Cambridge University Press

978-0-521-71156-2 - Modernism and After: English Literature 1910-1939

John Smart
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Contexts in Literature

Modernism and After:

English Literature
1910–1939

John Smart
Series editor: Adrian Barlow

© Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org

Cambridge University Press
978-0-521-71156-2 - Modernism and After: English Literature 1910-1939
John Smart
Frontmatter
More information

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS

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© Cambridge University Press 2008

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no reproduction of any part may take place without the written
permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 2008

Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge

A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-0-521-71156-2 paperback

Editorial management: Gill Stacey

Cover illustration: Portrait of T.S. Eliot by John Wyndham Lewis © by kind

permission of the Wyndham Lewis Memorial trust (a registered charity).

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Cambridge University Press
978-0-521-71156-2 - Modernism and After: English Literature 1910-1939
John Smart
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Contents
Introduction 6

1 Approaching modernism 9
What is modernism? 9
Modernism and its audience 10
Edwardian Britain 11
1910: the condition of literature 13
The Edwardian novel: Tono-Bungay 14
The Georgian anthologies 16
Ezra Pound and Imagism 17
Painting: Post-Impressionism and Picasso 19
Music and ballet: English music and the Ballets Russes 20
The influence of Freud and Einstein 22
Responses to the war: from the Georgians to the avant-garde 23
The First World War and its aftermath 26
The Bloomsbury Group and Virginia Woolf 27
D.H. Lawrence 28
T.S. Eliot 30
The 1920s: ‘The Jazz Age’ 32
Contrasting literary styles: Mandarin and Vernacular 34
Towards the 1930s: change and decay? 35
W.H. Auden and the ‘gang’ 37
The 1930s: the ‘low dishonest decade’ 38
Poetry and politics 39
The theatre 41
Documenting the 1930s: film 42
Mass Observation – and observation of the masses 43
The Spanish Civil War 44
The end of modernism? 46
Assignments 47

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978-0-521-71156-2 - Modernism and After: English Literature 1910-1939
John Smart
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2 Approaching the texts 49

Imagism 49
Poetry of the 1930s 52
Characteristics of modernist prose 54
Experiments in modernist fiction 58
The 1930s: new directions for prose? 68
Assignments 72

3 Texts and extracts 74

Robert Bridges
‘Nightingales’ 74
H.G. Wells
from Tono-Bungay 74
Ford Madox Ford
from The Good Soldier 75
E.M. Forster
from A Passage to India 77
Virginia Woolf
from Modern Fiction 78
from To the Lighthouse 79
Ezra Pound
‘L’Art’, 1910 81
‘Fan-Piece, for her Imperial Lord’ 81
‘The Jewel Stairs’ Grievance’ 81
from ‘Hugh Selwyn Mauberley’ 82
from Pound’s advice on writing imagist poetry 83
D.H. Lawrence
from The Rainbow 83
‘Humming-Bird’ 84
‘Bavarian Gentians’ 85
H.D.
‘Oread’ 86
‘Sea Rose’ 86
Jean Rhys
from ‘Vienne’ 87
Aldous Huxley
from Brave New World 88

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978-0-521-71156-2 - Modernism and After: English Literature 1910-1939
John Smart
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Evelyn Waugh
from Vile Bodies 89
George Orwell
from The Road to Wigan Pier 90
Christopher Isherwood
from Goodbye to Berlin 91
C. Day Lewis
‘Newsreel’ 92
W.H. Auden
from The Dog beneath the Skin 93
‘Gare du Midi’ 94
from ‘In Memory of W.B. Yeats’ 95
from ‘September 1, 1939’ 95
Stephen Spender
‘The Pylons’ 97
‘An Elementary School Classroom in a Slum’ 98

4 Critical approaches 99
How to approach criticism 99
The canon 99
Modernism today 100

5 How to write about the age of modernism 104

Thinking about contexts 104
Developing your ideas 104
Putting ideas into practice: how to use contexts 105
How to use comparisons 108
How to use criticism: a case study 111
Writing and rewriting: longer essays 113
Assignments 114

6 Resources 116
Chronology 116
Further reading 119
Websites and media resources 121
Glossary 123
Index 125
Acknowledgements 128

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978-0-521-71156-2 - Modernism and After: English Literature 1910-1939
John Smart
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Introduction
All literary terms and periods are hard to define and ‘modernism’ is harder
than most. An extra difficulty comes from the term’s relationship with the
word ‘modern’. Modernist literature is not ‘modern’ to a reader in the early 21st
century: much of it is nearly 100 years old. Unlike many other ‘-isms’ such
as Vorticism or Futurism, modernism was not a term of its time, although
‘modern’ and sometimes ‘modernist’ were. It is a word which gained currency
in the 1950s to describe the work of a loosely connected group of writers,
artists, architects and musicians who flourished in the first part of the 20th
century. Paris may have been their centre but, for a brief period from just before
the First World War up to 1922, London was just as important. Although it is
useful to have an overview of what modernism might be, the word should never
become a straitjacket into which we try to fit a writer’s oddity or distinctiveness.
But by comparing and contrasting poems and prose of the period we can better
understand the varieties that are contained within it. These varieties account
for the fact that some critics have begun to use the plural terms ‘modernisms’
and ‘early modernists’.
It is hard to know when modernism begins. As a European movement its
origins might, for example, be traced back to Flaubert and the French symbolist
poets of the 19th century or to Chekhov’s plays and short stories – but space
demands a close focus here on English writing at the beginning of the 20th
century. The accession to the throne of King George V in 1910 is a convenient
starting point as it marks the end of the Edwardian period. It is also the date of
the ‘Manet and the Post- Impressionists’ exhibition in London – an exhibition
which signalled a dramatic change in the sense of what art could and should be.
The title of this book suggests that there was a period of modernism
followed by ‘a something else’ that ended in 1939. This would be a
simplification in two ways. ‘We do not all inhabit the same time,’ said Ezra
Pound. During the period 1910–1939 the majority of writers did not march
under the modernist banner. Many of the most popular poets such as Thomas
Hardy, A.E. Housman and Edward Thomas were out of step with modernism
in their themes and their use of more traditional forms of rhyme and metre.
As the theme of this book is modernism, they are here seen as background
figures only. This is, of course, no reflection on the intrinsic interest of their
work. The same point is equally true of the novel. Virginia Woolf defined her
art by contrasting her approach with three more commercial writers: John
Galsworthy, Arnold Bennett and H.G. Wells. In this book the focus is on Woolf
and the new, not on the more conventional prose writers.

6 MODERNISM AND AFTER

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978-0-521-71156-2 - Modernism and After: English Literature 1910-1939
John Smart
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Space forbids treating in any detail the extraordinarily rich Irish writing
of this period except insofar as it had a direct effect on English writers. The
American Ezra Pound made London his home at a crucial period in the
development of modernism and hence is included here, as is the American
writer H.D. and the New Zealander Katherine Mansfield, who were also key
figures in London. Detailed comment on First World War writing has been kept
to a minimum as it is already comprehensively covered in another volume
in the ‘Cambridge Contexts in Literature’ series, The Great War in British
Literature, and the same is true of theatre where it overlaps with Modern
British Drama.

INTRODUCTION 7

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Cambridge University Press
978-0-521-71156-2 - Modernism and After: English Literature 1910-1939
John Smart
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How this book is organised

Part 1: Approaching modernism

In this part there are definitions of modernism and its relationship to the cultural
and social background between 1910 and 1939.

Part 2: Approaching the texts

Here different kinds of texts are compared along with analysis of different genres
and styles of writing.

Part 3: Texts and extracts

Part 3 contains extracts from poetry, prose and drama that are discussed elsewhere
in the book.

Part 4: Critical approaches

In this part there is a brief overview of different kinds of criticism, some advice on
how it can be best used and a detailed case study.

Part 5: How to write about the age of modernism

This part gives guidance on writing about modernism in English Literature
between 1910 and 1939. The focus is on detailed examination and how to use
textual comparison. There will also be advice about handling the task of writing
more extended essays.

Part 6: Resources
This part contains a chronology relating the texts to their time and context,
together with guidance on further reading, web-based and media resources, and a
glossary and index.

At different points throughout the book, and at the end of Parts 1, 2 and 5, there are
tasks and assignments designed to help the reader reflect on ideas discussed in the
text.

8 MODERNISM AND AFTER

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