged, as the novel

#rogressed, from the consciousness of each character asit res#onded to the #resent with echoes of the #ast.

?o conventional sign#osts were #ut u# to tell readerswhere they were, for that was felt to interfere with theimmediacy of im#ression.


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a?or themes in mo!ern novel isolation)

estran/ement) loneliness

the twentieth century background

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