The Irish Civil War (28 June 1922 – 24 May 1923) was a conflict that accompanied the establishment

of the Irish Free State

as an entity independent from the United Kingdom within the British Empire.

The conflict was waged between two opposing groups of Irish nationalists: the forces of the new Free State, who
supported the Anglo-Irish Treaty under which the state was established, and the Republican opposition, for whom the
Treaty represented a betrayal of the Irish Republic. The war was won by the Free State forces.
Object 2
1

The Civil War may have claimed more lives than the War of Independence against Britain that preceded it, and left Irish
society divided and embittered for decades afterwards. To this day, the two main political parties in the Republic of
Ireland, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, are the direct descendants of the opposing sides in the War.

The treaty
The Anglo-Irish Treaty arose from the Irish War of Independence, fought between Irish separatists (organised as the
Irish Republic) and the British government, from 1919-1921. The treaty provided for a self-governing Irish state in 26 of
Ireland’s 32 counties, having its own army and police. However, rather than creating the independent republic favoured
by most nationalists, the Irish Free State would be an autonomous dominion of the British Empire with the British
monarch as head of state, in the same manner as Canada and Australia. The treaty also stipulated that members of the
new Irish Oireachtas (parliament) would have to take the following “Oath of Allegiance”

“I… do solemnly swear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of the Irish Free State as by law established,
and that I will be faithful to His Majesty King George V, his heirs and successors by law in virtue of the common
citizenship of Ireland with Great Britain and her adherence to and membership of the group of nations forming
the British Commonwealth of nations”.
This oath was considered highly objectionable by many Irish Republicans. Furthermore under the treaty, the state was
not to be called a republic but a “free state” and it would be limited to the 26 southern and western counties of Ireland.
The remaining six north-eastern counties, with their Protestant majority, would opt to remain part of the United
Kingdom as Northern Ireland. The partition of Ireland had already been decided by the Westminster parliament in the
Government of Ireland Act 1920 and was confirmed in the Anglo-Irish treaty. Also, several strategic ports were to remain
occupied by the Royal Navy.

Nonetheless, Michael Collins, the republican leader who had led the Irish negotiating team, argued that the treaty gave
“not the ultimate freedom that all nations aspire and develop, but the freedom to achieve freedom”. However, anti-
treaty militants in 1922 believed that the treaty would never deliver full Irish independence.

Split in the Nationalist movement

The split over the treaty was deeply personal. Many of the leaders on both sides had been close friends and comrades
during the War of Independence. This made their lethal disagreement over the treaty all the more bitter. Michael Collins
later said that Éamon de Valera had sent him as plenipotentiary to negotiate the treaty because he knew that the British
would not concede an independent Irish republic and wanted Collins to take the blame for the compromise settlement.
He said he was deeply betrayed when de Valera refused to stand by the agreement that the plenipotentiaries had
negotiated with David Lloyd George and Winston Churchill. De Valera, for his part, was furious that Collins and Arthur
Griffith had signed the treaty without consulting him or the Irish cabinet as instructed.
 Third Tipperary Brigade Flying Column No. 2 under Sean Hogan during the War of Independence. Most of the IRA
units in Munster were against the treaty. Hogan himself however did not participate in the Civil War.

Dáil Éireann (the parliament of the Irish Republic) narrowly passed the Anglo-Irish Treaty by 64 votes to 57 on 7 January
1922. Following the Treaty’s ratification, a “Provisional Government”, headed by Michael Collins and Arthur Griffith, was
set up to transfer power from the British administration to the Irish Free State.

Upon the treaty’s ratification, Éamon de Valera resigned as President of the Republic and failed to be re-elected by an
even closer vote of 60-58. He challenged the right of the Dáil to approve the treaty, saying that its members were
breaking their oath to the Irish Republic. De Valera continued to promote a compromise whereby the new Irish Free
State would be in “external association” with the British Commonwealth rather than be a member of it. In early March
he formed the “Cumann na Poblachta” (Republican Association) party while remaining a member of Sinn Féin. On a
speaking tour of the more republican province of Munster, starting on 17 March 1922, de Valera made controversial
speeches at Carrick on Suir, Lismore, Dungarvan and Waterford, saying that:

“If the Treaty were accepted, [by the electorate] the fight for freedom would still go on, and the Irish people,
instead of fighting foreign soldiers, will have to fight the Irish soldiers of an Irish government set up by Irishmen.”
At Thurles, several days later, he repeated this imagery and added that the IRA: “…would have to wade through
the blood of the soldiers of the Irish Government, and perhaps through that of some members of the Irish
Government to get their freedom.”
In a letter to the Irish Independent on 23 March de Valera accepted the accuracy of their report of his comment about
“wading” through blood, but deplored that the newspaper had published it.

More seriously, the majority of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) officers were also against the treaty and in March 1922,
their ad-hoc Army Convention repudiated the authority of the Dáil to accept the treaty. The Anti-Treaty IRA formed their
own “Army Executive”, which they declared to be the real government of the country, despite the result of the 1921
general election. On 26 April the Minister of Defence, Richard Mulcahy, summarised alleged illegal activities by many
IRA men over the previous three months, whom he described as ’seceding volunteers’, including hundreds of robberies.
Yet this fragmenting army was the only police force on the ground following the disintegration of the Irish Republican
Police and the disbanding of the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC).

By putting ten questions to General Mulcahy on 28 April, Seán McEntee argued that the Army Executive had acted
continuously on its own to create a republic since 1917, had an unaltered constitution, had never fallen under the control
of the Dáil, and that: “the only body competent to dissolve the Volunteer Executive was a duly convened convention of
the Irish Republican Army” – not the Dáil. By accepting the treaty in January and abandoning the republic, the Dáil
majority had effectively deserted the Army Executive. Then in a debate on defence, McEntee suggested that supporting
the Army Executive “… even if it meant the scrapping of the Treaty and terrible and immediate war with England, would
be better than the civil war which we are beginning at present apparently.” McEntee’s supporters added that the many
robberies complained of by Mulcahy on 26 April were caused by the lack of payment and provision by the Dáil to the
volunteers.
Descent into war
In the months leading up to the outbreak of civil war, there were a number of armed confrontations between the
opposing IRA factions. In March, there was a major stand-off between up to 700 armed pro- and anti-treaty fighters in
Limerick over who would occupy the military barracks being vacated by departing British troops. The situation was
temporarily resolved in April when, after arbitration, the two sides agreed to occupy two barracks each. In April, a pro-
treaty general, Adamson, was shot dead by anti-treatyites in Athlone. In early May, there was an even more serious clash
in Kilkenny, when anti-treaty forces occupied the centre of the town and 200 pro-treaty troops were sent from Dublin to
disperse them. On 3 May, the Dáil was informed 18 men had been killed in the fighting in Kilkenny. In a bid to avoid an
all-out civil war, both sides agreed to a truce on 3 May 1922.

Delay until the June election

Collins established an “army re-unification committee” to re-unite the IRA and organised an election pact with de
Valera’s anti-treaty political followers to campaign jointly in the Free State’s first election in 1922 and form a coalition
government afterwards. He also tried to reach a compromise with anti-treaty IRA leaders by agreeing to a republican-
type constitution (with no mention of the British monarchy) for the new state. IRA leaders such as Liam Lynch were
prepared to accept this compromise. However, the proposal for a republican constitution was vetoed by the British as
being contrary to the terms of the treaty and they threatened military intervention in the Free State unless the treaty
were fully implemented. Collins reluctantly agreed. This completely undermined the electoral pact between the pro-
and anti-treaty factions, who went into the Irish general election on 18 June 1922 as hostile parties, both calling
themselves Sinn Féin.

The Pro-Treaty Sinn Féin party won the election with 239,193 votes to 133,864 for Anti-Treaty Sinn Féin. A further 247,226
people voted for other parties, most of whom supported the Treaty (although Labour’s 132,570 votes were ambiguous
with regard to the Treaty). The election showed that a majority of the Irish electorate supported the treaty and the
foundation of the Irish Free State, and that the Sinn Féin party did not represent the opinions of everyone in the new
state, but de Valera, his political followers and most of the IRA continued to oppose the treaty. De Valera is quoted as
saying, “the majority have no right to do wrong”.

Meanwhile, under the leadership of Michael Collins and Arthur Griffith, the pro-treaty Provisional Government set
about establishing the Irish Free State, and organised the National Army – to replace the IRA – and a new police force.
However, since it was envisaged that the new army would be built around the IRA, Anti-Treaty IRA units were allowed to
take over British barracks and take their arms. In practice, this meant that by the summer of 1922, the Provisional
Government of the Free State controlled only Dublin and some other areas like Longford where the IRA units supported
the treaty. Fighting would ultimately break out when the Provisional Government tried to assert its authority over well-
armed and intransigent Anti-Treaty IRA units around the country – particularly a hardline group in Dublin.

Dublin fighting
The Four Courts along the River Liffey quayside. The building was occupied by anti-treaty forces during the Civil War,
whom the National Army subsequently bombarded into surrender. The Irish national archives in the buildings were
destroyed in the subsequent fire. The building was badly damaged but was fully restored after the war.

On 14 April 1922, 200 Anti-Treaty IRA militants, led by Rory O’Connor, occupied the Four Courts and several other
buildings in central Dublin, resulting in a tense stand-off. These anti-treaty Republicans wanted to spark a new armed
confrontation with the British, which they hoped would unite the two factions of the IRA against their common enemy.
However, for those who were determined to make the Free State into a viable, self-governing Irish state, this was an act
of rebellion that would have to be put down by them rather than the British. Arthur Griffith was in favour of using force
against these men immediately, but Michael Collins, who wanted at all costs to avoid civil war, left the Four Courts
garrison alone until late June 1922. By this point the Pro-Treaty Sinn Féin party had secured a large majority in the
general election, along with other parties that supported the Treaty. Collins was also coming under continuing pressure
from London to assert his government’s authority in his capital.

The British lost patience as result of an action secretly ordered by Collins. He had Henry Hughes Wilson, a retired British
Army field marshal, assassinated in London on 22 June because of his role in Northern Ireland.

Winston Churchill assumed that the Anti-Treaty IRA were responsible for the killing and warned Collins that he would
use British troops to attack the Four Courts unless the Free State took action. In fact the British cabinet actually resolved
to attack the Four Courts themselves on 25 June, in an operation that would have involved tanks, howitzers and
aeroplanes. However, on the advice of General Nevil Macready, who commanded the British garrison in Dublin, the plan
was cancelled at the last minute. Macready’s argument was that British involvement would have united Irish Nationalist
opinion against the treaty and instead Collins was given a last chance to clear the Four Courts himself.

The final straw for the Free State government came on 27 June, when the Four Courts republican garrison kidnapped JJ
“Ginger” O’Connell, a general in the new National Army. Collins, after giving the Four Courts garrison a final ultimatum
to leave the building, decided to end the stand-off by bombarding the Four Courts garrison into surrender. The
government then appointed Collins as Commander-in-Chief of the National Army. This attack was not the opening shots
of the war as skirmishes had taken place between pro- and anti-treaty IRA factions throughout the country when the
British were handing over the barracks. However, this represented the ‘point of no return’ when all-out war was ipso
facto declared and the Civil War officially began.

Collins had accepted a British offer of artillery for use by the new army of the Free State (though General Macready gave
just 200 shells of the 10,000 he had in store at Kilmainham barracks). The anti-treaty forces in the Four Courts, who
possessed only small arms, surrendered after two days of bombardment and the storming of the building by Free State
troops (June 28-30 1922). Shortly before the surrender of the Four Courts, a massive explosion destroyed the western
wing of the complex including the Irish Public Record Office, injuring many advancing Free State soldiers and destroying
the records of several centuries of government in Ireland. It was alleged by government supporters that the building had
been deliberately mined. Historians dispute whether the PRO was intentionally destroyed by mines laid by the
Republicans on their evacuation or if the explosions occurred when their ammunition store was accidentally ignited by
the bombardment. Pitched battles continued in Dublin until 5 July, as Anti-Treaty IRA units from the Dublin Brigade, led
by Oscar Traynor, occupied O’Connell Street – provoking a week’s more street fighting. The fighting cost both sides 65
killed and 280 wounded. Among the dead was Republican leader Cathal Brugha, who made his last stand after exiting
the Granville Hotel. In addition, the Free State took over 500 Republican prisoners. The civilian casualties are estimated
to have numbered well over 250.

When the fighting in Dublin died down, the Free State government was left firmly in control of the Irish capital and the
anti-treaty forces dispersed around the country, mainly to the south and west.

The opposing forces

The outbreak of the Civil War forced pro- and anti-treaty supporters to choose sides. Supporters of the treaty came to be
known as “pro-treaty” or “Free State Army”, legally the “National Army”, and were often called “Staters” by their
opponents. The latter called themselves “Republicans” and were also known as “anti-treaty” forces, or “Irregulars”, a
term preferred by the Free State side. The Anti-Treaty IRA claimed that it was defending the Irish Republic that had been
declared in 1916 during the Easter Rising, that had been confirmed by the First Dáil and that had been invalidly set aside
by those who accepted the compromise of the Free State. Éamon de Valera stated that he would serve as an ordinary IRA
volunteer and left the leadership of the Anti-Treaty Republicans to military leaders such as Liam Lynch, the IRA Chief of
Staff.

The Civil War split the IRA. When the Civil War broke out, the Anti-Treaty IRA (concentrated in the south and west)
outnumbered the pro-Free State forces by roughly 15,000 men to 7,000 or over 2-1. (The paper strength of the IRA in
early 1922 was over 72,000 men, but most of them were recruited during the truce with the British and fought in neither
the War of Independence nor the Civil War). However, the Anti-Treaty IRA lacked an effective command structure, a clear
strategy and sufficient arms. They started the war with only 6,780 rifles and a handful of machine guns. Many of their
fighters were armed only with shotguns. They also took a handful of armoured cars from British troops as they were
evacuating the country. More important still, they had no artillery of any kind. As a result, they were forced to adopt a
defensive stance throughout the war.

By contrast, the Free State government managed to expand its forces dramatically after the start of the war. Michael
Collins and his commanders were able to build up an army which was able to overwhelm their opponents in the field.
British supplies of artillery, aircraft, armoured cars, machine guns, small arms and ammunition were much help to pro-
treaty forces. The National Army amounted to 14,000 men by August 1922, was 38,000 strong by the end of 1922 and by
the end of the war, it had swollen to 55,000 men and 3,500 officers, far in excess of what the Irish state would need to
maintain in peacetime. Collins’ most ruthless officers and men were recruited from the Dublin “Active Service Unit” (the
elite unit of the IRA’s Dublin Brigade), which Collins had commanded in the Irish War of Independence and in particular
from his assassination unit, “The Squad”. In the new National Army, they were known as the Dublin Guard. Towards the
end of the war, they were implicated in some notorious atrocities against anti-treaty guerrillas. Most of the National
Army’s officers were Pro-Treaty IRA men, as were a substantial number of their soldiers. However, many of the new
army’s other recruits were unemployed veterans of the First World War, where they had served in the Irish Division of the
British Army. Former British Army officers were also recruited for their technical expertise. A number of the senior Free
State commanders such as Emmet Dalton John T. Prout and W.R.E. Murphy had seen service as officers in World War
One, Dalton and Murphy in the British Army and Prout in the US Army. The Republicans made much use of this fact in
their propaganda — claiming that the Free State was only a proxy force for Britain itself. However, in fact, the majority of
the Free State soldiers were raw recruits without military experience in either the First World War or the subsequent
Irish War of Independence.

The Free State takes major towns

With Dublin in pro-treaty hands, conflict spread throughout the country. The war started with the anti-treaty forces
holding Cork, Limerick and Waterford as part of a self-styled independent “Munster Republic”. However, since the anti-
treaty side were not equipped to wage conventional war, Liam Lynch was unable to take advantage of the Republicans’
initial advantage in numbers and territory held. He hoped simply to hold the “Munster Republic” long enough to force
Britain to re-negotiate the treaty.

The large towns in Ireland were all relatively easily taken by the Free State in August 1922. Michael Collins, Richard
Mulcahy and Eoin O’Duffy planned a nationwide Free State offensive, dispatching columns overland to take Limerick in
the west and Waterford in the south-east and seaborne forces to take counties Cork and Kerry in the south and Mayo in
the west. In the south, landings occurred at Union Hall in Co. Cork and Fenit, the port of Tralee, in Co. Kerry. Limerick fell
on 20 July, Waterford on the same day and Cork city on 10 August after a Free State force landed by sea at Passage West.
Another seaborne expedition to Mayo in the west secured government control over that part of the country. While in
some places the Republicans had put up determined resistance, nowhere were they able to defeat regular forces armed
with artillery and armour. The only real conventional battle during the Free State offensive, the Battle of Killmallock,
was fought when Free State troops advanced south from Limerick.

Guerrilla war
Government victories in the major towns inaugurated a period of guerrilla warfare. After the fall of Cork, Liam Lynch
ordered Anti-Treaty IRA units to disperse and form flying columns as they had when fighting the British. They held out
in areas such as the western part of counties Cork and Kerry in the south, county Wexford in the east and counties Sligo
and Mayo in the west. Sporadic fighting also took place around Dundalk, where Frank Aiken and the Fourth Northern
Division of the Irish Republican Army were based and Dublin, where small scale but regular attacks were mounted on
Free State troops.

August and September 1922 saw widespread attacks on Free State forces in the territories they had occupied in the July-
August offensive, inflicting heavy casualties on them. In this period, the republicans also managed several relatively
large-scale attacks on rural towns, involving several hundred fighters. Dundalk, for example was taken by Frank Aiken’s
Anti-Treaty unit in a raid on 14 August, Kenmare in Kerry in a similar operation on 9 September and Clifden in Galway on
29 October. There were also unsuccessful assaults on for example Bantry, Cork on 30 August and Killorglin in Kerry on 30
September in which the Republicans took significant casualties. However as winter set in the republicans found it
increasingly difficult to sustain their campaign and casualty rates among National Army troops dropped rapidly. For
instance, in County Sligo, 54 people died in the conflict of whom all but 8 had been killed by the end of September.

In October 1922, Éamon de Valera and the anti-treaty Teachta Dála (TDs, Members of Parliament) set up their own
“Republican government” in opposition to the Free State. However, by then the anti-treaty side held no significant
territory and de Valera’s “government” had no authority over the population. In any case, the IRA leaders paid no
attention to it, seeing the Republican authority as vested in their own military leaders.

In the autumn and winter of 1922, Free State forces broke up many of the larger Republican guerrilla units. In late
September, for example, a sweep of northern county Sligo by Free State troops under Sean MacEoin successfully
cornered the Anti-Treaty column which had been operating in the north of the county. Six of the column were killed and
thirty captured, along with an armoured car. A similar sweep in Connemara in county Mayo in late November captured
Anti-Treaty column commander Michael Kilroy and many of his fighters. December saw the capture of two separate
Republican columns in the Meath/Kildare area. Intelligence gathered by Free State forces also led to the capture on 5
August of over 100 Republican fighters in Dublin, who were attempting to destroy bridges leading into the city and on 4
November Ernie O’Malley, commander of Anti-Treaty forces in Dublin was captured when National Army troops
discovered his safe house. Elsewhere Anti-Treaty units were forced by lack of supplies and safe-houses to disperse into
smaller groups, typically of nine to ten men.

An exception to this general rule was the activities of a column of Cork and Tipperary Anti-Treaty IRA fighters led by Tom
Barry. In late December 1922, this group of around 100 men took a string of towns, first in Cork, then in Tipperary and
finally Carrick on Suir, Thomastown and Mullinavat in county Kilkenny where the Free State troops surrendered and
gave up their arms. However, even Barry’s force was not capable of holding any of the places it had taken and by January
1923 it had dispersed due to lack of food and supplies.

Despite these successes for the National Army, it took eight more months of intermittent warfare before the war was
brought to an end. The guerrilla phase of the war was marked by assassinations and executions of leaders formerly
allied in the cause of Irish independence. Commander-in-Chief Michael Collins was killed in an ambush by anti-treaty
Republicans at Béal na mBláth, near his home in County Cork, in August 1922. Collins’ death increased the bitterness of
the Free State leadership towards the Republicans and probably contributed to the subsequent descent of the conflict
into a cycle of atrocities and reprisals. Arthur Griffith, the Free State president had also died of a brain hemorrhage ten
days before, leaving the Free State government in the hands of W.T. Cosgrave and the Free State army under the
command of General Richard Mulcahy.

By late 1922 and early 1923, the Anti Treaty guerrillas’ campaign had been reduced largely to acts of sabotage and
destruction of public infrastructure such as roads and railways. In January 1923 the Great Southern and Western Railway
released a report detailing the damage Anti-Treaty forces had caused to their property over the previous six months; 375
miles of line damaged, 42 engines derailed, 51 over-bridges and 207 under-bridges destroyed, 83 signal cabins and 13
other buildings destroyed. In the same month, Republicans destroyed the railway stations at Sligo, Ballybunnion and
Listowel. It was also in this period that the Anti-Treaty IRA began burning the homes of Free State Senators and of many
of the Anglo-Irish landed class.
End of the war
By early 1923, the offensive capability of the IRA had been seriously eroded and when, in February 1923, Republican
leader Liam Deasy was captured by Free State forces, he called on the republicans to end their campaign and reach an
accommodation with the Free State. The State’s executions of Anti-Treaty prisoners, 34 of whom were shot in January
1923, also took its toll on the Republicans’ morale.

In addition, the National Army’s operations in the field were slowly but steadily breaking up the remaining Republican
concentrations. On 18 February, Anti-Treaty officer Dinny Lacey was killed and his column rounded up at the Glen of
Aherlow in Tipperary. Lacey had been the head of the IRA’s 2nd Southern Division and his death crippled the
Republican’s cause in the Tipperary/Waterford area. A meeting of the Anti-Treaty leadership on 26 February was told by
their 1st Southern Division that, “in a short time we would not have a man left owing to the great number of arrests and
casualties”. The Cork units reported they had suffered 29 killed and an unknown number captured in recent actions and,
“if five men are arrested in each area, we are finished”.

March and April 1923 saw this progressive dismemberment of the Republican forces continue with the capture and
sometimes killing of guerrilla columns. Among the more well known of these incidents was the wiping out of an Anti-
Treaty IRA column under Tim Lyons (known as “Aeroplane”) in a cave near Kerry Head on 18 April. Three anti-treaty IRA
men and two National Army soldiers were killed in the siege of the cave and the remaining five Republicans were taken
prisoner and later executed. A National Army report of 11 April stated, “Events of the last few days point to the beginning
of the end as a far as the irregular campaign is concerned”.

As the conflict petered out into a de facto victory for the pro-treaty side, de Valera asked the IRA leadership to call a
ceasefire, but they refused. The Anti-Treaty IRA executive met on 26 March in county Tipperary to discuss the war’s
future. Tom Barry proposed a motion to end the war, but it was defeated by 6 votes to 5. Éamon de Valera was allowed to
attend, after some debate, but was given no voting rights.

Liam Lynch, the intransigent Republican leader, was killed in a skirmish in the Knockmealdown mountains in County
Tipperary on 10 April. The National Army had extracted information from Republican prisoners in Dublin that the IRA
Executive was in the area and as well as killing Lynch, they also captured senior Anti-Treaty IRA officers Dan Breen, Todd
Andrews, Seán Gaynor and Frank Barrett in the operation. It is often suggested that the death of Lynch allowed the more
pragmatic Frank Aiken, who took over as IRA Chief of Staff, to call a halt to what seemed a futile struggle. Aiken’s
accession to IRA leadership was followed on 30 April by the declaration of a ceasefire on behalf of the anti-treaty forces.
On 24 May 1923, Aiken followed this with an order to IRA volunteers to dump arms rather than surrender them or
continue a fight which they were incapable of winning.

Éamon de Valera supported the order, issuing a statement to Anti-Treaty fighters on 24 May:

“Soldiers of the Republic. Legion of the Rearguard: The Republic can no longer be defended successfully by your
arms. Further sacrifice of life would now be in vain and the continuance of the struggle in arms unwise in the
national interest and prejudicial to the future of our cause. Military victory must be allowed to rest for the
moment with those who have destroyed the Republic.”
Thousands of Anti-Treaty IRA members (including Éamon de Valera on 15 August) were arrested by the Free State forces
in the weeks and months after the end of the war, when they had dumped their arms and returned home.

The Free State government had started peace negotiations in early May which broke down. Without a formal peace,
holding 13,000 prisoners and worried that fighting could break out again at any time, it enacted the Emergency Powers
Act on 2 July by a vote of 37 – 13.

In October 1923 around 8,000 of the 12,000 Republican prisoners in Free State gaols went on hunger strike. The strike
lasted for forty one days and met little success. However, most of the women prisoners were released shortly thereafter
and the hunger strike helped concentrate the Republican movement on the prisoners and their associated
organisations. In July de Valera had recognised the Republican political interests lay with the prisoners and went so far
as to say:

“The whole future of our cause and of the nation depends in my opinion upon the spirit of the prisoners in the
camps and in the jails. You are the repositories of the NATIONAL FAITH AND WILL.”

THE IRA: 1919 TO 1968

Members of the IRA parade before their leader, Eamon de Valera, in

1922
The Irish Republican Army (IRA) was at the epicentre of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. A
secretive paramilitary group seeking the reunification of Ireland, the IRA was one of the 20th
century’s most prolific and dangerous terrorist groups. The full history of the IRA, however,
predates the Troubles by a half-century. In broad terms, the IRA has existed for almost a century
but in three discrete phases. The first IRA was formed from the remnants of the Irish Volunteers
who instigated the failed Easter Rising in 1916. In its first years (1919-23) this IRA served as
the military wing of the Dáil Éireann, the first Irish republican parliament, leading the armed
struggle for an independent Ireland. After the creation of the Irish Free State the IRA, still
craving Irish independence rather than British dominion status, instigated the Irish Civil War.
Pushed to the fringes of Irish politics, the IRA was declared an illegal organisation. Between the
mid-1920s and the late 1960s, the IRA’s membership fluctuated wildly, while its leaders flirted
with left-wing political theory. The onset of the Troubles would have a profound influence on
the IRA.

Object 3

Michael Collins and the first IRA

The first IRA was formed in 1919 during the Irish War of Independence. Its personnel were
recruited from Republican militias like the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Citizen Army. Though
its members and local branches had a reputation for acting independently, the IRA was adopted
as the military wing of the Dail Eireann, the Republican parliament and rebel government. Led
by the famous Irish revolutionary Michael Collins, the IRA fought against the British during the
War of Independence. At its peak, the IRA reached more than 10,000 active volunteers. The
signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty (December 1921) split the IRA into two factions: a Pro-Treaty
IRA, who were prepared to accept a self-governing Ireland under British sovereignty, and an
Anti-Treaty IRA, who were determined to remove all vestiges of British rule. The two factions
clashed during the brief but bloody Irish Civil War (June 1922-May 1923). The Pro-Treaty IRA
emerged victorious, consolidating the newly formed Irish Free State. Around 2,000 Anti-Treaty
IRA volunteers were killed during the Civil War and more than 10,000 were captured and
imprisoned.

The body of Harry Loughnane, an IRA volunteer killed by the Black

and Tans in 1920

Object 4

Many members of the Anti-Treaty IRA went underground after the Civil War. These
veterans maintained their opposition to the Free State and vowed to continue the
struggle for Irish Republicanism. The events of the 1920s, however, sapped the IRA of
men and motive. Former IRA leaders like Eamon de Valera abandoned military action
and abstentionism, choosing instead to participate in Free State politics. In 1926 de
Valera formed a political party, Fianna Fail. Those who remained in the IRA continued to
reject parliamentary politics, breaking from Sinn Fein in 1925. IRA leaders instead
embraced aspects of socialism, considering it a truly revolutionary ideology that allowed
connection with Ireland’s working classes. IRA membership dwindled rapidly in the
1920s, falling from around 5,000 in 1925 to less than 2,000 by 1930. Numbers surged
to more than 10,000 during the 1930s, fuelled by the misery of the Great Depression.
This growth led to the Free State government banning the IRA (1935) and attempting to
suppress it. The most telling blow for the IRA was the Free State’s adoption of a de
facto republican constitution in December 1937. What the IRA had promised to achieve
with rifles, the Free Staters had achieved with reforms. With the IRA now apparently
irrelevant, its membership and support dwindled again.
The IRA turns on Ulster
 The aftermath of an IRA bomb blast in Coventry, England, January
1939

Object 5

With southern Ireland now a republic in all but name, the IRA turned its attention to
Northern Ireland, the last British stronghold in the island. In January 1939 IRA leaders
declared war in Britain and formulated a military strategy known as the ‘S Plan’. Over the
next eight months, IRA operatives bombed a number of government targets in England,
killing seven people and injuring almost 100 more. During World War II the IRA forged
links with Nazi Germany, seeking arms and proposing a joint IRA-German invasion of
Northern Ireland (Plan Kathleen). Between 1942 and 1944 IRA volunteers carried out
dozens of shootings, bombings and sabotage attacks in Northern Ireland. The ‘Northern
Campaign’, as it was dubbed, achieved little other than alienating the public by linking
the IRA with Nazism. Scores of IRA leaders were arrested and some were executed as
traitors. After World War II the IRA spent a decade rebuilding and preparing for a
guerrilla campaign against the British in Northern Ireland. This campaign began in 1956
and lasted five years but again achieved little, other than a dozen IRA deaths and several
hundred arrests.

“The IRA’s new pacifist strategy flourished briefly in the 1960s but would be extinguished
quickly. In the Northern Ireland counties, nationalist neighbourhoods were being attacked…
Protection from harassment by the police, the military and Protestant gangs were no longer
being provided by the IRA in these communities, as it had been in the past… The IRA’s strength
as a military organisation had been neglected for too long to be able to react effectively to this
wave of attacks. This inability to defend Catholic neighbourhoods led to infighting within the
IRA.”
Susie Derkins, historian
In the 1960s the IRA came under the leadership of Cathal Goulding and Roy Johnson. They
attempted to reshape the IRA into a Marxist political-revolutionary party. Goulding believed the
problems in Northern Ireland were caused not by religious or nationalistic divisions but by
exploitation and manipulation of the working classes. Wealthy capitalists, aided by the British
and Unionist governments, incited tensions between working-class Protestants and Catholics, in
order to discourage strikes and to keep wages low. The unrest in Northern Ireland was
consequently driven by class tensions rather than sectarian divisions. Goulding and his
supporters favoured political rather than military solutions. They supported the civil rights
movement, reestablished contact with Sinn Fein, ended parliamentary abstentionism and
mobilised support in the working classes and unions. This drift towards Marxism and politics
was not supported by all IRA volunteers. Many still preferred the traditional path to a united
Irish republic: a campaign of guerrilla warfare against the British and Loyalists until Northern
Ireland was ungovernable.

Object 6

Radicals demand action

By the mid-1960s the IRA was highly factionalised, poorly organised and unable to rally
support in parts of Northern Ireland. The group was not just ideologically divided, it was
critically short of volunteers, weapons and money. The rising unrest in Northern Ireland further
exposed the IRA’s unpreparedness. In 1968-69 the IRA responded to police and Loyalist
brutality against Catholics and civil rights protestors with criticism rather than action. Some
Republicans were so disgusted by this ineffectiveness they claimed IRA stood for “I Ran
Away”. Many young militants in the group demanded a return to the IRA’s traditional values
and tactics: armed struggle to defend Ireland’s Catholics, oppose British rule and bring about a
united Ireland. The August 1969 riots and the Battle of the Bogside brought the IRA’s internal
divisions to a head and led to the formation of a new breakaway group: the Provisional IRA.

1. The first IRA was formed in 1919 from civilian militia groups such as the Irish Volunteers,
who had instigated the failed Easter Rising in Dublin.
 Object 7

2. Later the IRA split during the Irish Civil War, then dwindled in size. In 1939 it declared
war on Britain and later committed terrorist attacks during World War II.

3. During the 1960s leaders like Cathal Goulding reformed the IRA into a socialist party,
abandoning abstentionism and seeking change through political involvement.

4. The transformation from a paramilitary force into a socialist political party alienated radicals
concerned the IRA had become a group of ‘thinkers’ not ‘doers’.

5. These factional differences were brought to a head by the Troubles. With the IRA poorly
equipped and unable to defend Catholic communities from police or Loyalists, young militants
demanded a return to the IRA’s paramilitary root

This is a list of modern literary movements (movements after the Renaissance). These terms, helpful

for curricula or anthologies, evolved over time to group certain writers who are often loosely related. Some

of these movements (such as Dada and Beat) were defined by the members themselves, while other terms
(the metaphysical poets, for example) emerged decades or centuries after the periods in question. Ordering

is approximate, as there is considerable overlap.

These are movements either drawn from or influential for literature in the English language.

Amatory fiction

 Romantic fiction written in the 18th and 19th centuries.

 Notable authors: Eliza Haywood, Delarivier Manley
Cavalier Poets

 17th-century English royalist poets, writing primarily about courtly love, called Sons of Ben (after Ben

Jonson).
 Notable authors: Richard Lovelace, William Davenant
Metaphysical poets

 17th-century English movement using extended conceit, often (though not always) about religion.
 Notable authors: John Donne, George Herbert, Andrew Marvell
The Augustans

 18th century literary movement based chiefly on classical ideals, satire and skepticism.

 Notable authors: Alexander Pope, Jonathan Swift
Romanticism

 19th century (1800 to 1860) movement emphasizing emotion and imagination, rather than logic and
scientific thought. Response to the Enlightenment.
 Notable authors: Victor Hugo, Lord Byron and Camilo Castelo Branco
Gothic novel

 Fiction in which Romantic ideals are combined with an interest in the supernatural and in violence.
 Notable authors: Ann Radcliffe, Bram Stoker
Lake Poets

 A group of Romantic poets from the English Lake District who wrote about nature and the sublime.
 Notable authors: William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge
American Romanticism

 Distinct from European Romanticism, the American form emerged somewhat later, was based more in
fiction than in poetry, and incorporated a (sometimes almost suffocating) awareness of history,
particularly the darkest aspects of American history.
 Notable authors: Washington Irving, Nathaniel Hawthorne,
Pre-Raphaelitism

 19th century, primarily English movement based ostensibly on undoing innovations by the

painter Raphael. Many were both painters and poets.
 Notable authors: Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Christina Rossetti
Transcendentalism

 19th-century American movement: poetry and philosophy concerned with self-reliance, independence

from modern technology.
 Notable authors: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau
Dark romanticism

 19th-century American movement in reaction to Transcendentalism. Finds man inherently sinful and
self-destructive and nature a dark, mysterious force.
  Notable authors: Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, George Lippard
Realism

 Late-19th century movement based on a simplification of style and image and an interest in poverty
and everyday concerns.
 Notable authors: Gustave Flaubert, William Dean Howells, Stendhal, Honoré de Balzac, Leo
Tolstoy, Frank Norris and Eça de Queiroz
Naturalism

 Also late 19th century. Proponents of this movement believe heredity and environment control people.

 Notable authors: Émile Zola, Stephen Crane
Symbolism

 Principally French movement of the fin de siècle based on the structure of thought rather than poetic

form or image; influential for English language poets from Edgar Allan Poe to James Merrill.
 Notable authors: Stéphane Mallarmé, Arthur Rimbaud, Paul Valéry
Stream of consciousness

 Early-20th century fiction consisting of literary representations of quotidian thought, without

authorial presence.
 Notable authors: Virginia Woolf, James Joyce
Modernism

 Variegated movement of the early 20th century, encompassing primitivism, formal innovation, or

reaction to science and technology.
 Notable authors: Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, H.D., James Joyce, Gertrude Stein and Fernando Pessoa
The Lost Generation

 It was traditionally attributed to Gertrude Stein and was then popularized by Ernest Hemingway in
the epigraph to his novel The Sun Also Rises, and his memoir A Moveable Feast. It refers to a group
of American literary notables who lived in Paris and other parts of Europe from the time period which
saw the end of World War I to the beginning of the Great Depression.
 Notable Authors: F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Ezra Pound, Waldo Pierce
Dada

 Touted by its proponents as anti-art, dada focused on going against artistic norms and conventions.
 Notable authors: Guillaume Apollinaire, Kurt Schwitters
First World War Poets

 British poets who documented both the idealism and the horrors of the war and the period in which it
took place.
 Notable authors: Siegfried Sassoon, Rupert Brooke, Wilfred Owen
Stridentism

 Mexican artistic avant-garde movement. They exalted modern urban life and social revolution.
 Notable authors: Manuel Maples Arce, Arqueles Vela, Germán List Arzubide
Los Contemporáneos

 A Mexican vanguardist group, active in the late 1920s and early 1930s; published

an eponymous literary magazine which served as the group's mouthpiece and artistic vehicle from
1928-1931.
 Notable authors: Xavier Villaurrutia, Salvador Novo
Imagism

 Poetry based on description rather than theme, and on the motto, "the natural object is always the
adequate symbol."
  Notable authors: Ezra Pound, H.D., Richard Aldington
Harlem Renaissance

 African American poets, novelists, and thinkers, often employing elements of blues and folklore, based
in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City in the 1920s.
 Notable authors: Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston
Surrealism

 Originally a French movement, influenced by Surrealist painting, that uses surprising images and
transitions to play off of formal expectations and depict the unconscious rather than conscious mind.
 Notable authors: Jean Cocteau, Jose Maria Hinojosa, André Breton
Southern Agrarians

 A group of Southern American poets, based originally at Vanderbilt University, who expressly
repudiated many modernist developments in favor of metrical verse and narrative. Some Southern
Agrarians were also associated with the New Criticism.
 Notable authors: John Crowe Ransom, Robert Penn Warren
Oulipo

 Mid-20th century poetry and prose based on seemingly arbitrary rules for the sake of added challenge.
 Notable authors: Raymond Queneau, Walter Abish
Postmodernism

 Postwar movement skeptical of absolutes and embracing diversity, irony, and word play.

 Notable authors: Jorge Luis Borges, Thomas Pynchon, Alasdair Gray
Black Mountain Poets

 A self-identified group of poets, originally based at Black Mountain College, who eschewed patterned
form in favor of the rhythms and inflections of the human voice.
 Notable authors: Charles Olson, Denise Levertov, Robert Creeley
Beat poets

 American movement of the 1950s and 1960s concerned with counterculture and youthful alienation.

 Notable authors: Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, Ken Kesey, Gregory Corso
Hungryalist Poets

 A literary movement in postcolonial India (Kolkata) during 1961-65 as a counter-discourse to Colonial

Bengali poetry.
 Notable poets:Shakti Chattopadhyay, Malay Roy Choudhury, Binoy Majumdar, Samir
Roychoudhury
Confessional poetry

 Poetry that, often brutally, exposes the self as part of an aesthetic of the beauty and power of human
frailty.
 Notable authors: Robert Lowell, Sylvia Plath, Alicia Ostriker
New York School

 Urban, gay or gay-friendly, leftist poets, writers, and painters of the 1960s.

 Notable authors: Frank O'Hara, John Ashbery
Magical Realism

 Literary movement in which magical elements appear in otherwise realistic circumstances. Most often
associated with the Latin American literary boom of the 20th century.
 Notable authors: Gabriel García Márquez, Octavio Paz, Günter Grass, Julio Cortázar, Sadegh
Hedayat
Postcolonialism
  A diverse, loosely connected movement of writers from former colonies of European countries, whose
work is frequently politically charged.
 Notable authors: Jamaica Kincaid, V. S. Naipaul, Derek Walcott, Salman Rushdie, Giannina
Braschi, Wole Soyinka
Prakalpana Movement

 This ongoing movement launched in 1969 based in Calcutta, by the Prakalpana group of Indian writers
in Bengali literature, who created new forms of Prakalpana fiction, Sarbangin poetry and the
philosophy of Chetanavyasism, later spreads world wide.
 Notable authors: Vattacharja Chandan, Dilip Gupta.
Spiralism

 A literary movement founded in the late 1960s by René Philoctète, Jean-Claude Fignolé, and
Frankétienne centered around the idea that the universe is interconnected, unpredictable, and
governed by chaos.
 Notable authors: Frankétienne
Spoken Word

 A postmodern literary movement where writers use their speaking voice to present fiction, poetry,
monologues, and storytelling arising in the 1980s in the urban centers of the United States. The textual
origins differ and may have been written for print initially then read aloud for audiences.
 Notable authors: Spalding Gray, Laurie Anderson, Pedro Pietri, Piri Thomas, Giannina Braschi.
New Formalism

 A late-20th and early 21st century movement in American poetry advocating a return to traditional
accentual-syllabic verse.
 Notable authors: Molly Peacock, Brad Leithauser, Timothy Steele, Mary Jo Salter.
Performance Poetry

 This is the lasting viral component of Spoken Word and one of the most popular forms of poetry in the
21st century. It is a new oral poetry originating in the 1980s in Austin, Texas, using the speaking voice
and other theatrical elements. Practitioners write for the speaking voice instead of writing poetry for
the silent printed page. The major figure is American Hedwig Gorski who began broadcasting live radio
poetry with East of Eden Band during the early 1980s. Gorski, considered a post-Beat, created the
term Performance Poetry to define and distinguish what she and the band did from performance art.
Instead of books, poets use audio recordings and digital media along with television spawning Slam
Poetry and Def Poets on television and Broadway.
 Notable authors: Hedwig Gorski, Bob Holman, Marc Smith, David Antin.
Use of imagery
Oscar Wilde is vivid when it comes to writing. He combines his fantasies with reality and forms
art. He has beautifully contrasted two Contradicting genres such as contemplating imageries
and realistic vision. Oscar Wilde is fascinated with his imagery and he has vividly used his own
imagery in his writings.

He uses literary devices to explain the people and situations mentioned in his texts. One of his
favourite imageries is morbid imagery which he has used frequently to form his work. Wilde is a
genius to draw out unusual murder cases and pictures of corpses using morbid imagery.

Using Morbid Imagery

To describe a gruesome murder scene and bring out the terror of the situation he has portrayed
the skills of horrifying the plot and drag the attention of his readers. Wilde writes in the novel,
The Picture of Dorian Gray, “He [Dorian] rushed at him [Basil], and dug the knife into the great
vein that is behind the ear, crushing the man’s head down on the table, and stabbing again and
again.

There were a stifled groan and the horrible sound on some one choking with blood. Three times
the outstretched arms shot up convulsively, waving grotesque stiff-fingered hands in the air.
He stabbed him twice more, but the man did not move. Something began to trickle on the floor.

He waited for a moment, still pressing the head down. He could hear nothing, but the drip, drip
on the threadbare carpet”.

Accentuating Dialogue
Another style of writing, present there in Oscar’s novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray is the use of
dialogues more than actions. He has incorporated great characters and brilliant vocabulary in
the conversations. This is much more appropriate than actions. Wilde intends to prove his sense
and vividness of art, using languages throughout his writing.
Wilde’s dialogues are famous as a paradox, of the novel. His dialogues or descriptions are self-
contradictory but realistic. This style is considered to be Wilde’s favourite literary device. In the
novel, he has portrayed the continuity of paradoxes through his amazing characters such as
Dorian, Lord Henry and Basil. For which the paradoxical situation takes place in, is a letter.

His friends call the letter as “Prince Paradox”.

Contemporary readers quickly judged the style and belittled it. According to them Wilde only
converted some terms and made it even complicated.

Soon Wilde’s literary style was appreciated by most of the British readers. One of a literary critic,
Earnest Newman commented on Wilde’s writing style, “To hear one of Mr Wilde’s paradoxes by
itself is to be startled; to read them in their proper context is to recognize the great fact on
which I have already insisted, that a paradox is a truth seen around a corner.

There is not one of his paradoxes that does not argue our straight and squarely, and we rise
from the perusal of them with self-conscious wisdom that we had not before.”

Highlighting the Evilness

Another style, prevalent in Oscar Wilde’s novel, is his incredible talent for morbidity and evil. He
has amazingly elaborated human nature and the evilness, people have inside them. He has
emphasized particularly the darker side of everything in his writings.

The feature has made him unique from any other writers of his age. In his novel, He has shown
the reality of human nature and the crave for life and greed for immortality. In the novel, it is
described that Dorian Gray’s greed to be youthful forever causes him the hamartia of his soul.
Wilde incredibly converts his character into evil.

Analysis

The response of the readers to the literary work of Wilde is divided into two parts such as style
and atmosphere. Very few writers have successfully competed with Oscar Wilde till now.
Stephen King is a genius at morbidity, but he fails to master the fluency and rhetoric of Wilde’s
style.
Charles Dickens is great at fluency in writing but he could not match the sense of Wilde’s
imagery. Wilde is blessed with all the features altogether. No other writer can imitate his
imagery or writing style until now.

Victorian Era Literature Characteristics

As is quite evident from the title the kind of literature that evolved during the reign of Queen
Victoria is famously known as the Victorian era literature.

The literature of the Victorian age (1837-1901) entered a new period after the romantic revival.
The literature of this era was preceded by romanticism and was followed by modernism
or realism.

Hence, it can also be called a fusion of romantic and realist style of writing. Though the
Victorian Age produced two great poets Alfred Lord Tennyson and Robert Browning, the age
is also remarkable for the excellence of its prose.

Alfred Tennyson: The Famous Poet

Table of Contents
• Characteristics of Victorian novels

• Characteristics of Victorian poetry

• Common themes in Victorian Literature

• Influence of Victorian Literature

• Famous Victorian novelists and poets

Characteristics of Victorian novels

Victorian novels tend to be idealized portraits of difficult lives in which hard work,

perseverance, love and luck win out in the end. They were usually inclined towards being of
improving nature with a central moral lesson at heart. While this formula was the basis for much
of earlier Victorian fiction, the situation became more complex as the century progressed.

Object 8

Samuel Butler Book
Characteristics of Victorian poetry

Victorian Poetry was also indifferent from the already stated style. Much of the work of the
time is seen as a bridge between the romantic era and the modernist poetry of the next
century.

Alfred Lord Tennyson held the poet laureateship for over forty years. The husband and wife
poetry team of Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning conducted their love affair
through verse and produced many tender and passionate poems.

Object 9

The reclaiming of the past was a major part of Victorian literature and was to be found in both
classical literature and also the medieval literature of England. The Victorians loved the heroic,
chivalrous stories of knights of old and they hoped to regain some of that noble, courtly
behaviour and impress it upon the people both at home and in the wider empire.
 Object 10

In dramatic, farces, musical burlesques, extravaganzas, and comic operas competed with

Shakespeare productions and serious drama by the likes of James Planche’ and Thomas William
Robertson.

The discoveries of science seem to reflect considerable and particular effects upon the

literature of the age. The Victorians had a mission to describe and classify the entire natural
world. Much of this writing was not regarded as literature but one book, in particular, Charles
Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, remains famous.

The theory of evolution contained within the work shook many of the ideas the Victorians had
about themselves. Although it took a long time to be widely accepted, completely changed
following thoughts and literature.
 Charles Darwin resting
against pillar covered with vines.

The old Gothic tales that came out of the late 19th century are the first examples of the genre
of fantastic fiction. These tales often centred on larger-than-life characters such as Sherlock
Holmes, the famous detective of the times, Barry Lee, big time gang leader, Sexton Blake,
Phileas Fogg, and other fictional characters of the era, such as Dracula, Edward Hyde.

Common themes in Victorian Literature

If one studies possibly, all the great writers of this period, you will mark three general
characteristics, Firstly, literature in the Victorian age tended to come face to face with realism.
This reflected more on practical problems and interests. It becomes a powerful instrument for
human progress. Secondly, the Victorian literature seems to deviate from the strict principle of
“art for art’s sake” and asserts its moral purpose.

Alfred Lord Tennyson, Robert Browning – all were the teachers of England with the faith in
their moral message to instruct the world. Thirdly, this was more like the age of pessimism and
confusion. The influence of science was strongly felt here.

Alfred Lord Tennyson’s some immature works seem to hold doubtful and despairing stains but
his In Memoriam comes out as a hope after despair. Although characterized as practical and
materialistic, the literature of the Victorian age portrays a completely ideal life. It was an
idealistic age where the great ideals like truth, justice, love, brotherhood were emphasized by
poets, essayists and novelists of the age.

Influence of Victorian Literature

The persistent popular embrace of Victorian literature has had a profound influence on
modern literature and media. Writers such as Charles Dickens and the Bronte sisters still sell
robustly on most book resellers’ lists and are frequently adapted into films and television
productions, both directly and in modernized retellings.

In addition, many modern novels such as A Great and Terrible Beauty demonstrate that the
intricate cultural mores of the Victorian era find a home in the modern cultural psyche.

Charles Dickens wrote many popular

novels

Famous Victorian novelists and poets

Significant Victorian novelists and poets include: Matthew Arnold,

the Bronte sisters,

Christina Rossetti,

Joseph Conrad,

Robert Browning,

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle,

Elizabeth Barrett Browning,

Edward Bulwer-Lytton,

Wilkie Collins,

Charles Dickens,

Benjamin Disraeli,

George Eliot,

George Meredith,

Elizabeth Gaskell,

George Gissing,

Richard Jefferies,

Thomas Hardy,

A. E. Housman,

Rudyard Kipling,

Robert Louis Stevenson,

Bram Stoker,
Algernon Charles Swinburne,

Philip Meadows Taylor,

Alfred Lord Tennyson biography,

William Thackeray,

Anthony Trollope,

George MacDonald,

G.M. Hopkins,

Oscar Wilde,

Lewis Carroll.

What Is Modernist Literature?

Influenced by worldwide industrialization and the first World War, literary modernism was an
emotional and experimental style of prose and poetry that occurred in the late nineteenth and early
twentieth century literature.
Literary modernism allowed writers to express themselves in more experimental ways than in the
past. Modernist works often contain non-linear narratives and free-flowing interior monologues that
emphasize the experiences and emotions of the individual. Writers of modernist literature include
Franz Kafka, D. H. Lawrence, Virginia Woolf, T.S. Eliot, Gertrude Stein, Joseph Conrad, Samuel
Beckett, William Carlos Williams, and W.B. Yeats.
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5a Characteristics of Modernist Literature
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 1. Experimentation: Modernist literature employed a number of different experimental
writing techniques that broke the conventional rules of storytelling. Some of those
techniques include blended imagery and themes, absurdism, nonlinear narratives, and stream
of consciousness—which is a free flowing inner monologue.
2. Individualism: Modernist literature typically focuses on the individual, rather than society
as a whole. Stories follow characters as they adapt to a changing world, often dealing with
difficult circumstances and challenges.
3. Multiple perspectives: Many modernist writers wrote in the first person perspective with
multiple characters to emphasize the subjectivity of each character, and add depth to the
story by presenting a variety of viewpoints.
4. Free verse: Many modernist poets rejected the traditional structure of poetry and opted
for free verse, which lacks a consistent rhyme scheme, metrical pattern, or musical form.
5. Literary devices: Many modernist writers rely on literary devices like symbolism and
imagery to help the reader understand the writing, and to create a stronger connection
between the text and the reader.

12 Notable Modernist Writers

There have been many writers responsible for some of the greatest American modernist works, such
as:
1. D.H. Lawrence: The novels of David Herbert Lawrence explore the disillusionment that
came with the aftermath of industrialization. His novels like Women in Love (1920)
and Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1928) focused on the interiority of their female protagonists,
tying in strong themes of sexuality that challenged the mores of the time.
2. Franz Kafka: Franz Kafka’s work is often grounded in reality and takes fantastical or
surrealist terms. One of his most famous works, The Metamorphosis, follows an ordinary
man who transforms into a beetle.
3. Gertrude Stein: Often considered the “mother of modernism,” Gertrude Stein was a
feminist poet whose work incorporated stream-of-consciousness and experimental narrative
techniques. One of her most famous works is the collection of poems “Tender Buttons,”
which uses the sounds of words and fragmented phrases to deliver a particular image to the
reader.
4. T. S. Eliot: T.S. Eliot was a British poet, literary critic, essayist, and editor. Two of his most
significant poems are “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” (1915)—his first work, which
 made liberal use of literary allusions to Shakespeare— and “The Wasteland” (1922)—which
provides a dark and introspective look at human nature.
5. Ezra Pound: Poet Ezra Pound championed free verse and allusion, and is considered the
one of first writers in modernist poetry to use imagism—a style that conveyed imagery in
sharp, unadorned language. Some of Pound’s notable works include “In a Station of the
Metro” (1913), “The Seafarer” (1911), and “The Return” (1917).
6. Virginia Woolf: Late Victorian novelist Virginia Woolf is responsible for novels like Mrs.
Dalloway (1925) and To The Lighthouse (1927). Woolf incorporated stream of
consciousness style into her texts, infusing the character’s interior monologue with emotion
and complexity.
7. James Joyce: Modernist author James Joyce is known for telling small, slice-of-life tales in
experimental and evocative ways. Dubliners (1914), a collection of 15 short stories,
discusses Irish middle-class life in the early twentieth century. A Portrait of the Artist as a
Young Man (1916) was Joyce’s first published novel, which delves into the themes of
identity and intellectual enlightenment. Ulysses (1922) is one of Joyce’s most famous
novels, the events of which all take place in a single day, and serves as a modern parallel to
Homer’s Odyssey.
8. William Faulkner: William Faulkner is known for his Southern Gothic tales that
incorporate unreliable narrators, multiple perspectives, symbolism, and nonlinear narratives.
Some of his best-known works include As I Lay Dying (1929)—which follows the quest of a
Southern family to bury their deceased mother in her hometown—and The Sound and the
Fury (1930)—which tells the story of a Southern aristocratic family’s fall from grace
through multiple perspectives.
9. E. E. Cummings: E.E. Cummings was an avant-garde writer who incorporated a number of
different styles in his texts, and was known for his non-traditional format and approach to
poetry and novels. Cummings wrote almost 3,000 poems in his life, including “[i carry your
heart with me(i carry it in]” (1952) and “may i feel said he” (1935).
10.Ernest Hemingway: Author Ernest Hemingway is one of the most famous authors in
American literature, known for his novels and short stories that make economical use of
adjectives, and matter-of-fact observations. His short stories “Indian Camp” (1924) and
“Hills Like White Elephants” (1927) both exemplify Hemingway’s modernist style.
11.Katherine Mansfield: Short story author Katherine Mansfield was influenced by visual art
and psychoanalysis, and many of her stories contained epiphanies or important revelations
 about the main character. Some of her well-known stories include “Daughters of the Late
Colonel” (1920) and “The Garden Party” (1922).
12.Marianne Moore: Marianne Moore was an innovative, modernist poet known for her irony
and literary precision. Her notable works include “Poetry” (1919), “Nevertheless” (1944),
and “A Face” (1949).

What Is the Difference Between Modernist and Postmodernist

Literature?
Modernist literature focused on science, philosophy, art, and a variety of creative elements to
examine the human experience. Postmodernism, however, eschews absolute meaning and instead
emphasizes play, fragmentation, metafiction, and intertextuality. The postmodern literature
movement in the mid-twentieth century was a reaction to the literary style of the modernist period,
earlier in the century. Postmodernism embodied the disenchantment of the post-World War II era,
rejecting the idea of absolute truth, avoiding deep analysis, and a focusing on subjective beliefs
rather than science.

The Modernist Period in English Literature occupied the years from shortly after the beginning of the twentieth century through roughly 1965.
In broad terms, the period was marked by sudden and unexpected breaks with traditional ways of viewing and interacting with the world.
Experimentation and individualism became virtues, where in the past they were often heartily discouraged. Modernism was set in motion, in
one sense, through a series of cultural shocks. The first of these great shocks was the Great War, which ravaged Europe from 1914 through
1918, known now as World War One. At the time, this “War to End All Wars” was looked upon with such ghastly horror that many people
simply could not imagine what the world seemed to be plunging towards. The first hints of that particular way of thinking called Modernism
stretch back into the nineteenth century. As literary periods go, Modernism displays a relatively strong sense of cohesion and similarity across
genres and locales. Furthermore, writers who adopted the Modern point of view often did so quite deliberately and self-consciously. Indeed, a
central preoccupation of Modernism is with the inner self and consciousness. In contrast to the Romantic world view, the Modernist cares
rather little for Nature, Being, or the overarching structures of history. Instead of progress and growth, the Modernist intelligentsia sees decay
and a growing alienation of the individual. The machinery of modern society is perceived as impersonal, capitalist, and antagonistic to the
artistic impulse. War most certainly had a great deal of influence on such ways of approaching the world. Two World Wars in the span of a
generation effectively shell-shocked all of Western civilization.

In its genesis, the Modernist Period in English literature was first and foremost a visceral reaction against the Victorian culture and aesthetic,
which had prevailed for most of the nineteenth century. Indeed, a break with traditions is one of the fundamental constants of the Modernist
stance. Intellectuals and artists at the turn of the twentieth century believed the previous generation’s way of doing things was a cultural dead
end. They could foresee that world events were spiraling into unknown territory. The stability and quietude of Victorian civilization were
rapidly becoming a thing of the past. The assassination of Archduke Ferdinand of Austria was essentially the triggering event of the First
World War, a conflict which swept away all preconceived notions about the nature of so-called modern warfare.

In the world of art, generally speaking, Modernism was the beginning of the distinction between “high” art and “low” art. The educational
reforms of the Victorian Age had led to a rapid increase in literacy rates, and therefore a greater demand for literature or all sorts. A popular
press quickly developed to supply that demand. The sophisticated literati looked upon this new popular literature with scorn. Writers who
refused to bow to the popular tastes found themselves in a state of alienation from the mainstream of society. To some extent, this alienation
fed into the stereotype of the aloof artist, producing nothing of commercial value for the market. It’s worth mentioning that this alienation
worked both ways, as the reading public by and large turned their backs on many “elitist” artists. The academic world became something of a
refuge for disaffected artists, as they could rub elbows with fellow disenfranchised intellectuals. Still, the most effective poets and novelists did
manage to make profound statements that were absorbed by the whole of society and not just the writer’s inner circles. In the later years of the
Modernist period, a form of populism returned to the literary mainstream, as regionalism and identity politics became significant influences on
the purpose and direction of artistic endeavor.

The nineteenth century, like the several centuries before it, was a time of privilege for wealthy Caucasian males. Women, minorities, and the
poor were marginalized to the point of utter silence and inconsequence. The twentieth century witnessed the beginnings of a new paradigm
between first the sexes, and later between different cultural groups. Class distinction remains arguably the most difficult bridge to cross in
terms of forming a truly equitable society. Some would argue that class has become a euphemism for race, but that’s another discussion. The
point is that as the twentieth century moved forward, a greater variety of literary voices won the struggle to be heard. What had so recently
been inconceivable was steadily becoming a reality. African-Americans took part in the Harlem Renaissance, with the likes of Langston
Hughes at the forefront of a vibrant new idiom in American poetry. Women like Hilda Doolittle and Amy Lowell became leaders of the Imagist
movement. None of this is to suggest that racism and sexism had been completely left behind in the art world. Perhaps such blemishes can
never be fully erased, but the strides that were taken in the twentieth century were remarkable by any measure.

Object 11

In Modernist literature, it was the poets who took fullest advantage of the new spirit of the times, and stretched the possibilities of their craft to
lengths not previously imagined. In general, there was a disdain for most of the literary production of the last century. The exceptions to this
disdain were the French Symbolist poets like Charles Beaudelaire, and the work of Irishman Gerard Manley Hopkins. The French Symbolists
were admired for the sophistication of their imagery. In comparison to much of what was produced in England and America, the French were
ahead of their time. They were similarly unafraid to delve into subject matter that had usually been taboo for such a refined art form. Hopkins,
for his part, brought a fresh way to look at rhythm and word usage. He more or less invented his own poetic rhythms, just as he coined his own
words for things which had, for him, no suitable descriptor. Hopkins had no formal training in poetry, and he never published in his lifetime.
This model – the self-taught artist-hermit who has no desire for public adulation – would become synonymous with the poet in the modern age.
This stereotype continues unrivaled to this day, despite the fact that the most accomplished poets of the Modern period were far from recluses.
Even though alienation was a nearly universal experience for Modernist poets, it was impossible to escape some level of engagement with the
world at large. Even if this engagement was mediated through the poetry, the relationship that poets had with their world was very real, and
very much revealing of the state of things in the early twentieth century.

Leading up to the First World War, Imagist poetry was dominating the scene, and sweeping previous aesthetic points of view under the rug.
The Imagists, among them Ezra Pound, sought to boil language down to its absolute essence. They wanted poetry to concentrate entirely upon
“the thing itself,” in the words of critic-poet T. E. Hulme. To achieve that effect required minimalist language, a lessening of structural rules
and a kind of directness that Victorian and Romantic poetry seriously lacked. Dreaminess or Pastoral poetry were utterly abandoned in favor of
this new, cold, some might say mechanized poetics. Imagist poetry was almost always short, unrhymed, and noticeably sparse in terms of
adjectives and adverbs. At some points, the line between poetry and natural language became blurred. This was a sharp departure from the
ornamental, verbose style of the Victorian era. Gone also were the preoccupations with beauty and nature. Potential subjects for poetry were
now limitless, and poets took full advantage of this new freedom.

No Modernist poet has garnered more praise and attention than Thomas Stearns Eliot. Born in Missouri, T. S. Eliot would eventually settle in
England, where he would produce some of the greatest poetry and criticism of the last century. Eliot picked up where the Imagists left off,
while adding some of his own peculiar aesthetics to the mix. His principal contribution to twentieth century verse was a return to highly
intellectual, allusive poetry. He looked backwards for inspiration, but he was not nostalgic or romantic about the past. Eliot’s productions were
entirely in the modern style, even if his blueprints were seventeenth century metaphysical poets. One of the distinguishing characteristics of
Eliot’s work is the manner in which he seamlessly moves from very high, formal verse into a more conversational and easy style. Yet even
when his poetic voice sounds very colloquial, there is a current underneath, which hides secondary meanings. It is this layering of meanings
and contrasting of styles that mark Modernist poetry in general and T. S. Eliot in particular. It is no overstatement to say that Eliot was the
pioneer of the ironic mode in poetry; that is, deceptive appearances hiding difficult truths.

In American Literature, the group of writers and thinkers known as the Lost Generation has become synonymous with Modernism. In the wake
of the First World War, several American artists chose to live abroad as they pursued their creative impulses. These included the intellectual
Gertrude Stein, the novelists Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald, and the painter Waldo Pierce, among others. The term itself refers to
the spiritual and existential hangover left by four years of unimaginably destructive warfare. The artists of the Lost Generation struggled to
find some meaning in the world in the wake of chaos. As with much of Modernist literature, this was achieved by turning the mind’s eye
inward and attempting to record the workings of consciousness. For Hemingway, this meant the abandonment of all ornamental language. His
novels are famous for their extremely spare, blunt, simple sentences and emotions that play out right on the surface of things. There is an irony
to this bluntness, however, as his characters often have hidden agendas, hidden sometimes even from themselves, which serve to guide their
actions. The Lost Generation, like other “High Modernists,” gave up on the idea that anything was truly knowable. All truth became relative,
conditional, and in flux. The War demonstrated that no guiding spirit rules the events of the world, and that absolute destruction was kept in
check by only the tiniest of margins.

The novel was by no means immune from the self-conscious, reflective impulses of the new century. Modernism introduced a new kind of
narration to the novel, one that would fundamentally change the entire essence of novel writing. The “unreliable” narrator supplanted the
omniscient, trustworthy narrator of preceding centuries, and readers were forced to question even the most basic assumptions about how the
novel should operate. James Joyce’s Ulysses is the prime example of a novel whose events are really the happenings of the mind, the goal of
which is to translate as well as possible the strange pathways of human consciousness. A whole new perspective came into being known as
“stream of consciousness.” Rather than looking out into the world, the great novelists of the early twentieth century surveyed the inner space of
the human mind. At the same time, the psychoanalytic theories of Sigmund Freud had come into mainstream acceptance. These two forces
worked together to alter people’s basic understanding of what constituted truth and reality.

Experimentation with genre and form was yet another defining characteristic of Modernist literature. Perhaps the most representative example
of this experimental mode is T. S. Eliot’s long poem The Waste Land. Literary critics often single out The Waste Land as the definitive sample
of Modernist literature. In it, one is confronted by biblical-sounding verse forms, quasi-conversational interludes, dense and frequent
references which frustrate even the most well-read readers, and sections that resemble prose more than poetry. At the same time, Eliot fully
displays all the conventions which one expects in Modernist literature. There is the occupation with self and inwardness, the loss of traditional
structures to buttress the ego against shocking realities, and a fluid nature to truth and knowledge.

The cynicism and alienation of the first flowering of Modernist literature could not persist. By mid-century, indeed by the Second World War,
there was already a strong reaction against the pretentions of the Moderns. Artists of this newer generation pursued a more democratic,
pluralistic mode for poetry and the novel. There was optimism for the first time in a long time. Commercialism, publicity, and the popular
audience were finally embraced, not shunned. Alienation became boring. True, the influence of Modernist literature continues to be quite
astonishing. The Modern poet-critics changed the way people think about artists and creative pursuits. The Modern novelists changed the way
many people perceive truth and reality. These changes are indeed profound, and cannot easily be replaced by new schemas.

This article is copyrighted © 2011 by Jalic Inc. Do not reprint it without permission. Written by Josh Rahn. Josh holds a Masters degree in
English Literature from Morehead State University, and a Masters degree in Library Science from the University of Kentucky.