LITERARY HISTORY The Modern Age Part 1: 1900-1940

LITERARY HISTORY

The Modern Age

Part 1: 1900-1940

T h e M o d e r n A g e

Joseph Conrad


1857: born in Poland in a patriotic family1874: went to Marseilles to board French ships as a sailor1878: boarded an English ship to Far East1886: Master Mariner + British Subject1890: sailed to Africa / Congo DiaryStopped sailing because of sickness / became a fulltime writerDied in 1924“Homo Duplex”

NationalityCareersTheme of Double

Joseph Conrad: Life


No Amusing - No TeachingRecording the complexity of lifeExploring the meaning of human condition

Joseph Conrad: the writer’s task


sea and exotic latitudes (river/jungle) cf. adventure storieswell known places, to isolate characters and to emphasize the character’s inner conflictsship as microcosm

Joseph Conrad: setting


obliqueextreme situations, e.g. violence, miseryheroes: solitary figures, no past, uncertain future

Joseph Conrad: style


time-shifts to emphasize the illusions of lifefirst-person narrationidentical narrator or more than oneinvisible narratorjournalslettersseveral points of viewrelativism of moral valuesidiomatic dialogue (!, ?, /, -)variety of adjectivescomplex structures

Conrad’s narrative technique


The Nigger of the Narcissus - 1897Youth – 1898Lord Jim - 1900Heart of Darkness – 1902Nostromo – 1904The Secret Agent – 1907Under Western Eyes – 1911The Shadow Line - 1917The Rescue – 1920The Rover - 1923

Joseph Conrad: Works


Published in 1902Inspired by his own experience in the CongoConrad uses the story-within-a-story device - an unnamed narrator recounts Charles Marlow's recounting of his journey

Heart of Darkness

The Roi des Belges, the ship Conrad used to travel up the Congo



The Democratic Republic of the Congo

The River Congo


largely autobiographical, based upon Conrad's six-month journey up the Congo River where he took command of a steamboat in 1890 after the death of its captain. At the time, the river was called the Congo, and the country was the Congo Free State. The area Conrad refers to as the Company Station was an actual location called Matadi, a location two-hundred miles up river from the mouth of the Congo. The Central Station was a location called Kinshasa, and both these locations marked a stretch of river impassable by steamboat, upon which Marlow takes a “two-hundred mile tramp”.The Company was in reality the Anglo-Belgium India-Rubber Company formed by King Leopold II of Belgium charged with running the country of the Congo Free State in 1885.


Historical Context I

The Congo Free State was voted into existence by the Berlin Conference (1884), which Conrad refers to sarcastically in his novella as “the International Society for the Suppression of Savage Customs”.

Leopold II declared the Congo Free State his personal property in 1892, legally permitting the Belgians to take what rubber they wished from the area without having to trade with the African natives. This caused a rise in atrocities perpetrated by the Belgian traders.

The Congo Free State was taken out of the personal property of the king and made a regular colony of Belgium, called Belgian Congo, in 1908, after the extent of atrocities committed there became generally known in the West, partially through Conrad's novel.


Historical Context II

Part of the Western literary canonCriticized in 1970 by Chinua Achebe in “An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness”Two film adaptations:- Apocalypse Now, starring Marlon Brando- Heart of Darkness, starring John Malkovich


Critical Reception


D.H. Lawrence

Check out Lawrence’s 10 best quotes by clicking the photo


David Herbert Richards Lawrence was an English author, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic, painter, and therefore one of the greatest figures in 20th-century English literature. His collected works represent an extended reflection upon the dehumanising effects of modernity and industrialisation. In them, Lawrence confronts issues relating to emotional health and vitality, spontaneity, human sexuality and instinct.

Lawrence's opinions earned him many enemies and he endured official persecution, censorship, and misrepresentation of his creative work throughout the second half of his life, much of which he spent in a voluntary exile he called his “savage pilgrimage”.

D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930)


D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930)born on September 11, 1885, in Eastwood,

Nottinghamshire, central England. fourth child of a struggling coal miner (and heavy drinker). His mother was a former schoolteacher, greatly superior in education to her husband.his childhood was dominated by poverty and friction between his parents. educated at Nottingham High School, to which he had won a scholarship. worked as a clerk in a surgical appliance factory and then for four years as a pupil-teacher. Lawrence's mother died in 1910; he helped her die by giving her an overdose of sleeping medicine.


Lawrence is now generally valued as a visionary thinker and significant representative of modernism in English literature, although some feminists object to the attitudes toward women and sexuality found in his works.

Lawrence is perhaps best known for his novels Sons and Lovers (1913), The Rainbow (1915), Women in Love (1920) and Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928). Within these Lawrence explores the possibilities for life and living within an industrial setting. In particular Lawrence is concerned with the nature of relationships that can be had within such settings.

At http://www.dh-lawrence.org.uk/ more information can be found/


http://www.dh-lawrence.org.uk/


Lawrence had a messianistic look at life. Furthermore:

he was a prolific writer (he knew that he wouldn’t live long)he was an intelligent critiche collided with the authorities in everythinghe hated middle-class peoplesexuality was one of his major themes, though mostly hidden.censorship was repeatedly used on his books because of their contentsmore than a fascist he was more a believer of a balance in mind and body.He describes human nature in the sense of natural development



D.H. Lawrence: Sons and Lovers


a crystal clear autobiographical novel in which all kinds of relationships, sometimes rather uncomfortable, play an essential rolethe novel is rooted in realitythere is a natural simplicity in describing certain things Episodic construction: Lawrence doesn’t experiment with form. This results in Lawrence writing in a sometimes inconsistent manner. He writes quite detailed about something then suddenly breaks it off; a chronological order seems to be lacking at times. characters stand for ideasStruggle between culture and semi-culture, mental consciousness and animism, spirit and soul, body and mind.Phallic symbols: mineshafts, minetower, spiral overseer. The book is definitely about sex and sexual relationships (1915!).

D.H. Lawrence: Sons and Lovers


One of Lawrence’s most famous short stories about a

homosexual relationship between a soldier and an officer.

Other themes:authorityrebellionsadism(homosexual) desiredestroyed innocence

Questions:1.How does Lawrence indicate the self-imposed

isolation of the main character from humanity?2.Find examples of Modernism in this story

The Prussian Officer


E.M. Forster

“Charm, in most men and nearly all women, is a decoration.”

~ E.M. Forster


Edward Morgan Forster was an English novelist, short story writer, essayist and librettist. He is known best for his ironic and well-plotted novels examining class difference and hypocrisy in early 20th-century British society. Forster's humanistic impulse toward understanding and sympathy may be aptly summed up in the epigraph to his 1910 novel Howard’s End: “Only connect …”. His 1908 novel, A Room with a View, is his most optimistic work, while A Passage to India (1924) brought him his greatest success. Forster’s well-plotted novels draw attention because of his attachment to mysticism and his secular humanist beliefs.Forster had concrete ideas, irrational thoughts, and believed in a philosophy that upholds reason and ethics.

E.M. Forster (1879-1970)


E.M. Forster (1879-1970)born on January 1, 1879, in London. only child; his father, who was an architect, died when Edward was only one year old.his childhood, the happiest time of his life, was dominated by women.inherited £8,000 in trust as a young boy, from his great aunt, in 1887. This made it possible for him to become and live his life as a writer.Together with his mother he travelled through Italy, Greece, Egypt, Germany, and India. During these travels he gathered the material that he needed for his early novels. His novels are best known for the satirization of the attitudes of British tourists (as shown in A Passage to India).


Where Angels Fear to Tread - 1905The Longest Journey - 1907A Room with a View - 1908Howards End - 1910A Passage to India – 1924

Key Themes:the irreconcilability of class differencesThe difficulties of human connection(homo)sexuality

E.M. Forster : Works

Mrs. Moore and Adela Quested are travelling to India on a ship. Mrs. Moore, an elderly English woman wants to discover the real India. Her son Ronny is a British magistrate in India and she wants Adela Quested, the young woman, to marry him.The Muslim doctor Aziz is enraged because his English authority, Major Chandler, calls him for a daughting task, as he usually does. Aziz does not have a positive view on the English. Eventually Mrs.Moore meets the Muslim doctor Aziz. Aziz is surprised because Mrs.Moore treats him well when the other English do not.In honour of Mrs. Moore, Aziz decides to set up a trip to the Marabar caves. The caves were considered one of the only exciting things in Chandrapore.


A Passage to India

Aziz gets offended from one of Adela Quested’s remarks and she runs off into the cave alone. Afterwards, Adela accuses Aziz of raping her.In the weeks following, the racial tensions increase and Mrs. Moore is miserable because she keeps hearing echoes from the cave. She plans to return to England early but dies on the way back.Adela Quested ends up stating that someone else attacked her in the caves and not Aziz. She breaks up her engagement with Ronny (who Mrs.Moore wanted her to marry) and returns to England.Aziz renews some friendships and says they can all be friends once the English are out of India. The last section explains, “No not yet…. No, not there.” Check out: http://www.mapability.com/travel/p2i/index.php


A Passage to India

http://www.mapability.com/travel/p2i/index.php


F. Scott Fitzgerald


Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was an American author of novels and short stories, whose works are the paradigm writings of “the Jazz Age”, a term he coined himself. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century. Fitzgerald is considered a member of the ‘Lost Generation’ of the 1920s. He finished four novels: This Side of Paradise, The Beautiful and Damned, Tender Is the Night, and, his most famous, The Great Gatsby. A fifth, unfinished novel, The Love of the Last Tycoon, was published posthumously. Fitzgerald also wrote many short stories that treat themes of youth and promise along with despair and age.The Great Gatsby has been the basis for numerous films of the same name, spanning nearly 90 years; 1926, 1949, 1974, 2000, and an upcoming 2013 adaption. In 1958 his life from 1937–1940 was dramatized in Beloved Infidel.

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940)


F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940)born on September 24, 1896, in St. Paul, Mn.

His parents were Mary McQuillan, the daughter of Irish immigrants, and Edward Fitzgerald, a salesman. Both were Catholic.On academic probation, Fitzgerald joined the army as a 2nd lieutenant in 1917.June 1918: While on assignment in Montgomery, AL, he fell in love with Zelda Sayre, daughter of an Alabama Supreme Court judge.She broke off their engagement in 1919 because she was unwilling to live on Scott’s small salary.During the 1920’s, after having been married in 1920, Scott and Zelda’s relationship continues to be strained due to his drinking and her mental instability. They live in Paris, the Riviera, and a mansion near Wilmington, DE. Even though Fitzgerald earns about $4,000 per story (equal to about $40,000 today), he and Zelda continue to run into debt.

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LITERARY HISTORY

The Modern Age

The War Poets


Britain declared war on Germany on August 4, 1914, after Germany had ignored Britain’s appeal to refrain from violating Belgium’s neutrality in its attack on France.

Murder of the Archduke Ferdinand of Austria in Serbia on June 28, 1914 started WWI, which ended in the loss of almost 9 million lives.

The war poets soon realized its full horror, and th is realization affected both their imagination and their poetic techniques.

We have to realize that people were wholly unprepared for the horrors of modern trench warfare. The war poets are special because they spoke for the trauma of a their generation.

Th War Poets


1890-1920: A period of transition, with a conflict between two traditions:

a. the existing tradition native English tradition (Keats,

Wordsworth, Milton) tradition of rural poetry

b. the new tradition after 1908 continental tradition focus on France urban inspiration

Th War Poets


1914-1916:The most important war poetry was written in the 2nd half of WWI (after 1916). Before that people had a boyish attitude towards the war. England was celebrated, main words: nostalgia, chauvinism, sentimental.

1916/1917: Battle of the Somme: 300,000 people

died for 15 yards of ground Verdun: 600,000 people died

Th War Poets


Rupert Brooke (1887-1915)

Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967) Wilfried Owen (1893-1918)

Th War Poets


If I should die, think only this of me:That there's some corner of a foreign fieldThat is for ever England. There shall beIn that rich earth a richer dust concealed;A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,A body of England's, breathing English air,Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home. And think, this heart, all evil shed away,A pulse in the eternal mind, no lessGives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

The Soldier by Rupert Brooke

Dulce et decorum estPro patria mori.

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LITERARY HISTORY The Modern Age Part 1: 1900-1940