Engels Literatuur Klas 5 Modern Age Flashcards
Modern age
1918-present day
-after the first world war, everything had changed. The illusions and optimistic feelings of the victorian age were destroyed.
The British empire started to crumble at the beginning of the 20th century
- in the course of the 19th century the colonies wanted to be independent
- america got more important, especially economically
- impact of the great war
The great war had huge impact
- feeling of disillusionment, they were no longer able to defend themselves and others
- introduction of modern warfare. There were new weapons and they couldnt deal with it
- uselessness of the war, enormous number of young men died for nothing but you had to enter the war otherwise you got deserted A. Risked your life B. Wife and kids no money
Between two wars there was an important cultural movement
The interbellum/modernism
- experiment and create new and different forms of expressing yourself artistically
- the war had killed creativity
- new forms showed how artist interpreted life
- expressionism, structuralism, cubism
- london: bloomsbury group, paris: the left bank
England was comparable with the netherlands after the 2nd world war
The feeling prevailed that people had to built up society again after WW 2.
NL: de vijftigers
Eng: the angry young men
NL: wanted to go back to before the war
NL: rebellion against petty-gourgeois, calvinistic atmosphere, de spruitjesgeur
Eng: rebellion against the establishment, especially the all pervading class system
NL: Eg; de avonden, Reve
Eng: Eg; Alan sillitoe, Evelyn Waugh, Kingsley amis, John Osborne
The most popular form in this age is
The novel
- the novel of idea
- the novel of character
The novel of idea
- writer makes clear what he thinks is wrong in society and he tries to change that by writing about it
- emphasis on society
- H.G. Wells, Aldous Huxley
The novel of character
- the writer analyses why the characters in his/her novels act the way they do
- emphasis on the individual
- D.H. Lawrence, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf
Influences on novels of the modern age
- the great russian novelists of the 19th century who displayed a great understanding of the human mind in their novels
- the theories of psycho-analysts, like Freud and Jung, who had made people aware of the subconcious, the world of fear, secret wishes and dreams
Poetry
- became less important for the greater public
- t.s. Elliot, W.B. yeats
- disillusioned and pessimistic
W.B. Yeats
Started romantic
Disillusioned
Pessimistic
T.S. Elliot
Disillusioned
Pessimistic
The waste land: shows his conviction that in this modern world people are unable to live life to the full because modern man is spiritually dead.
-just after WW 1, pessimistic
Drama
-george bernhard Shaw ; first writer of modern English drama
George Bernhard Shaw
First writer of modern English drama Socialist Used his plays to stress the need of social reforms Honest, realistic and frank Wasnt afraid to tell the truth Pygmalion (my fair lady)
The angry young men
-movement rebelling against the Establishment
-the Drama of the Absurd: the people arent logical, understandsble, ordinary and quite mad. Characters are lonely people who dont believe in anything, cant communicate and have
No hopes for the future
-Harold Pinter (the caretaker), Samuel Beckett (waiting for Godot)
-wrote about their dislike of cultural, political and social conditions in which they had to live
-the anti-hero
