Hello Readers!
History repeats itself and time records the events through its lenses of zeitgeist. The historical sense leads one to study the succeeding ages. One has to have historical sense even to understand the simple words and images of literature. Metaphorical way of writing always makes a reader curious to know more about the age and its culture. Here we shall see a remarkable age of literature: Modern Age or 20th Century Literature.
20th Century was much of the upheavals of the time. With the hammer of critical thought and rationale, the age happened to find newer means of social and literary concerns than the previous age. All, that had been sharply practiced in the Victorian Age, was turned topsy-turvy in the Modern Age. Didacticism and staunch Victorian practices were losing the ground. The impact of World Wars was much more than a mere scar to the age but a wakening slap for social reformations. Life was to start in an extremist levels of modernity and then it had to come down towards postmodernist days. The roots of such fervour lied in the rebelliousness of people. The thought of "make it new" itself evidently establishes the disgusts and boredom of the rigidity of Victorian thought. A change, which historians might have recorded, in cultural practices, intelligence of people, critical ability to think was aptly found in this age.
Historical Aspects of the age
1. World War I (1914 - 1918) WW II (1939 - 1945)
The combatant nations of these wars were majorly considered as “centre of the world”. But the imperialistic temperaments led them to a blindness which, then never recovered to see the disastrous consequences of these two World Wars. History evidently puts a remark on the nuclear attacks upon Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It would be now easy to assume that how the common people might have suffered and what the societal changes had gone through.
2. Industrial Revolution.
Though it took place in 19th century but the echoes of this revolution reflected in the 20th century. Society witnessed a drastic change in class demarcation. Those who were landowners, those who had plenty of room to invest their excessive amount of money, became factory owners and those who were hardworking and enthusiastic became the workers of these factories. Assembly line brought a smiling curve in the economy of Europe and United States, but on the parallel, it killed the craftsmanship of individual. Machination became prominent centre and skillful people submerged in the periphery. This led to unemployment and then somehow created anarchy among the masses. Rich became more rich and poor became more poor. The three "M" are worth considering here. M for Muscle power, M for Mind power and M for Money power. Senselessness sprouted through the seeds of excessive materialistic lifestyle. The money mindedness is reflected in Arthur Miller's play "All My Sons". Colonial aspects are also found in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness.
3. Spiritual/Religious Questioning
The modern age also brought dilemma and confusion in the belief system of people. It seemed that money became more mightier than the divine; which was thought in the previous Victorian age. Some isms also found in reference of asking about spirituality that is Existentialism. To quote few lines. . .
To some, the voice of Darwin in The Descent of Man sounded more credible and more authoritative that the voice of God in the book of Genesis. (The Setting - A. C. Ward)
More scientific temperaments were being established and convincingly the constructive arguments also gave some wind to the thought. Victorian orthodoxy was losing a ground. The horrific war experience made people think about one another and live life with spiritual thought.
Literary Characteristics
Literature rightly mirrored the changes of society in it's texts. Nations were looking for the classics and masterpieces of authors which found much acceptance in the modern age than the previous age. In the early stage of the century the practice of depicting mythical narratives in newer ways was still in in continuation. Ulysses by James Joyce is an example of it. Writings about futuristic events were much celebrated. 1984 by George Orwell and Animal Farm stand at the doorstep of the modern age which welcomes the reader to the newer aspects like monotony in human life, bureaucratic mindset of controlling people, and continuous surveillance. The metaphor of animals is rightly used by Orwell... All animals are equal but some are more equal. Canons of literature were steadily changing from the stereotypes to something newer ones. Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and H. G. Wells' The Time Machine drew the futuristic caricature which was much ahead of their time. Lost generation which emerged a class of society in the 20th century also found it's voice in works of Gustav Flaubert. Gothic element, which was already much celebrated by the publication of Frankenstein, also resurrected in the 20th century. Edgar Allan Poe penned much of the darkest of the human psyche and viciousness in his short stories like Black Cat. The audience was still demanding some more entertaining literature which resulted in the creation of devilish fiction like Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. T. S. Eliot also marked its timeless presence by the penning his wide ranging poem The Waste Land. It majorly talked about sexual perversion and spiritual degradation. D. H. Lawrence's books were banned due to extremity of sexuality. Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne set a question of individual free choice. Old Man and the Sea by Earnest Hemingway oiled to the motivational thought for upcoming generation. The undercurrents of human nature like Oedipus and Electra complexes find the narration in pen of Eugenie O'Neill's play Mourning Becomes Electra. Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse made an evident contribution in the psychological movement called Stream of Consciousness.
Furthering the genre of poetry, Robert Frost, John Masefield, Rupert Brook, W. B. Yeats, T. S. Eliot made noteworthy contribution to literature.
The later part of the age came up with many artistic movements such as Surrealism, Dadaism, Imagism, Vorticism, Cubism, Expressionism, Individualism etc.
In a nutshell, 20th century was an age of social unrest, progression as well as regression, freedom as well as captivity in terms of machination. The age carried the time, the time which recorded much larger portion of the events and zeitgeist of modernity. No other age in the history of English literature carried this much diversity in thought and in its texts.
References;
Ward, Alfred Charles. Twentieth-Century English Literature: 1901-1960. 1966.
Long, William J. English Literature. AITBS India, 2015.
Thank You.
No comments:
Post a Comment