ma in english literature

ma in english literature

Exploring Themes and Techniques in 20th Century English Literature

1. Introduction to 20th Century English Literature

We are introduced to many new literary techniques and devices in the 20th-century style. Single idea and limited settings were replaced by multiple themes, multi-angle investigations of the human condition, and complex structures, often lacking traditional beginning, middle, crescendo, sweetening, and a happy ending. Long, discursive reflections controlled by the writer are sometimes replaced by rapid dialogue, in which the writer is no more intrusive than a secretary. Often, the influence of the cinema is felt. Technological advances and increased self-awareness result in a plurality of style. Austerity and simplicity can replace traditional devices. Racial speeches and colloquial, academically precise scene descriptions, and everything in between can create a harmony of style in which the theme and the design of presentation would be wonderfully and truly caught. Above all, we need to remind ourselves that what might sound like another 19th-century formal empty room is so full of modern implications that a century later, for a 20th-century protagonist, memory of the pain creates what is not present.

By the turn of the century, modernism and post-modernism became strong influences on literature and the arts of the 20th century. Merit and achievement in writing were no longer marked by achievements in popular entertainment, although writing itself continued strong. The modern world, full of radical and abrupt changes, enabled the writer to explore more vividly aspects of life ignored by his predecessors. Theme, liberated from traditional dogma, was open to new and exciting excursions. An increasing lack of mass self-confidence resulted in greater self-examination, especially with main social themes. Robust expressions of existence were gradually replaced by soul-searching, hesitant, and enquiring mood. It is necessary, indeed rewarding, to examine themes more carefully since clarity of theme gives a deeper understanding of the novel. The most exciting works of the 20th century are those in which a theme has so much scope that it risks dominating the whole work.

2. Key Themes and Motifs in Modernist Literature

Some of the most recurring preoccupations of the modernist novel are: – Myth as a framework for understanding the modern world, – The idea of reason as the defining quality of the human, – The nature of the human subject and of the self (or selves), – The insignificance of humankind and human affairs in an indifferent natural world, – The limitations of language, and the relationship of the written to any discernible truth about the world, and the problems of representation associated with the same, and – The passing of time and its enigmatic influence on how humanity organizes and moves through the world.

Character and style were hallmark tactical obsessions of Modernism, and were fueled by the conviction that the novel is essentially an artistic medium, “utterable only in perfect, completely adequate form.” The modernists considered that all allusions, aspersions, jokes, suggestions, or revelations about characters or plot or author bearing extra-narrative intend upon the reader be banished. This “single effect” novel, as modernists insist, would wrest the “mystery and melancholy of existence” from the “hurly-burly of the surface.” Once a writer conceives an idea, moves to the act of writing and thereafter deposits the characters and their adventures into the reader’s ken, the author is dead. Before proceeding to explore how novels of modernist’s time dealt with this precepts, we should look at some of the important themes and motifs that emerge with regularity in novels from the period.

3. Innovative Narrative Techniques in Postmodern Literature

The response by the most thoughtful writers to the spectacle of life in the 20th century is to make the process of writing itself their subject. Eliza Doolittle’s father in Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion wisely observed that the finest words in the English language are “Cellar Door” – that is, the way in which words are spoken can be as important as their meaning. The techniques a writer uses can strike a responsive chord in the reader who is pursuing the mystery of the process of making stories. The hero of postmodern literature is not the romantic hero but the artist or film director who must find the audience by, on one hand, creating forms and weaving myths that express the contemporary sensibility, and on the other, showing his audience what he is responding to. These works of art can achieve a poetry and wisdom of their own in their use of metaphor, and the use of filmic imagery in literature is an effective way of implying screens, flashbacks, and close-ups.

Postmodern literature is marked by a fascination with form, and the romantic hero is replaced by the lonely artist who must invent the forms of their work. In 1885, Henry James prefaced his novel, The Princess Casamassima, with the lament “It would be outrageous, in the present time of day, to pretend that any ingenious effort that disjoins and denies, with its eyes shut, or that any unimportant plugged-up little superficiality can be worth it being paid for.” James does not exclude the possibility of worth but implies that it is enough of an achievement to create works of art that address the complex ambiguities of human experience. While Henry James is cited as an early example of a modernist writer, it is still an important shift to note. The triumphant irony in the title The Sacred Fount does not change the nature of the act of human sacrifice or the necessity of creating myths and stories to explain what we can never understand.

4. Feminist Perspectives in Contemporary British Fiction

As students explore the selected novels, and others which they have read or seen in film, they become aware of not only the criticisms and myths attached to women through the ages, but they also move to evaluating, empathizing with, and understanding how these characters live. Their perspective forces the students to look beyond the limits of domestic application. Of course, it is equally important that students understand contemporary issues as experienced by men in works of literature. Their sensitivity and their lives demand no less. Note too, that multicultural literature should show varying experiences. Unlike more familiar works, these, with the exception of Lessing’s, do not deal with the immediacy and pain of racism, for example. They should then show the potential of modern women’s work life and how she and men interact, a goal seemingly mutually beneficial…or not.

The heroines in Julian Mitchell’s 1960 and Michael Apted’s 49 Up were considered exceptions at the time. Each was the sole representative of women who overcame “the way it was” and who came to be respected by males in what those societies considered traditionally male jobs. Nowadays, girl heroes are plentiful throughout popular culture. “We have had a social revolution and so far too little effort has been made to explore the surrounding reality.” Think of the paucity of careers available to young women of Gomez-Gerais. How is character intervention needed here?

Feminism is a significant mode of inquiry in contemporary literary studies. Both as a critical methodology and as a subject, feminist perspectives have been applied to most areas of our educational system. Courses in subjects ranging from sociology to literature, and from mass media to art, have been enhanced by integrating a gendered perspective. Therefore, for the high school or early college level student, entering this study of contemporary British fiction with a sensitivity to how women authors and characters are shaped by common experiences provides a good starting point for understanding how readers perceive literature.

Susan Rubinow Gorsky

5. Conclusion and Future Directions in English Literary Studies

We welcome the direction of recent scholarship into less canonical themes, less canonical writings by very canonical authors. This is an increasingly exciting period for our literary undergraduate. Astonishingly well-informed about both the literary context and the cultural framework of his reading, he often finds himself confidently bypassing the stage at which criticism would normally be directed at the first principles of literature itself. So, by the decision in this manual to attempt such a thing, we address ourselves primarily not to the student of literature as such, but to the general reader, to the writer, and the would-be writer, and to the outside investigator needing an up-to-date survey of 20th Century English literature such as guide sets out to deliver.

This present guide to the themes and techniques of 20th-century English literature has sought to identify the most significant facets of the modern mind as these are reflected in literature. The events and traumas of war lie at the heart of these works, and it is upon these that much of the discussion is centered. But we hope that we have not allowed the intense preoccupation of the extraordinary years 1914-1945 to unbalance the picture. The writer of today faces different trials and dilemmas, and it is to these also that the serious artist will no doubt turn, expressing himself with honesty and passion. We have granted both World Wars separate chapters in this book, but we trust that this very prominence does not mean that we underestimate the sufferings of the everyday people who figure largely for us in our assessment of the significance of modern writing.