Modern English LiteratureEssay title: Modern English LiteratureINTRODUCTIONThe interest, raised recently towards English language, the development of international relations on different levels has reasoned the desire to learn as much as possible about the country where this language originated as well as about its culture.
The literature is that magic key that opens the door of cognition of many sphere of human knowledge. It helps us to learn some interesting facts about t history, to know more about peoples life in other countries. Sometimes, while reading a book, we can analyse actions of its characters and it helps us to draw some certain conclusion. Thats why I find studying foreign literature is not only interesting, but also very useful.
Literature of the 20th CenturyThe TwentiesThe period between 1917 and 1930 was a time when the crisis of the bourgeois world reached its highest point and revolutions took place in several countries: in Russia, in Germany and in Hungary.
The writers of this period tried to show how a new society might be built up. But many bourgeois writers who were opposed to revolutions saw nothing but chaos and anarchy before them. They explained this crisis as a failure of civilisation.
A symbolic method of writing had already started early in the 20th century. It was in the twenties, that there appeared writers who refused to acknowledge reality as such. They thought reality to be superficial – it was only a world of appearances. The cause of everything that happened,– that is what led to events – was the irrational, the unconscious and the mystical in man. These writers called the inner psychological process “the stream of consciousness” and based a new literary technique upon it.
The most important to use this new literary technique was James Joyce (1882-1941). He influenced many writers on both sides of Atlantic.James Joyce, a native of Ireland, spent nearly all his life in voluntary exile. He could not live in his own country for it was enslaved by England. This fact may partly explain his pessimistic view on life, which is reflected in his work.
The portrayal of the steam of consciousness as a literary technique is particularly evident in his major novel Ulysses (1922). The task he set before himself was to present a day in ordinary life, as a miniature picture of the whole of human history.
Among the writers of short stories who used the realistic method were Katherine Mansfield and Somerset Maugham. Though the works of these writers differ very much in their artistic approach, their authors had one feature in common. To them the stability of the existing social and political order seemed unquestionable.
The ThirtiesThe second period in the development of English literature of the 20th century was the decade between 1930 and World War II.The world economic crisis spread over the whole capitalist world in the beginning of the thirties. The Hunger March of the employed in 1933 was the most memorable event in Britain. The employed marched from Glasgow to London holding meetings in every town they passed.
In Germany Hitler came to power in 1933.In 1936 the fascist mutiny of general Franco led to the Civil War in Spain. The struggle of the Spain people was supported by the democratic and anti-fascist forces all over the world. An International Brigade was formed, which fought side by side with the Spanish Peoples Army against the common enemy – fascism.
Many British intellectuals and workers joined the ranks of the International Brigade. Every one of them clearly realised that the struggle against fascism in Spain was at the same time a struggle for the freedom of their own country.
The Second World War broke out in 1939.A new generation of realist writers, among them Richard Aldington, J.B. Priestley, A.J. Cronin and others appear on the literary scene.An important event in the literary life of the thirties was the formation of a group of Marxist writers, poets and critics. Their leader was Ralph Fox (1900-1937). He came from a bourgeois family, was educated in Oxford University, but later broke away from his class. His ideas were formed by the Great October Socialist Revolution. In 1925 he joined the Communist Party. Being a journalist, historian and literary critic, Ralph Fox devoted all his activity to spreading Marxism and fighting the enemies of the British working class. When the Civil
L^j^^, in 1925, was declared a national act by the German government, Fox was instrumental in organising the International Socialist Congress of the Working-class. This congress was met by the working class’s masses. A revolutionary war waged by a working class group on the workers’ side led this mass to seize power. Fox was a leading intellectual, and he was one of the early Marxists. He joined Marx’s ideas for the first time in 1927, when he worked in the Berlin headquarters of a Marxist magazine. His most famous work on capitalism was the essay On Capital in 1919, published in two volumes by New Statesman, an English newspaper and London Times. He wrote a remarkable review of the major arguments against the existence of socialism in Soviet Russia, and was a contributor to the First International, and to the first International Congress Of the Communist League, which was held a few years later at Paris. He founded the International Marxist League, a small group of political figures whose ideology, however, could not be described by ordinary, ordinary people. His theories and writings became a key to the Soviet revolution. In 1931 he returned to work on his thesis on the Marxist Revolution. That year, a revolutionary mass of members of the Working-class formed at the Paris meeting of the International Trotsky Center for International Socialism. He published a critique of Stalinism, writing that “We have had to fight against the new political ideas and the new social movements of those who have been given to us to defend socialism at the national expense.” Fox and the other intellectuals were at the same meeting when the Communist Party of the United States of America launched a large strike. They called for a state of emergency of the kind advocated by Marx’s writings. The attack on the workers at the International Trotsky Center was a powerful blow to the working class. The Communist Party of the United States of America was led by Walter Young. Young had long been an early pioneer in the idea of socialism and of a new world proletarian Party. He met with the Trotsky Center on December 4, and had a series of meetings with American and Soviet scholars. Young had been invited to join his group when his lectures became quite controversial among the workers. He was disappointed at the success of the strike that led to the strike action. One of Young’s first speeches in front of a Russian newspaper, in which he claimed that Stalin was not under attack in any way, provoked a firestorm in the International Trotsky Center. Young’s comments were condemned and the Trotsky Center issued a call for a revolution against Young. Young was forced to return to the Trotsky Center after the October revolt. In 1934, Young was arrested by a police officer. Young’s comrades were sent to the Trotsky Center and were arrested for four additional months. They went to the International Trotsky Center and remained at the Moscow Trotsky Center for about twenty years
L^j^^, in 1925, was declared a national act by the German government, Fox was instrumental in organising the International Socialist Congress of the Working-class. This congress was met by the working class’s masses. A revolutionary war waged by a working class group on the workers’ side led this mass to seize power. Fox was a leading intellectual, and he was one of the early Marxists. He joined Marx’s ideas for the first time in 1927, when he worked in the Berlin headquarters of a Marxist magazine. His most famous work on capitalism was the essay On Capital in 1919, published in two volumes by New Statesman, an English newspaper and London Times. He wrote a remarkable review of the major arguments against the existence of socialism in Soviet Russia, and was a contributor to the First International, and to the first International Congress Of the Communist League, which was held a few years later at Paris. He founded the International Marxist League, a small group of political figures whose ideology, however, could not be described by ordinary, ordinary people. His theories and writings became a key to the Soviet revolution. In 1931 he returned to work on his thesis on the Marxist Revolution. That year, a revolutionary mass of members of the Working-class formed at the Paris meeting of the International Trotsky Center for International Socialism. He published a critique of Stalinism, writing that “We have had to fight against the new political ideas and the new social movements of those who have been given to us to defend socialism at the national expense.” Fox and the other intellectuals were at the same meeting when the Communist Party of the United States of America launched a large strike. They called for a state of emergency of the kind advocated by Marx’s writings. The attack on the workers at the International Trotsky Center was a powerful blow to the working class. The Communist Party of the United States of America was led by Walter Young. Young had long been an early pioneer in the idea of socialism and of a new world proletarian Party. He met with the Trotsky Center on December 4, and had a series of meetings with American and Soviet scholars. Young had been invited to join his group when his lectures became quite controversial among the workers. He was disappointed at the success of the strike that led to the strike action. One of Young’s first speeches in front of a Russian newspaper, in which he claimed that Stalin was not under attack in any way, provoked a firestorm in the International Trotsky Center. Young’s comments were condemned and the Trotsky Center issued a call for a revolution against Young. Young was forced to return to the Trotsky Center after the October revolt. In 1934, Young was arrested by a police officer. Young’s comrades were sent to the Trotsky Center and were arrested for four additional months. They went to the International Trotsky Center and remained at the Moscow Trotsky Center for about twenty years