Jaydeep Padhiyar TCAS-General characteristics of twentieth century literature

General characteristics of twentieth century literature

1. General characteristics of twentieth century literature Roll no. 365 S ubject: History of English literature TYBA Sem VI Guidance by: Dr. Yagnesh D horiya Made By: Jaydeep Padhiyar

2. General characteristics of twentieth century literature The twentieth century was like no time period before it. Einstein, Darwin, Freud and Marx were just some of the thinkers who profoundly changed Western culture. These changes took distinct shape in the literature of the 20th century. Modernism, a movement that was a radical break from 19th century Victorianism, led to postmodernism, which emphasized self-consciousness and pop art. While 20th century literature is a diverse field covering a variety of genres, there are common characteristics that changed literature forever.

3. Fragmented Structure Prior to the twentieth century, literature tended to be structured in linear, chronological order. Twentieth century writers experimented with other kinds of structures. Virginia Woolf, for instance, wrote novels whose main plot was often "interrupted" by individual characters' memories, resulting in a disorienting experience for the reader. Ford Madox Ford's classic "The Good Soldier" plays with chronology, jumping back and forth between time periods. Many of these writers aimed to imitate the feeling of how time is truly experienced subjectively.

4. Fragmented Perspective If there's one thing readers could count on before the twentieth century, it was the reliability of an objective narrator in fiction. Modernist and postmodern writers, however, believed that this did a disservice to the reliability of stories in general. The twentieth century saw the birth of the ironic narrator, who could not be trusted with the facts of narrative. Nick Carraway, narrator of Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby," for example, tells the story with a bias toward the novel's titular character. In an extreme case of fragmented perspective, Faulkner's "As I Lay Dying" switches narrators between each chapter.

5. The Novel of the City The twentieth century is distinguished as the century of urbanism. As more people moved to cities in Europe and America, novelists used urban environments as backdrops for the stories they told. Perhaps the best known of these is James Joyce's "Dubliners," a series of short stories that all take place in various locales in Dublin. Other twentieth century writers are also closely associated with various urban centers: Woolf and London, Theodore Dreiser and Chicago, Paul Auster and New York, Michael Ondaatje and Toronto.

6. Writing from the Margins The twentieth century gave voice to marginalized people who previously got little recognition for their literary contributions. The Harlem Renaissance, for example, brought together African-Americans living in New York to form a powerful literary movement. Writers such as Langston Hughes, Nella Larsen and Zora Neale Hurston wrote fiction and poetry that celebrated black identity. Similarly, female writers gained recognition through novels that chronicled their own experience. Finally, the post-colonial literary movement was born, with writers such as Chinua Achebe writing stories on behalf of subjugated peoples who had experienced colonization by Western powers.

7. Individualism In this literature, the individual is more interesting than society. Specifically, modernist writers were fascinated with how the individual adapted to the changing world. In some cases, the individual triumphed over obstacles. For the most part, Modernist literature featured characters who just kept their heads above water. Writers presented the world or society as a challenge to the integrity of their characters. Ernest Hemingway is especially remembered for vivid characters who accepted their circumstances at face value and persevered.

8. Experimentation W riters broke free of old forms and techniques. Poets abandoned traditional rhyme schemes and wrote in free verse. Novelists defied all expectations. Writers mixed images from the past with modern languages and themes, creating a collage of styles. The inner workings of consciousness were a common subject for modernists. This preoccupation led to a form of narration called stream of consciousness, where the point of view of the novel meanders in a pattern resembling human thought. Authors James Joyce and Virginia Woolf, along with poets T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound, are well known for their experimental Modernist works.

9. Absurdity The carnage of two World Wars profoundly affected writers of the period. Several great English poets died or were wounded in WWI. At the same time, global capitalism was reorganizing society at every level. For many writers, the world was becoming a more absurd place every day. The mysteriousness of life was being lost in the rush of daily life. The senseless violence of WWII was yet more evidence that humanity had lost its way. Modernist authors depicted this absurdity in their works. Franz Kafka's "The Metamorphosis," in which a traveling salesman is transformed into an insect-like creature, is an example of modern absurdism.

10. Symbolism The Modernist writers infused objects, people, places and events with significant meanings. They imagined a reality with multiple layers, many of them hidden or in a sort of code. The idea of a poem as a riddle to be cracked had its beginnings in the Modernist period. Symbolism was not a new concept in literature, but the Modernists' particular use of symbols was an innovation. They left much more to the reader's imagination than earlier writers, leading to open-ended narratives with multiple interpretations. For example, James Joyce's "Ulysses" incorporates distinctive, open-ended symbols in each chapter.

11. Formalism Writers of the Modernist period saw literature more as a craft than a flowering of creativity. They believed that poems and novels were constructed from smaller parts instead of the organic, internal process that earlier generations had described. The idea of literature as craft fed the Modernists' desire for creativity and originality. Modernist poetry often includes foreign languages, dense vocabulary and invented words. The poet e.e. cummings abandoned all structure and spread his words all across the page.

12. Some popular works of twentieth century literature 1.  Lolita  by Vladimir Nabokov (1955).  2.  The Great Gats by  by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1925).  3.  In Search of Lost Time  by Marcel Proust (1913–27).  4.  Ulysses  by James Joyce (1922).  5.  Dubliners  by James Joyce (1916).  6.  One Hundred Years of Solitude  by Gabriel García Márquez (1967).  7.  The Sound and the Fury  by William Faulkner (1929).  8.  To the Lighthouse  by Virginia Woolf (1927).  9.  The Stories of Flannery O’Connor  (1925–64).  10.  Absalom, Absalom!  by William Faulkner (1936).  This Is It