MODULE NO- 1: Experiments in Modern and Post Modern British Literature. Developed by : Dr. Ravindra A. Kulkarni, Assistant Professor,

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1 MODULE NO- 1: Experiments in Modern and Post Modern British Literature Developed by : Dr. Ravindra A. Kulkarni, Assistant Professor, Department of English, Willingdon College,Sangli. Target Students: M.A.II / Total Hours Required: 07 Methodology of Teaching: Lecture and Power Point Presentation Aims and Objectives: To introduce notions of Modernism and Post modernism To inform about various experiments in 20 th Century British Literature. 1) Introduction : Literature is one of the best fine arts to express thoughts & feelings. It has a wide span of human creativity from the historical point of view. The drift of English literature has constant flow of tendencies & counter tendencies. Every literary movement got its flesh & blood from the contemporary culture. Any literary movement can be called a set of perspectives, that forms properly genuine trend of literary work. For the study purpose, the dates mark specific period of time, to which literary scholars entitle ism philosophically. Due to investigating tendency, we got an experimenting approach through literary works. Broadly, modernism is the term used to designate the changed patterns of the subjects, forms, concepts & styles in literature as well as other arts. To many critics modern is a way of living, that counters Victorian lifestyle. They divide the period as : Pre-modernism ( ), Modernism ( ); Post modernism ( ). To Henry Levin, modernism is a historical phenomenon that belonged to the past and shaped the present. Thus, the post

2 modernism is supposed as a peak of modernist thoughts, that still present in the recent literary outcome. 2) Features of the Modernism : Due to its vastness, the concept of modernism is complex to define. The modernism as a literary movement has the omnipresent effect on the artistic, visual & architectural presentations. A) Violation of the Conventional Forms : Out of the Violating tendency, the artistic movements emerged : expressionism (in art), cubism, futurism and Abstract expressionism (in painting & sculpture). In poetry the standard conventions are violated; melody harmony and rhythm are challenged by composing new works. In poetry, e. e cummings, Carl Sandberg, T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, W. B. Yeats changed the stereotyped formula. In drama, Strindberg, Ibsen, Brecht, Stanislavski produced a new dramatic creations. In prose Leo Tolstoy, Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, William James, Henri Bergson & the French symbolists got their influence upon the modern literature. B) Avant Garde Literature : Avant Garde is a military metaphor. It suggests advance guard i.e. a small, selfconscious group of artists. Thus, in English poetry Imagism, Georgians, and war poets have their different sensibilities. The imagists are liberal & opposite to vague romanticism of Georgians. The Georgians are metaphysical & neo-wordsworthians, The avant-garde writers deliberately undertake new style. Their works are alienated from established order with own autonomy. C) An Endless movement : The period between 1920 to 1930 is studied as the most productive & innovative phase of modernism. Since the French symbolist s (Baudelaire s) Les Fleurs du Mal (1857), modernism T. E. Hulme, T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, W. B. Yeats, Ford Madox Ford, James Joyce, D. H.

3 Lawrence produced their works around 1930s. It is still continue in some countries, it seems central to the literary & artistic tradition, in others it seems a temporary phase. As Lynn Keller defines Modernism is just like an amorphous slag heap of ideologies ; it is extremely difficult to mark the end of modernism. 3) Experimentation in English Poetry : The idea of modernism got it s reflection through the sense of a consciousness of disorder, pessimism caused of disharmony & temporality of human existence, a great havoc to humanity caused by World Wars. The symbolism & juxtaposition of expressions emerged to produce a speedy flux of mind, to up bring inner conflicts, hypersensitiveness and hypochondria in modern man. The Georgian poets such as W. H. Davies, John Drinkwater, Walter De La Mare presented a romanticism of dream world however, the response to the complexities of its age can be found. The similar link can be stressed in the War poems of Edward Thomas, H. H. Monroe, Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon. The traditional claim of beauty or sublime as the highest achievement of literary work got totally neglected. We never find the solitary reaper or swan as the protagonist. The modern verse is liberal, having office workers as the protagonists. The residents of unreal cities are running for material & spiritual quest. Their expression also got complexity without a fluency of complete thought. Thus, T. S. Eliot describes conditions prevailing in war-time London and forms own concept of Hell in The Waste Land : Unreal City, Under the brown fog, a winter dawn, A crowd flowed over London Bridge, So many. Thus in the domain of poetry the experimentation is done in form, theme, expression, and its style of presentation. The poets promptly absorbed the rapid change in value system like the antennae of the race. With the Marxist Poetry of W. H. Auden, C. Day Lewis, Stephen Spender and Louis Mac Niece, the English poetry has multiplicity of Experimenting; such as the metaphysical revival, the apocalyptic, the movement poetry etc.

4 4) Experimentation in English Prose : The prose has many factors that influenced its themes, styles & characterization. William James Principles of Psychology (1810), Henry Bergson s duree (time), sense of common world make modern literature experimental. The novel of the 20 th century has the theme of relation between loneliness & love. It got widely influenced by Russian-Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekov & Maxim Gorky; German Sudermann, Thomas Mann; the Scandinavian Ibsen; French- Balzac, Emile Zola, Maupassant, and Marcel Proust. The novel has technical innovations & subtleties due to the principle of selection & the sense of significance. The plot construction based on the subtle & private interpretations of the significant human affairs. The modern novel was like a well-cut garden because of its plenty of creation. Joseph Conrad, H. G. Wells, John Galsworthy, and Arnold Benet coined the novels of idea. The social reality, moral & material values, personal experience, modern education, scientific romance & social reforms got the prolific position of theme of the novels. So Heart of Darkness, John & Peter, The silver spoon, Anna of the five towns put forth the contemporary situations with variety of ideas. The trend of ideas got revolted by realistic novels. True problems of human life with a real social picture are conveyed. In Aldus Huxley s Yellow-Chrome the readers have the post-war disillusionment and the ugly-waste picture of London life. Beyond romance & realities, the novel found sex or human relations at its substantial place. D. H. Lawrence frankly discusses mother- son relationship in his Sons and Lovers (1913). He challenged middle class conventions, by emphasizing the power of forces of liberation. The novel is not only an exploration of family relations but also an investigation of Oedipus complex. Despite human relations, the novel investigated the stream of human consciousness. It presents fluctuations of human experiences as a constant flow. The plot deals with interior monologues with long narratives. As a technique, it helps to present protagonist s introspection. Dorothy Richardson s Painted Roofs and Pilgrimage presents the experience of Miriam Henderson. James Joyce presents the psychological analysis of actions & reactions through a symbolism in Portrait of an Artist as a Young man. As the minor experiments, the drift of English novel has scientific, detective biographical and regional aspects to project. It got romance, suspense and true projection of life. We get the record of literary sense. The geographical panorama with social structure can be found in the

5 Regional fiction. Rudyard Kipling, for instance, presented Indian life especially West life of Punjab in Kim. A passage to India by E. M. Forster shows English-Indian relationship at the time of India s independence. As the separate trend of experimentation, modern novel concerned with the sexual representation in literature. It developed the tradition of female literature. The social position, relationships and treatment displayed in Feminist novels. Muriel spark, Ivy Compton-Burnett, Katherine Mansfield and Elizabeth Bowen culminated novel into the novel of feminism. The two world wars shattered the sensibility of modern man. The war novels procure social observation of documentary mode. It satirizes human hostilities in warsociety. A new vision of welfare state is composed. Kingsley Amis in Lucky Jim ; George Orwell in Animal Farm, 1984 ; Angus Wilson in The Wrong Set attempted realism with irony. The counter side of established conditions was the wrathful social protest. The Angry Young Men of 1960s displayed a confrontation between labour & capitalists. The hero of novel is anxious to rise. The structure & brilliance is no more genuine. John Braine s novel Room at the Top (1957) has a vision of the welfare state. The hero has own aware of self-corruption. Allan Sillitoe, Anthony Powel, William Golding and J. K. Rowling deal with the post modern traits of literature. Thus Lord of Small Things and Harry Porter had pointed revived romanticism of realistic social approach. The complex social structure is reflected in the novels of post modernism. In the domain of essay and literary criticism F. L. Lucas, Hillarie Belloc, A. G. Gardiner, Robert Lynd, Percy Lubbock, W. H. Hudson and Havelock Ellis contributed with the traits of modernism & after modernism. The prose remains lucid, flexible, simple and brief at the modernism. 5) Experimentation in English Drama: The English drama of Romanticism was patron less. It lacked theatrical sense of action. At the turn of the 20 th century, drama began to show presence as the drama of social purpose. It underwent the developing condition in the era of Naughty Nineties. Further, in the modern phase, it has an innovative experimentalism. Its rebellious conscious makes to adopt various styles. At the beginning, it was the realistic drama. The delineation of social & moral problems of modern age makes it a problematic drama. So G. B. Shaw s Pygmalion, John Galsworthy s The Silver Box and H. A. Jones Crusaders have brisk dialogue with the flashes of satire.

6 After 1920, the drift of English drama reflected a reaction to realism. J. M. Barrie s A Kiss for Cinderella glimpses the romantic vision. However, prolifically the drama has a strong base of naturalism. The poetic drama as a trend collaborated the poetic genius with dramatic action, it vehemently opposed naturalism. T. S. Eliot, Sean O Casey, W. B. Yeats, Christopher Fry and W. H. Auden practiced poetic drama. Murder in Cathedral or Lady s Not for Burning have verse as an apt medium of philosophical expression. There is a blend of classical symbolism and realism of the problem plays. As a minor result of the modern experiment, the historical or biographical plays showed presence. A source for it was the life stories of St. Joan, Robert Lee and Julius Caesar. W. B. Yeats inaugurated the revival of Irish Drama. He founded Irish National Society, J. H. Horniman motivated it. J. M. Synge, Lady Gregory, Yeats attempted to present Celtic myths. The plays have a new interpretations with an imaginative idealism. Riders to the Sea, Playboy of the Western World, New Comedies have the Irish life with dreamy & passionate world. Moreover, Yeats & Synge rendered reader aimed subjective plays. It encouraged impressionism in drama. The English drama underwent experiment of expressionism. Its psychological depth and fragmentary dialogues projected human expressions influentially. C. K. Munro, Elmer Rice and J. B. Priestley rapidly presented intense states of emotions. In fact, it was the extreme reaction to naturalism. Thus, The Adding Machine (1923) presents the world as mechanical & sterile. Mr. Zero displays the nonrealistic situations in the present society. The incoherent statements analyze a psyche of character. The comedy of manners got revived for some extent. However, the new wave dramatists promulgated existentialism through their Absurd Plays. As the European movement, it found the base of Albert Camus. The Myth of Sisyphus (1942), the writings of Jean Paul Sartre, Heidegger, Kierkegaard. The movement perfected from the hands of Irish Samuel Beckett, Rumanian Eugene Ionesco, Russian Arthur Adamou, French Jean Genet, American Edward Albee and English Harold Pinter. So they have firm faith upon the purposeless & uncertain condition of human life. They showed futility of man s effort, the meaninglessness of life, and absurd condition of life as prominent theme. The absurdity is shown through the chaotic plot construction & disordered setting. Waiting for Godot (1953), Endgame, The Birthday Party, and The Zoo Story have a deliberate formless language and action less dialogues. A sense of metaphysical anguish is conveyed through the

7 isolated stage. The Left- wing drama and Epic drama found a place in the experimentation of the post modern drama. 6) A Conclusion: There is no water shade compartment in Modern and Post Modern movement. The peak phase of modernism is loosely referred as post modernism. The socio-cultural complexity found reflection in literature, art, music, architecture and philosophy, since 1950s. It has the clusters of ideologies. Darwin, Marx, Freud, Einstein & Heidegger continued in post modern phase with rethinking of their ideas. Literature deals with the pop art, technical experiments, use of mass media & pornographic display. The zooming development of science & technology illuminated the mode of presentation. The society get transformed values swiftly. The commercialization, communication, cyber cultures & consumerism became new values. It changed the concept of protagonist. Hence, the post modern protagonist is exhausted & indifferent of the society. He remains the passive observer of the cultural diversity. Passively, he got victimized of the obscene flow of images. Thus as a cultural movement modernism has a very significant role to shape art and life style innovatively. It sharpened on experimenting sense of creative personalities. Artistically, it can be noted as the trans aesthetic movement. The accompaniment of creativity & technology rapidly changed its mode & medium of presentation. The revival tendency assures a master presentation of the new concerns of the post modern world.