Modren period in English Literature 1901-1961

 Modren period in english literature begins with the 20th century and remain till 1961.

Why Modren age started

 When writers felt they required new form of writing.

 Disillusionment of victorian ideas,belief and their way of writing.
 SIGMUND FREUD who pioneered psychoanalysis and revolutionized the way people
thought about brain.

This age is also called

 Age of disillusionment
 The age of machine
 The age of innovations
 The age of interogations
 The age of war
 The age of disintegration

Major points of modren period.

 Advencement of the social and natural science.

 In all the previous periods experimentation and individualism were highly discourged

but with the onset of the modren period both these things became virtues.

 The difrrence between aristocrats and clergy increased more.

 Opposed the genral attitude towards life as shown in victorian literature.

 Science and art.

  During victorian times people adhere to the voice of the people who were in power,they

accepted the rules made the church.

 Writers of modren age refuted the ideas and beliefs of previous era.

 Victorians were honourable and beautiful but their grandchildren considered as mean

and ugly.

 WOMEN rise voice for their rights.

1. The victorian believed in the importance of importance of home life,but in 20th
century the sentiments of faimly life declined.
2. Science and arts really influenced the modren man.
3. Psychology also influence, The psychoanalytic theories of Sigmund Freud became
more popular and widly read.

Transition from Vitorian period to the Modren period:

 Totally opposite from victorian age.

 Writers works started losing and magic they used to have in previous age.
 Absured theater
 Avant –garde
 Modren age is most complex and baffling age in the history of English literature.
 The imaginative writing ,verses,structure of the verse of victorian period became
obsolete.

Characteristics of Modren Literature.

Individualism
In modrenism individual is more interesting than society.Modren writers were most
fascinated with how the individual adopted the change in the world.
Experimentation.

Modernist writers broke free of old forms and techniques.

Absurdity

The carnage of two world wars profoundly effected the writers of this period.
Symbolism
 The modernist writers infuesed objects,places,people and events with significant
meaning.
Formalism
Writers of the Modernist period saw literature more as craft than a flowering of
creativity.
Declination of sentiments and values
Modren world people were more into independence .they don’t want to blind by the
parental authority ,whereas victorian believed in maintaining the home life they
considered themselves a faimly person more.Moreever the feeling of love was getting
limited to sex in modren times,love had become less of a romance and more like a
greed.
Age of machinary
There is no doubt that machinary had dominated the modren people’s life.Modren
period known is also known as the age of machinery.People had become too
materialistic brought by the machinary.

Features of modren poetry

 Totally against the Victorian age and romantic poetry.

 Regular meter have been discarded.
 The disappearance of religious faith.
 No regular rhyming scheme
 Juxataposition of ideas.
 Use of free verse.
 Use irony.
 Use of methaphor.

Literary trends

 The tre nds of mopdernism emerged after the end of first world war. They includes:
Stream of conciousness

A literary style in which character’s thoughts ,feeling,and reactions are depicted in a

continuous
Flow uninterrupted by objective description or conventional dialogue.James
joyce,Virginia woolf and marcel proust are among its notable early exponents.
Surrealism
 A 20TH century avant-garde movement in art and literature which sought to release the
creative potntial of the unconscious mind, for example by the irrational juxtaposition of
images.
Cubism
Cubism highly influential visual arts style of the 20th century that was created principally
by the artists Pablo Picaso and George Braque in Paris between 1907 and 1914.
Dadaism
Was all about rejecting the mainstream.
Futurism
Futurist literature primarily focus on seven aspects:intuition,analogy,irony,abolition of
syntax,metrical reform,onomatopoeia and essential/synthetic lyricism.

Expressionism

Is often considered a revolt against realism and naturalism seeking to achieve a

psychological or spiritual reality rather than record external events in logical sequence.

Imagism

The imagist movement in modren poetry focus on describing objects.

Symbolism

Style using symbolic images and indirect suggestion to express mystical ideas,emotions and
state of mind.

Major writers and their works

 W.B YEATS(1865-1939) THE LAND OF HEART DESIRE

 T.S ELIOT(1888-1965) MURDERED IN THE CATHEDRAL
 G.B SHAW (1856-1950) Mrs.Warren’s profession
 Oscar Wild (1856-1900) Importance of being earnest
 John galsworthy (1867-1933) The skin game ,The man of property ,The silver box
 D.H Lawrence (1885-1930) ( Son’s and lovers)