6. Modern Age Twentieth Century English Literature | A Historical
Survey of English Language and Literature
Exercises
Group A
A. Multiple Choice Questions
Tick (√) the best answer.
1.
Virginia Woolf wrote the famous novel.................
a)
To the Lighthouse
b)
Adam Bede
c)
The Mayor of Casterbridge
d)
The Grass is Singing
2.
George Orwell's 'Nineteen Eighty-Four' is a .................fiction.
a)
religious
b)
science
c)
detective
d)
traditional
3.
D. H. Lawrence's novels are influenced by...........theories of Sigmund Freud.
a)
natural
b)
universal
c)
social
d)
psychological
4.
The
Edwardian Period begins in 1901 and extends to around............
a)
1900
b)
1910
c)
1914
d)
1920
5.
The
Modern Period begins in...............and extends up to now.
a)
1914
b)
1915
c)
1916
d)
1917
6.
..........................is an aesthetic movement which focuses on visual
arts, music, literature and drama, which rejected the old Victorian standards
of arts.
a)
Restoration
b)
Renaissance
c)
Modernism
d)
Jacobean Age
7.
The major figures regarded as the founders of the Twentieth Century Modernism
are...........................
a)
Woolf, Joyce, Eliot, Kafka
b)
Stevens, Proust, Mallarme, Charles
c)
Pound, Charles, Kafka, Rike
d)
Charles, Proust, Mallarme, Pound
8.
Twentieth century literature has given birth to................ideas in the
field of literature.
a)
diverse
b)
traditional
c)
conservative
d)
scientific
9.
Writers such as G. B. Shaw and John Galsworthy attacked the social and
political.................of England.
a)
nepotism
b)
idealism
c)
corruption
d)
benefit
10.
One of the features of modernism is the development of...................................
a)
comedy of manner
b)
science fiction
c)
interludes
d)
monarchy
11.
The concept of 'scientific romance' can be found in the novels
of........................who achieved the remarkable success of his time.
a)
Julius Verne
b)
G. B. Shaw
c)
John Galsworthy
d)
Christopher Fry
12.
The drama in the modernist period mainly passed
through.........................successive stages.
a)
five
b)
two
c)
four
d)
three
13.
The dramas were written in the twentieth century follow the principle
of..........................and deal with the real problems of life using a realistic
technique.
a)
behaviorism
b)
naturalism
c)
aesthetic
d)
fictions
13.
The major features of modern literature are.................
a)
Realism, Impressionism, absurdum, behaviorism
b)
Realism, behaviorism, Impressionism, absurdum
c)
Realism, Impressionism, Surrealism, Absurdism
d)
Realism, Impressionism, Surrealism, fictions
14.
.............................tried to bring the feeling of nothingness in the
literature reflecting the conditions of contemporary life: like war, god, and humankind.
a)
Surrealism
b)
Impressionism
c)
Realism
d)
Absurdism
15. ...............................focused
on liberating the subconscious mind, see connections overlooked by the logical
mind, deny the supreme authority of rationality and so, portrays the objects.
a)
Surrealism
b)
Impressionism
c)
Realism
d)
Absurdism
16.
........................emphasize the role of individual perception and explore
the nature of the conscious and subconscious mind.
a)
Surrealism
b)
Impressionism
c)
Realism
d)
Absurdism
17.
Modernism focused on the exploration of external objects and events as common
or middle-class people feel in everyday life, which is
called...................
a)
Surrealism
b)
Impressionism
c)
Realism
d)
Absurdism
18.
The novels and the novelists of this period can be broadly classified into four
categories:....................
a)
Women Novelists, Detective Novelists, Science Fictions, and Other novelists.
b)
Women Novelists, Detective Novelists, Science Fictions, and gothic novelists.
c)
Women Novelists, Detective Novelists, Science Fictions, and terror novelists.
d)
Women Novelists, Detective Novelists, Science Fictions, and ghost novelists.
19.
.........................presents a family holiday in an island. In this novel,
the youngest son James Ramsay, has an inordinate desire to go by boat to the
lighthouse but is prevented by his father.
a)
The Waves
b)
Orlando
c)
Mrs. Dalloway
d)
To the Lighthouse
20.
..........................is a novel written on the events of a single day.
a)
The Waves
b)
Orlando
c)
Mrs. Dalloway
d)
To the Lighthouse
21.
...........................presents a main character who begins as a man in the
16th century and ends as a woman in 1928, still only thirty six years old.
a)
The Waves
b)
Orlando
c)
Mrs. Dalloway
d)
To the Lighthouse
22.
............................is about the lives of six characters; three boys
and three girls and records the impressions of their thoughts from school life
to the old age and death.
a)
The Waves
b)
Orlando
c)
Mrs. Dalloway
d)
To the Lighthouse
23.
....................major novels are: 'The Bell', 'A Severed Head', 'Under the
Net' and 'The Black Prince'.
a)
Virginia Woolf's
b)
Iris Murdoch's
c)
Margaret Drabble's
d)
Doris Lessing's
24.
......................is set in Southern Africa. It explores the mind of the
wife of a poor white farmer and her difficulties that lead to her destruction.
a)
The Grass is Singing
b)
Children of Violence
c)
The Golden Notebook
d)
The Milestone
25.
.........................is about Martha Quest who tries to isolate herself
from the old ideas of the society, politics and religion.
a)
The Grass is Singing
b)
Children of Violence
c)
The Golden Notebook
d)
The Milestone
26.
.....................is a powerful attempt to write honestly about women's
lives and beliefs; and the pressures that political and social events in the
20th century life and society put on them.
a)
The Grass is Singing
b)
Children of Violence
c)
The Golden Notebook
d)
The Milestone
27.
Margaret Drabble's major novels are.............................
a)
The Ice Age
b)
The Golden Notebook
c)
The Waterfall
d)
all of them
28.
...........................is about a girl who has avoided any deep feelings or
close relationships with other people.
a)
The Ice Age
b)
The Golden Notebook
c)
The Waterfall
d)
The Milestone
29.
........................is about a poetess, who is unable at the beginning of
the novel to connect body and mind.
a)
The Ice Age
b)
The Golden Notebook
c)
The Waterfall
d)
The Milestone
30.
......................presents a wider picture of an unhappy world in which the
coldness of the spirit and the feelings that come when people only live in one
part of their personalities are shown as dangers to the whole society.
a)
The Ice Age
b)
The Golden Notebook
c)
The Waterfall
d)
The Milestone
31.
Agatha Christie's famous detective novel is....................
a)
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold
b)
The detective
c)
The Mysterious Affair of Styles
d)
Sherlock Holmes
32.
......................is an immortal character in English literature written by
Arthur Conan Doyle.
a)
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold
b)
The detective
c)
The Mysterious Affair of Styles
d)
Sherlock Holmes
33.
Early science fiction falls into three main categories:.............
a)
Pessimistic View, Science Fiction, Neutral View
b)
Pessimistic View, Neutral View, Optimistic View
c)
Neutral View, Science Fiction, Optimistic View
d)
Science Fiction, Neutral View, Pessimistic View
34.
...............famous science novel is 'The Four-Gated City'.
a)
Doris Lessing
b)
H. G. Wells
c)
George Orwell
d)
Arthur Clarke
35.
The Time Machine, The War to the War, The Invisible Man, The War of the Worlds,
and The First Men in the Moon are................famous science fiction novels.
a)
Doris Lessing's
b)
H. G. Wells's
c)
George Orwell's
d)
Arthur Clarke's
36.
..........................'Nineteen Eighty-Four' is also a science fiction in
which he shows how the advancement of all watching T.V would help to limit the
freedom of people.
a)
Doris Lessing's
b)
H. G. Wells's
c)
George Orwell's
d)
Arthur Clarke's
37.
In.....................novel, 'The City and the Stars', the struggle between
man and the machine is shown.
a)
Doris Lessing's
b)
H. G. Wells's
c)
George Orwell's
d)
Arthur Clarke's
38.
....................novel '2001: A Space Odyssey' takes up the subject of
exploration in space.
a)
Doris Lessing's
b)
H. G. Wells's
c)
George Orwell's
d)
Arthur Clarke's
39.
......................novel 'The Jungle Book' is about a boy who is raised by
wolves. He lives in the remote areas of India but later leaves the forest to
become a man.
a)
Doris Lessing's
b)
Rudyard Kipling's
c)
George Orwell's
d)
E. M. Forster's
40.
...................famous novels are: A Passage to India, Howard's Ends, The
Longest Journey, A Room with a View and The Machine Stops.
a)
Doris Lessing's
b)
Rudyard Kipling's
c)
George Orwell's
d)
E. M. Forster's
41.
The novel, ........................shows the conflict between spirituality and
materialism.
a)
The Ice Age
b)
Howard's End
c)
The Waterfall
d)
The Milestone
42.
.......................major novels are: Sons and Lovers, Women in Love, The
Rainbow, The White Peacock, The Lost Girl, Kangaroo, and Lady Chatterley's
Lover.
a)
Doris Lessing's
b)
Rudyard Kipling's
c)
D. H. Lawrence
d)
E. M. Forster's
43.
........................is a thinly autobiographical novel, which ends with the
death of the mother which gives relief to the son.
a)
The Ice Age
b)
Sons and Lovers
c)
The Waterfall
d)
The Rainbow
44.
The novel...........................tells the story of a family through three
couples who are of three generations.
a)
Ulysses
b)
Finnegan's Wake
c)
The Rainbow
d)
The Dead
45.
The novel......................is about an artist named Stephen Dedalus who
wants to free himself from this cruel world.
a)
Ulysses
b)
Finnegan's Wake
c)
The Rainbow
d)
The Dead
46.
The novel...................is about a husband who realizes that his wife is in
love with another man.
a)
Ulysses
b)
Finnegan's Wake
c)
The Rainbow
d)
The Dead
47.
The novel, .................is a very complex novel that combines the reality
of life with the world of the dream.
a)
Ulysses
b)
Finnegan's Wake
c)
The Rainbow
d)
The Dead
48.
.........................describes a future world where word and action are
seen and controlled by the government. The government has developed a kind of
television that can watch the people in their homes.
a)
Ulysses
b)
Finnegan's Wake
c)
Nineteen Eighty-Four
d)
The Dead
49.
....................is a political allegory, which tells the story of a
political revolution that has gone wrong.
a)
Ulysses
b)
Animal Farm
c)
Nineteen Eighty-Four
d)
The Dead
50.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) was born in..................
a)
England
b)
Ireland
c)
America
d)
Russia
51.
..........................shows that a woman's real aim in life is to find the
man that nature tells her is the right father for her children.
a)
Man and Superman
b)
The Apple Cart
c)
The Devil's Disciple
d)
Major Barbara
52.
......................shows that he was in favour of monarchy rather than
democratic leaders.
a)
Man and Superman
b)
The Apple Cart
c)
The Devil's Disciple
d)
Major Barbara
53.
In this play, ..........................the man whom conventional society has
thought of as evil and selfish is willing to sacrifice himself for others,
while the minister of religion discovers that he should have been a soldier.
a)
Man and Superman
b)
The Apple Cart
c)
The Devil's Disciple
d)
Major Barbara
54. In this play, ......................the heroine, a woman of strong
personality and ideals, exchanges her belief in Christianity for that in the
Life Force.
a)
Man and Superman
b)
The Apple Cart
c)
The Devil's Disciple
d)
Major Barbara
55.
In this novel, ........................, the novelist presents a soldier as a
sympathetic figure who does not want to fight.
a)
Man and Superman
b)
Arms and the Man
c)
The Devil's Disciple
d)
Major Barbara
56.
..........................criticizes the social and political evils of the
society and shows great sympathy towards poor and helpless people. His major
plays are: Strife and Justice
a)
Oscar Wilde
b)
George Bernard Shaw
c)
John Galsworthy
d)
T. S. Eliot
57.
In this play, ......................, the writer shows how the strike troubles
the poor and working class people.
a)
Man and Superman
b)
Strife
c)
The Devil's Disciple
d)
Justice
58.
......................is about a poor man who signs a false cheque and later is
sent to jail by the judge. Hopelessly, he kills himself.
a)
Man and Superman
b)
Strife
c)
The Devil's Disciple
d)
Justice
59.
..................famous plays are: Lady Windermere's Fan, An Ideal Husband, A
Lady of No Importance, The Duchess of Padua, The Importance of Being Earnest,
and Vera.
a)
John Galsworthy's
b)
George Bernard Shaw's
c)
Oscar Wilde's
d)
T. S. Eliot's
60.
......................plays are: The Rock, Murder in the Cathedral, The Family
Reunion, The Cocktail Party, The Confidential Clerk, and The Elder Statesman.
a)
John Galsworthy's
b)
George Bernard Shaw's
c)
Oscar Wilde's
d)
T. S. Eliot's
61.
......................plays are: 'Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead',
'Travesties'.
a)
Tom Stoppard's
b)
George Bernard Shaw's
c)
Oscar Wilde's
d)
T. S. Eliot's
62.
John Millington (JM) Synge (1871-1909), who is known as the dramatist of the
life of..........................
a)
urban people
b)
aristocratic people
c)
ordinary people
d)
modern people
63.
..........................reflects adventurous youth with a hint of a time to
come when youth is fled and man is left with only memories to comfort.
a)
Riders to the Sea
b)
The Play Boy of the Western World
c)
Deirdre of Sorrows
d)
Man and Superman
64.
The best known Synge play, .............................is of Christine Mahon
who left his father dead in the field and his relations with villagers and the
landlord's daughter.
a)
Riders to the Sea
b)
The Play Boy of the Western World
c)
Deirdre of Sorrows
d)
Man and Superman
65.
......................is a one-act tragedy which talks about a family's
destruction and is deeply impressive.
a)
Riders to the Sea
b)
The Play Boy of the Western World
c)
Deirdre of Sorrows
d)
Man and Superman
66.
The major plays of Synge include:........................
a)
Riders to the Sea, Deirdre of Sorrows, The Playboy of the Western World
b)
Man and Superman, Deirdre of Sorrows, and Riders to the Sea
c)
Deirdre of Sorrows, Man and Superman and Riders to the Sea
d)
Deirdre of Sorrows, The Playboy of the Western World and Man and Superman
67.
The play, .......................shows two tramps, Vladimir and Estragon,
waiting for Godot whom they haven't known.
a)
Riders to the Sea
b)
Waiting for Godot
c)
Deirdre of Sorrows
d)
Man and Superman
68.
...............................has only one character, an old man sitting in a
closed room with the tape-recorder in which he hears his previous recordings
and compares to his present situation.
a)
Riders to the Sea
b)
The Play Boy of the Western World
c)
Deirdre of Sorrows
d)
Waiting for Godot
69.
..................................is considered as the grandmaster of a theatre
of the absurd.
a)
Oscar Wilde
b)
George Bernard Shaw
c)
Samuel Beckett
d)
T. S. Eliot
70.
The main theme of.............................is that no one takes care of
others. There are only three characters and each character is empty. Their
words and actions do not match.
a)
The Caretaker
b)
No Man's Land
c)
The Birthday Party
d)
Deirdre of Sorrows
71.
.............................shows the meeting of two old men who had known
each other when they were young. One is now rich and successful while the other
man is in many ways a failure.
a)
The Caretaker
b)
No Man's Land
c)
The Birthday Party
d)
Deirdre of Sorrows
72.
.............................is about guilt and transgression.
a)
The Caretaker
b)
No Man's Land
c)
The Birthday Party
d)
Deirdre of Sorrows
73.
Harold Pinter's best known plays are....................
a)
The Caretaker, No Man's Land, Deirdre of Sorrows
b)
The Caretaker, Deirdre of Sorrows, The Birthday Party
c)
The Caretaker, No Man's Land, The Birthday Party
d)
Deirdre of Sorrows, No Man's Land, The Birthday Party
74.
.......................(1852-1932) is an Irish writer and playwright who
focused on the translation of Irish legends.
a)
Oscar Wilde
b)
Augusta Lady Gregory
c)
Samuel Beckett
d)
T. S. Eliot
75.
..........................strange realistic fantasies, The Golden Apple and The
Dragons were published in 1916 and 1920.
a)
John Galsworthy's
b)
George Bernard Shaw's
c)
Oscar Wilde's
d)
Augusta Lady Gregory's
76.
The use of.......................poetry is another trend used in the Twentieth
Century.
a)
audio
b)
picture
c)
visual
d)
wild
77.
W. B. Yeats and T. S. Eliot are considered as a...............literary genius.
a)
child
b)
versatile
c)
novice
d)
mature
78.
W.B. Yeats.......................was an Irish poet.
a)
(1863-1937)
b)
(1864-1938)
c)
(1865-1939)
d)
(1866-1940)
79.
His major poems are......................
a)
An Irish Airman Foresees His Death, Sailing to Byzantium,
The Caretaker
b)
The Caretaker, Sailing to Byzantium, An Irish Airman Foresees His Death
c)
The Second Coming, The Caretaker, Sailing to Byzantium
d)
An Irish Airman Foresees His Death, The Second Coming, Sailing to Byzantium
80.
In the poem, ........................the Airman knows that he will die in the
war which won't leave any positive effect for his country.
a)
An Irish Airman Foresees His Death
b)
The Second Coming
c)
Sailing to Byzantium
d)
The Birthday Party
81.
In.........................., he thought, after every 2000 years, the earth
gets destroyed and a new era begins.
a)
An Irish Airman Foresees His Death
b)
The Second Coming
c)
Sailing to Byzantium
d)
The Birthday Party
82.
The theme of.............................is that art never dies. Rather it
escapes old age, decays and biological change takes place.
a)
An Irish Airman Foresees His Death
b)
The Second Coming
c)
Sailing to Byzantium
d)
The Birthday Party
83.
T. S. Eliot's famous poem.......................describes the situation of
Europe after the First World War.
a)
An Irish Airman Foresees His Death
b)
The Hollow Man
c)
Sailing to Byzantium
d)
The Birthday Party
84.
..........................is a long, complex poem that brings together a group
of characters from different parts of the world and from different times.
a)
The Waste Land
b)
The Second Coming
c)
Sailing to Byzantium
d)
The Birthday Party
85.
In the poem collection, .....................he claims that God is the only
source that will provide wholeness and purpose to man's life.
a)
An Irish Airman Foresees His Death
b)
The Second Coming
c)
Sailing to Byzantium
d)
Four Quartets
86.
The First World War poets are......................
a)
Wilfred Owen, Isaac Rosenberg, Siegfried Sassoon, Rupert Brooke
b)
Oscar Wilde, Isaac Rosenberg, Siegfried Sassoon, Rupert Brooke
c)
Siegfried Sassoon, Oscar Wilde, Isaac Rosenberg, Rupert Brooke
d)
Rupert Brooke, Isaac Rosenberg, Siegfried Sassoon, Oscar Wilde
87.
In.......................poem 'Soldier', he glorifies England and says that he
will be proud even if he dies for England.
a)
John Galsworthy's
b)
George Bernard Shaw's
c)
Oscar Wilde's
d)
Rupert Brooke's
88.
In....................poem 'Everyone Sang', he writes how the end of the war
brings comfort to everyone.
a)
John Galsworthy's
b)
Siegfried Sassoon's
c)
Oscar Wilde's
d)
Rupert Brooke's
89.
......................poem 'Anthem for the Doomed Youth' shows the waste of
many young men in the First World War who died as cattle.
a)
Wilfred Owen's
b)
Siegfried Sassoon's
c)
Oscar Wilde's
d)
Rupert Brooke's
90.
..................................shows the brutality of war in his poem
'Returning We Hear the Larks'.
a)
Wilfred Owen
b)
Siegfried Sassoon
c)
Isaac Rosenberg
d)
Rupert Brooke
91. The poets of the Second World War are:..................
a)
Roy Fuller and Keith Douglas
b)
Siegfried Sassoon and Isaac Rosenberg
c)
Isaac Rosenberg and Roy Fuller
d)
Rupert Brooke and Isaac Rosenberg
92.
.........................major poems are: The Dynasty (Part I 1903, II 1906,
III 1908), Wessex Poems (1865-1901), Time's Laughing-Stocks (1901), Satires of
Circumstance (1914), Human Shows (1935), Winter Words (1928), and Collected
Poems (1932).
a)
John Galsworthy's
b)
Siegfried Sassoon's
c)
Thomas Hardy's
d)
Rupert Brooke's
93.
....................major works are: The Wreck of the Deutschland, Early Poetic
Manuscripts and Notebooks (1989), Nature is a Heraclitean Fire, and The Comfort
of the Resurrection, Sermons and Devotional Writing (1959).
a)
John Galsworthy's
b)
Gerard Manley Hopkins's
c)
Thomas Hardy's
d)
Rupert Brooke's
94.
In.....................poem 'Museum of Fine Arts', he shows how people are
indifferent towards others' sufferings.
a)
John Galsworthy's
b)
Gerard Manley Hopkins's
c)
Thomas Hardy's
d)
W. H. Auden's
95.
Some of.......................fine poems are: "Poem in October",
"Fern Hill" and "The Hunchback".
a)
John Galsworthy's
b)
Dylan Thomas's
c)
Thomas Hardy's
d)
W. H. Auden's
96.
Some of...........................fine poems are: 'The Pike' and 'The Cave
Birds'.
a)
John Galsworthy's
b)
Dylan Thomas's
c)
Thomas Hardy's
d)
Ted Hughes's
97.
...............................has used a single full stop at the end of his
story The Last Voyage of the Ghost Ship.
a)
John Galsworthy
b)
G G Marquez
c)
Thomas Hardy
d)
Ted Hughes
Group
B
Answer
the following questions.
1.
How did literature develop in the twentieth century? Discuss.
Twentieth
century literature has given birth to diverse ideas in the field of literature.
There were versatile writers during this period. An example of versatile
writers is T. S. Eliot who is a poet, dramatist and critic. Each of the forms
of literature (prose, poetry, drama, and fiction) equally developed in the
twentieth century. The major subject matters include human life experiences and
their study, misery, struggle, war effects and evolution of social evils.
Many
absurdist writers introduced the theme of the meaninglessness of human
existence. In this period, the marginal groups raised voices in their works.
Writers such as G. B. Shaw and John Galsworthy attacked the social and
political corruption of England. The writers like T. S. Eliot, W. H. Auden and
W. B. Yeats wrote about religious awakening. These writers thought that the
modern world had gone mad because a man had lost faith in religion and God.
Science
fiction and detective novels also emerged in this period. Likewise, many women
writers like Virginia Woolf, Iris Murdoch and Margaret Drabble wrote about
female experiences. They made critic on male-dominated codes, norms and themes.
Their main characters were women and they wrote from the female point of view.
They wrote about the lives, problems and special concerns of women in the
modern world. Many writers wrote psychological novels examining the deep and
hidden psyche of the characters.
Development
of science fiction
One
of the features of modernism is the development of science fiction. There are
several writings which explore the issues of classic and modern science. The
writings of Mary Shelly on different Gothic novels share the concept of science
fiction. She shared the readers with a powerful new approach to creating a
thrilling sensation of wonder and fear. Hatzel was one of the writers who
published a popular-science magazine for young people. The concept of
'scientific romance' can be found in the novels of Julius Verne who achieved
the remarkable success of his time. He introduced 'scientific romance in
literature. The introduction of graphic cartoons' was another impressive
feature in literature.
New concept in the field of drama
The
drama in the modernist period mainly passed through three successive stages: firstly,
the phase marked with the plays of G. B. Shaw and John Galsworthy. It consisted
of social drama modelled on the plays of Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. Secondly,
the middle phase of the modernist English, drama included the plays of Irish
movement contributed by some elites like W. B. Yeats. In this phase, the drama
consisted of the features of nationalism. Thirdly, the final phase of
the modernist English drama included the plays of T. S. Eliot and Christopher
Fry. The features of those dramas included poetic drama and were being inspired
by Elizabethan and Jacobean drama. The dramas were written in themes like
problems of marriage, justice, law, administration, tussle between capitalists
and labour.
Understanding of human life
The
drama in modern literature includes the feature of realism. The dramas were
written in the twentieth century follow the principle of naturalism and deal
with the real problems of life using a realistic technique like in the drama of
Robertson Arthur Jones, Galsworthy and G. B. Shaw. The other technique found in
the drama was problem play which is adopted by many dramatists in their dramas.
2.
What is modernism? How did it affect literature? Justify.
Modernism
is an aesthetic movement which focuses on visual arts, music, literature and
drama. It rejected the old Victorian standards of arts. The writers in the
nineteenth century wrote their creation with higher confidence regarding
English society, culture and politics. There was a discussion on Realism in the
late nineteenth century. This trend continued in the twentieth century.
The
major figures of modern literature helped radically to redefine the way poetry
and fiction could be. The writers in this century were affected by the changes
in social trends, beliefs, political ideas and war effects. Modernism was the
period of interdisciplinary and exploration of diverse ideas. Writers wrote
about taboo subjects like lesbianism, gay, sex etc. openly.
The
works of modern writers had no fixed themes. They were too open to many
interpretations. Since this century faced two World Wars, the writers wrote
against war, violence and barbarism too. Patriotism began to be thought as
absurd and meaningless. Writers invented new forms and techniques, breaking
away the established literary rules and norms. The major figures regarded as
the founders of the Twentieth Century Modernism are: Woolf, Joyce, Eliot,
Pound, Stevens, Proust, Mallarme, Kafka and Rike.
Although the twentieth-century drama is the product of
the individual writer's ideas and experience, we often find some general
features in common. They share some beliefs and concerns for their work. They
try to show some parts of the realistic picture of the daily lives of common
people on stage.
The most striking thing in twentieth-century English
literature is the revolution in poetic taste and practice. Various movements
and changes had a greater influence upon modern poetry. Though poets are often
influenced by each other and some times, share a common outlook, their style
and the ways of writing differ from each other. So modern poetry is essentially
a private art form and it contains very much a story of individual poet.
Twentieth
century literature has given birth to diverse ideas in the field of literature.
There were versatile writers during this period. An example of versatile
writers is T. S. Eliot who is a poet, dramatist and critic. Each of the forms
of literature (prose, poetry, drama, and fiction) equally developed in the
twentieth century. The major subject matters include human life experiences and
their study, misery, struggle, war effects and evolution of social evils.
3.
What are the features of 20th-century Modern literature?
Twentieth
century literature has given birth to diverse ideas in the field of literature.
There were versatile writers during this period. An example of versatile
writers is T. S. Eliot who is a poet, dramatist and critic. Each of the forms
of literature (prose, poetry, drama, and fiction) equally developed in the
twentieth century. The major subject matters include human life experiences and
their study, misery, struggle, war effects and evolution of social evils.
The
major features of modern literature are as follows:
Realism:
Modernism focused on the exploration of external objects and events as common
or middle-class people feel in everyday life.
Impressionism:
The writings in the modern literature focus on the psychological impression on
the objects and events on the characters of their writings. They emphasize the
role of individual perception and explore the nature of the conscious and
subconscious mind.
Surrealism:
This concept focused on liberating the subconscious mind, see connections
overlooked by the logical mind, deny the supreme authority of rationality and
so, portrays the objects.
Absurdism:
It tried to bring the feeling of nothingness in the literature reflecting the
conditions of contemporary life: like war, god, and humankind.
4.
Who are the women novelists in the 20th century? State their contribution to
English literature.
The novel is one of the
successful forms of literature in the twentieth century. The novels include a
wide variety of topics such as, nationalism, religious discrimination, human
psychology, political and social satire: and war effects. One of the interesting developments in the
twentieth-century literature is the remarkable increase in the number of women
writers, especially novelist. Some women novelist generally deals with the same
kind of subjects as men do, for example, Virginia Woolf and Iris Murdoch.
IVY COMPTON-BURNETT's novels deal with the family life in a very original
way. She presents the reality of Victorian family life in her novels. Mostly
her cruel and evil characters succeed where as good characters remain
unsuccessful in their lives. No force from outside or inside can change her
characters. The bad are never punished and good are never rewarded. In her
novels she deals with the traditions of the Victorian family to show that the
reality of their life is basically cruel and destructive. Her famous novels
include 'Brothers and Sisters' 'Parents and Children' and 'A Heritage and its
History'.
DORIS LESSING is mainly concerned with the women's problems in her
novels. Her first novel, 'The Grass is Singing' is about the sad life of a poor
white farmer's wife. It has the setting of southern Africa. In 'Children of
Violence' the central a character, Martha Quest, tries to break away from Old
social ideas and traditions in order to live a free life. In her famous novel,
'The Golden Notebook' Lessing deals with women's lives, beliefs and problems
with her great courage, power and honesty. She explores how the pressures of
the social and political events have been put on woman. The people in the novel
are seen hostile and unfriendly towards women. They hurt and treat female
characters cruelly because they themselves are weak.
MARGARET DRABBLE's novel also presents women as main characters. But they
do not express ideas and feelings much about themselves; rather they are
concerned mainly to receive higher education. In her novels, 'The Millstone'
and 'The Waterfall' the central characters who find themselves in loneliness
and frustration are brought into happy world by love and human feelings.
Drabble creates a picture of unhappy in 'The Ice Age'. The people in the novel
are seen unhappy because they only live in one part of their personalities. It
is shown as a danger to the whole of society.
Virginia
Woolf is the leading figure of modern experimental novel. She used the stream
of consciousness technique in her novels to reveal the true psyche of her
characters. Her novels are about loneliness and love. She was the supporter of
women's rights and her novels show the psyche of characters rather than
sequences of events in the external world. Woolf's popular novels are: Jacob's
Room, The Voyage Out, Between the Acts, Night and Day, and The Years. A Room of
Her Own is a feminist treatise based on the rights and space for women.
Besides, Woolf wrote diaries and essays too.
Iris Murdoch's characters face difficult moral choices in their search for love
and freedom and are mostly involved in complex networks of love affairs. Her
novels are complex accounts of women's lives. Her characters struggle with the
society but at last, they think that they cannot change themselves and their
society. Her major novels are: 'The Bell', 'A Severed Head', 'Under the Net'
and 'The Black Prince'.
5.
Who are other influential Novelists apart from women novelists in the 20th
century? State their contribution to English literature.
The
novel is one of the successful forms of literature in the twentieth century.
The novels include a wide variety of topics such as, nationalism, religious
discrimination, human psychology, political and social satire: and war effects.
The novels and the novelists of this period can be broadly classified into four
categories: Women Novelists, Detective Novelists, Science Fictions and Other
novelists. Here we are going to discuss other influential Novelists apart from
women novelists in the 20th century and their contribution to English
literature.
Rudyard
Kipling was born in India and spent much time there but later moved to England.
His novels project his ideas that English and England are superior to others.
His novels deal with human attire and thought. His novel 'Kim' presents an
Indian boy named Kim who is born to foreign parents. Kim helps the agent of the
British Empire to acquire some secret papers from the Russians. His other novel
The Jungle Book' is about a boy who is raised by wolves. He lives in the remote
areas of India but later leaves the jungle to become a man.
E. M. Forster is believed as the beginner of the modernism in twentieth century
fiction. He presented new ideas about people and society. He was a humanist
writer. Though he was a British, he made a critic on the British government for
its inhuman treatment to Indians. He attacked the false and pretentious
behaviour of people. He thought that society should be free from materialistic
attitude to achieve harmony and understanding. His famous novels are: A Passage
to India, Howard's Ends, The Longest Journey, A Room with a View and The
Machine Stops.
D.
H. Lawrence's works express the inner qualities of human, nature. His novels
influence the psychological theories of Sigmund Freud. His works analyze the
human relationship in-depth particularly men-women relationships and men-men
relationships in general. He shows how the relationship between people is
always changing. He analyzes the relationship between man and his environment,
the relationship between the generations, the relationship between man and
woman, and the relationship between instinct and intellect. His major novels
are: Sons and Lovers, Women in Love, The Rainbow, The White Peacock, The Lost
Girl, Kangaroo, and Lady Chatterley's Lover.
James Joyce was born and educated in Ireland; he adopted a completely new style
of writing which is termed as 'stream of consciousness technique' or 'interior
monologue'. This technique allows the readers to move inside the minds of the
characters and presents their thoughts and feelings in a continuous flow like a
stream. It breaks all the usual rules of description, speech, and punctuation.
The works of Joyce are complex and paradoxical with no fixed themes. He brings
history and myth in his novels to give new insights. He thus wrote realistic
novels. His major novels are:
George
Orwell was a politically conscious novelist. He attacked all kinds of falsity,
barbarism, and corruption in the British government. His major novels are: Nineteen
Eighty-Four, and Animal Farm.
6.
Show your acquaintance with the Development of Drama in the Twentieth Century.
The
drama did not receive much attention from the writers during the nineteenth
century. Some closet dramas were written in the 19th century. A closet drama is
meant to be read aloud but not for stage performance. Romantic poet P. B.
Shelley wrote a closet tragedy The Cenci in five acts. No worth mentioning play
was written in the Victorian period. Hence, there was a revival of drama in the
first quarter of the twentieth century. Drama is the mirror of society. Most of
the plays in the twentieth-century focus on social phenomena. The ideas in
modern drama emphasize on the subjectivity and working with human
consciousness. The major dramatists of this period are: Samuel Beckett, G. B.
Shaw, John Galsworthy, and others.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) was born in Ireland. He gave new points of view
and way of looking at the people and the society they lived in. He delighted in
showing the opposite of what his audiences expected. Several of his plays show
in various ways the working of his theory of the Life Force', the power that
drives people to value life as a great gift and fight for a better world, and
that leads women, in particular, to want to have children so that life can be
continued. He did not believe in t Christianity but believed in the life force.
He used comedy to expose social evils. Shaw wrote more than 50 plays during his
lifetime. Therefore, most of his dramas reflect the issues of the society.
Oscar Wilde is famous for his plays in the century. His famous plays are: Lady
Windermere's Fan, An Ideal Husband, A Lady of No Importance, The Duchess of
Padua, The Importance of Being Earnest, and Vera. Among them, his most famous
play is The Importance of Being Earnest which is filled with witty language.
Two girls in this play fall in love with Earnest. They are in search of a man
named Earnest. Two men pretend to be Earnest and trap those girls in their
love. This shows the difference between appearance and reality. The characters
are shallow and cunning with double standards.
Although T. S. Eliot is best known for his contribution to poetry and the ideas
of modernism, he wrote some plays in verse. The medium of drama had shifted to
prose from verse in the 18thcentury but T. S. Eliot wrote fine verse plays. His
plays are: The Rock, Murder in the Cathedral, The Family Reunion, The Cocktail
Party, The Confidential Clerk, and The Elder Statesman. Among them, Murder in
the Cathedral is his masterpiece.
Tom
Stoppard chooses characters from earlier plays and places them under
different situations to provide audiences with new insights. His play
'Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead' is about two minor characters of
Shakespeare's play Hamlet. Similarly, his other play Travesties' contains the
characters of Wilde's play The Importance of Being Earnest' but they are
analyzed from a different point of view.
John Millington Synge is one of the famous dramatists who reflected the
life of Irish men and women; ordinary people living in Irish seacoast. There
are two essentials of drama according to him: reality and joy. Synge's play
teachers no lesson, and has no moral. The drama is a scene taken from life by
one who sought truth for its own shake. Synge mainly focuses his contents of
drama as the voices of living men which he has heard told by the fireside or at
a country fair, from beggars to ballad singers near Dublin and from servant
girls in the kitchen.
Samuel
Beckett is considered as the grandmaster of a theatre of the absurd. The
other dramatists belonging to this group are Harold Pinter and Tom Stoppard.
The writers belonging to this group show their anguish at the absurdity of the
human condition. For them, the man's existence on earth is meaningless. We do
the same thing day after day. There is no newness or growth. They claim that
our life is boring, dull, and monotonous.
The
central theme of Harold Pinter plays is: every person stranger to
others. Humans cannot communicate meaningfully with others. Humans are trapped
in their own world. His major plays are:
Augusta
Lady Gregory is an Irish writer and playwright who focused on the translation
of Irish legends. Her comedies and fantasies are based on folklore. She wrote
pleasant comedies based on Irish folkways and picturesque peasant speech,
offsetting the more tragic tones. Lady Gregory wrote or translated nearly 40
plays.
7.
Show your acquaintance with the Development of Poetry in the Twentieth Century.
Poetry
is one of the successful genres of literature in this century. Poetry in this
century incorporated the areas of social concern such as mythology, social
disorder, exploitation, pessimism, war affairs, and human existence. The use of
allusion and myth is often found in the poems written in this century. The
subjective consciousness is one of the features found in poetry. The use of
visual poetry is another trend used in this period.
W.
B. Yeats was an Irish poet. In his earlier days, he wrote poems about Ireland,
its people, and traditions. In later days, his poems became more universal in
theme. He was disturbed by the brutality, loss of values, and fragmentation
caused by modern civilizations. Yeats' poetry can be divided into three phases.
In the first phase, his poetry seems to have been influenced by English
Romanticism, Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, and symbolism, up to 1904. Yeats wrote
love poems in the second phase, up to 1920. His unsuccessful love affair with
Maud Gonne has been explicitly presented in his love poems. He wrote mature
poems in the third phase and the poems deal with Irish culture and symbolic
themes.
T. S. Eliot is one of the pioneers of modern poetry. He was disturbed by the
damage, loss of hope, and fragmentation caused by the two world wars. He
thought that belief in Christianity and submission to God are the only means to
escape from fragmentation caused by modern civilization. For him, modern man is
sexually impotent, hollow, fragmented, and destroyed. His major poems are:
Isaac
Rosenberg also shows the brutality of war in his poem 'Returning We Hear the
Larks'.
Thomas Hardy is an English poet and novelist who wrote different poems for more
than 50 years. Though he is also a famous novelist, he wrote more than 1000
poems. He is regarded as a poet of human hardship and suffering. In his poems,
romantic patriotism is expressed well. A sense of powerlessness has ruled his
poetry.
Gerard Manley (G.M.) Hopkins is a philosophical poet. Most of his early poems
have a religious tone. Along with newness in rhyme and rhythm in his poems, we
find tragic pathos too. He combines emotional and intellectual features in his
poetry. His major works are: The Wreck of the Deutschland, Early Poetic
Manuscripts and Notebooks (1989), Nature is a Heraclitean Fire, The Comfort of
the Resurrection, Sermons and Devotional Writing (1959).
W.
H. Auden's poems show concern for important political and social events. He
thought that the present situation of politics and social systems need to be
changed. He thought that literature should help social and political change.
His poems are about depression, unemployment, and indifference of human kinds
towards others' sufferings. He also hated modern civilization that made humans
like a machine without love and affection.
The
language of Dylan Thomas is completely different: full of life, energy, and
feeling with great strength and power. His works praise and delight in natural
forces: the life of nature and the countryside, the forces of birth, sex and
death. His poems raise issues completely different from others. Some of his
fine poems are: "Poem in October", "Fern Hill" and
"The Hunchback".
Ted Hughes is considered as an animal poet because his most poems are about
animals and their uniqueness. He thought that violence is unconsciously hidden
in the human and animal world. He describes the beauty and brutality he saw in
nature. Some of his fine poems are: 'The Pike' and 'The Cave Birds'.
8.
Show your acquaintance with The War Poets in the Twentieth Century.
The
poets who participated in the war or whose poems are about war are termed as
war poets. Some of them wrote poems from the trenches and died before the
publication of their poems. These poets participated in the First World War
from England.
Rupert Brooke had a romantic and patriotic view on ullova war. In his poem
'Soldier', he glorifies England and says that he will be proud even if he dies
for England.
Siegfried
Sassoon attacked the warlords or officers who ordered soldiers to kill other
soldiers. He thought that war is destructive, pointless, and inhuman because it
turns humans into beasts. He also hated the patriotic satisfaction of the
people at home who believed the heroic stories that the government told them
about war. He also hated people who glorified war without understanding the
misery and suffering of people who went into the battlefield. In his poem
'Everyone Sang', he writes how the end of the war brings comfort to everyone.
Wilfred Owen's poems show very sorrowful discomfort, danger, and pain of the
soldiers and the permanent damage which the war did to their minds and
happiness. For him, the soldiers who fight from different countries are all
humans and their suffering is same. No one can become a hero by killing fellow
humans. In his poem 'Strange Meeting', he imagines a meeting in hell with an
enemy soldier he had killed who reminds him of their common humanity. His other
poem 'Anthem for the Doomed Youth' shows the waste of many young men in the
First World War who died as cattle.
Isaac Rosenberg also
shows the brutality of war in his poem 'Returning We Hear the Larks'. He belonged to working -class family and served as an
ordinary soldier in the war. He had not received much formal education. So his
experience of life in the war is different from other poets. This is reflected
in the language of his poetry and in the events he describes. He did not follow
the models and traditions of earlier poetry. He has used a new form of poetry
to describe his new experience. His language has great life and energy.
The
Second World War Poets saw the destruction caused by the Second World War. The
heroic patriotism was lost forever. War did not only kill soldiers, it also
killed their hopes and future. The poets wrote demanding the end of all sorts
of wars. The poets of the Second World War are: Roy Fuller and Keith Douglas.
One of the most famous poets of the war is Brooke. But
he does not express the painful view of the suffering caused by the war in his
poetry. The romantic and patriotic view of many soldiers at the beginning of
the war is reflected in one of his most famous poems. For Brooke death for a
soldier was a great sacrifice for his country. The poet has been criticized for
not responding to the horrors of war.
9.
Who are the other influential poets in the 20th century? State their
contribution to English literature.
Poetry
is one of the successful genres of literature in this century. Poetry in this
century incorporated the areas of social concern such as mythology, social
disorder, exploitation, pessimism, war affairs, and human existence. The use of
allusion and myth is often found in the poems written in this century. The
subjective consciousness is one of the features found in poetry. The use of
visual poetry is another trend used in this period.
Thomas
Hardy is an English poet and novelist who wrote different poems for more than
50 years. Though he is also a famous novelist, he wrote more than 1000 poems.
He is regarded as a poet of human hardship and suffering. In his poems,
romantic patriotism is expressed well. A sense of powerlessness has ruled his
poetry. His major poems are: The Dynasty (Part I 1903, II 1906, III 1908),
Wessex Poems (1865-1901), Time's Laughing-Stocks (1901), Satires of
Circumstance (1914), Human Shows (1935), Winter Words (1928), and Collected
Poems (1932)
Gerard Manley (G.M.) Hopkins is a philosophical poet. Most of his early poems
have a religious tone. Along with newness in rhyme and rhythm in his poems, we
find tragic pathos too. He combines emotional and intellectual features in his
poetry. He adopts the sprung rhythm in which one stressed syllable is followed
by a number of unstressed syllables which was previously used by Milton. His
major works are: The Wreck of the Deutschland, Early Poetic Manuscripts and
Notebooks (1989), Nature is a Heraclitean Fire, The Comfort of the
Resurrection, Sermons and Devotional Writing (1959).
W.
H. Auden's poems show concern for important political and social events. He
thought that the present situation of politics and social systems need to be
changed. He thought that literature should help social and political change. He
wrote directly about political events and their effect on private lives. His
poems are about depression, unemployment, and indifference of human kinds
towards others' sufferings. He also hated modern civilization that made humans
like a machine without love and affection. In his poem 'Museum of Fine Arts',
he shows how people are indifferent towards others' sufferings. In his later
years, his poems show that spirituality and belief in Christian values can help
humans to overcome anxiety, loss, and depression. He is also like Yeats because
he believes that modern civilization has gone mad because humans have lost
faith in God.
The
language of Dylan Thomas is completely different: full of life, energy, and
feeling with great strength and power. His works praise and delight in natural
forces: the life of nature and the countryside, the forces of birth, sex and
death. His poems raise issues completely different from others. Some of his
fine poems are: "Poem in October", "Fern Hill" and
"The Hunchback".
Ted Hughes is considered as an animal poet because his most poems are about
animals and their uniqueness. He thought that violence is unconsciously hidden
in the human and animal world. He describes the beauty and brutality he saw in
nature. Some of his fine poems are: 'The Pike' and 'The Cave Birds'.
10.
Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter are the dramatists of human existence and
other aspects. Explain.
It's
true that Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter are the dramatists of human
existence and other aspects. Drama is the mirror of society. Most of the plays
in the twentieth-century focus on social phenomena. The ideas in modern drama
emphasize on the subjectivity and working with human consciousness.
Samuel
Beckett is considered as the grandmaster of a theatre of the absurd. The other
dramatists belonging to this group are Harold Pinter and Tom Stoppard. The
writers belonging to this group show their anguish at the absurdity of the
human condition. For them, the man's existence on earth is meaningless. We do
the same thing day after day. There is no newness or growth. They claim that
our life is boring, dull, and monotonous. The characters in their plays are
often handicapped and like prisoners. They cannot communicate with other
individuals. There is no proper plot and there is action without any purpose.
His
plays are despairing plays. His characters refuse to love and relationship with
other people. He sees the language as building a wall between human beings
which stops them from communicating. His major dramas are:
Waiting
for Godot: This play shows two tramps, Vladimir and Estragon, waiting for Godot
whom they haven't known. Godot never comes to meet them, and may not even
exist. They do a lot of talking but their communication is meaningless and
without any logical reasoning.
Krapp's
Last Tape: It has only one character, an old man sitting in a closed room with
the tape-recorder in which he hears his previous recordings and compares to his
present situation.
The central theme of Harold Pinter (1930-2008) plays is: every person stranger
to others. Humans cannot communicate meaningfully with others. Humans are
trapped in their own world. His major plays are:
The
Caretaker: The main theme of this play is that no one takes care of others.
There are only three characters and each character is empty. Their words and
actions do not match.
No
Man's Land: This play shows the meeting of two old men who had known each other
when they were young. One is now rich and successful while the other man is in
many ways a failure. In a sense, they are enemies. Although on the surface they
meet as friends, there is always a feeling of danger between them. In some
ways, it is the rich and successful man who is the real failure, because, in
his heart, he is living in the 'no man's land' with no feelings and no hope.
11.
State the Development of English language in the Twentieth Century.
Modern
literature writing was rich in the diverse use of language. A moral concern was
used increasingly in the very period. The titles of the writings signal the
seriousness of the issues which the novelist sets out to explore, for example,
Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice in the nineteenth-century novels.
Modernism
is an aesthetic movement which focuses on visual arts, music, literature and
drama. It rejected the old Victorian standards of arts. The writers in the
nineteenth century wrote their creation with higher confidence regarding
English society, culture and politics.
Modernism
was the period of interdisciplinary and exploration of diverse ideas. Writers
wrote about taboo subjects like lesbianism, gay, sex etc. openly. Since this
century faced two World Wars, the writers wrote against war, violence and
barbarism too. Patriotism began to be thought as absurd and meaningless.
Writers invented new forms and techniques, breaking away the established
literary rules and norms.
Twentieth
century literature has given birth to diverse ideas in the field of literature.
There were versatile writers during this period. The major subject matters
include human life experiences and their study, misery, struggle, war effects
and evolution of social evils. In this period, the marginal groups raised
voices in their works. Writers attacked the social and political corruption of
England. Some writers wrote about religious awakening. These writers thought
that the modern world had gone mad because a man had lost faith in religion and
God. Science fiction and detective novels also emerged in this period.
Modernist
writers generally prefer titles which are more oblique and symbolic and require
an act of interpretation from the reader. They do not always provide the reader
with any definite anchor in recognizably realistic people and places like,
Ulysses, The Rainbow, Heart of Darkness. Many of the writers have broken the
structural and punctuation rules in their writings. For example: e ecumming uses
small letters and rarely uses punctuation marks in his poems. G G Marquez has
used a single full stop at the end of his story The Last Voyage of the Ghost
Ship. The abbreviations and twisted cyber language have influenced the writing
in the latter part of modernism.
12.
Write short notes on:
a)
Detective novelists
The
other feature of the twentieth century novelists is ideas of suspense and
detective story in novels. The detective novels are based on mystery, suspense
and murder. The main character goes in search of finding the murderer, robber
or something lost. The main character has to disguise to find the murderer or
to solve the mystery. The detective novelists of the period are: Sir Arthur
Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie and John Le Carre.
Arthur
Conan Doyle is popular as a detective short story writer among the readers. His
creation, Sherlock Holmes is an immortal character in English literature. His
detectives are known as Sherlock Holmes' stories by modern readers. He wrote
several detective novels too. The Hound of Baskervilles is a popular novel.
Agatha
Christie's famous detective novel is 'The Mysterious Affair of Styles'. She was
an English writer known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story
collections, particularly those revolving around fictional detectives Hercule
Poirot and Miss Marple.
David
John Moore Cornwell, better known by his pen name John le Carré, was a British
author, best known for his espionage novels. During the 1950s and 1960s, he
worked for both the Security Service and the Secret Intelligence Service. His
famous novel is 'The Spy Who Came in from the Cold'.
b)
Theatre of Absurd
Samuel
Beckett is considered as the grandmaster of a theatre of the absurd. The other
dramatists belonging to this group are Harold Pinter and Tom Stoppard. The
writers belonging to this group show their anguish at the absurdity of the
human condition. For them, the man's existence on earth is meaningless. We do
the same thing day after day. There is no newness or growth. They claim that
our life is boring, dull, and monotonous. The characters in their plays are
often handicapped and like prisoners. They cannot communicate with other
individuals. There is no proper plot and there is action without any purpose.
His
plays are despairing plays. His characters refuse to love and relationship with
other people. He sees the language as building a wall between human beings
which stops them from communicating.
He started a new kind of fashion in drama. He did not
follow the tradition form of well-made play. He believed in absurdism and his
plays try to show the essential tragic condition of the modern man. For Beckett
human life is absurd and happiness in human life is never possible.
The
central theme of Harold Pinter plays is: every person stranger to
others. Humans cannot communicate meaningfully with others. Humans are trapped
in their own world. He is also
a famous dramatist of twentieth-century. The central theme of his play is the
impossibility of communication between characters in a closed situation. In his
early plays the comfort and safety of the closed situation, often a room, is
compared with the dangers of the world and the stranger outsiders. The world is
full of dangers so there is fear and difficulty in communicating with other
individuals, especially with the strangers of the outside world.
Although the twentieth-century drama is the product of
the individual writer's ideas and experience, we often find some general
features in common. They share some beliefs and concerns for their work. They
try to show some parts of the realistic picture of the daily lives of common
people on stage.
c)
Augusta Lady Gregory as a pleader for change/ liberation
Augusta
Lady Gregory (1852-1932) is an Irish writer and playwright who focused on the
translation of Irish legends. Her comedies and fantasies are based on folklore.
She wrote pleasant comedies based on Irish folkways and picturesque peasant
speech, offsetting the more tragic tones of dramas by Yeats and J. M. Synge.
Lady Gregory wrote or translated nearly 40 plays. Seven Short Plays (1909), her
first dramatic work, is among her best, which is vivid in dialogue and
characterization.
The
longer comedies, The Image and Damer's Gold were published in 1910 and 1913.
Her strange realistic fantasies, The Golden Apple and The Dragons were
published in 1916 and 1920. She also arranged and made continuous narratives
out of the various versions of Irish sagas, translating them into an
Anglo-Irish peasant dialect that she labelled "Kiltartan." These were
published as Cuchulain of Muirthemne (1902) and Gods and Fighting Men (1904).
Gregory was an active director of the theatre until ill-health led her to the
retirement in 1928.
The
drama did not receive much attention from the writers during the nineteenth
century. Hence, there was a revival of drama in the first quarter of the
twentieth century. Drama is the mirror of society. Most of the plays in the
twentieth-century focus on social phenomena. The ideas in modern drama emphasize
on the subjectivity and working with human consciousness. The major dramatists
of this period are: Samuel Beckett, G. B. Shaw, John Galsworthy, and others.
d)
John Millington (JM) Synge as a dramatist of the life of ordinary people
Synge
is one of the famous dramatists who reflected the life of Irish men and women;
ordinary people living in Irish seacoast. He believes that life, whether in a
crowded city or a fishing village, is everywhere a complex thing, having both
tears and laughter, nobility and savagery, Christian ideals, and heathen
habits. For Synge, every aspect of life is a challenge. There are two
essentials of drama according to him: reality and joy. Synge's' play teachers
no lesson, and has no moral.
The
drama is a scene taken from life by one who sought truth for its own shake. No
matter it is a comedy or a tragedy, it needs to be objective, impersonal,
detached keeping himself and his opinion wholly out of the picture. Synge
mainly focuses his contents of drama as the voices of living men which he has
heard told by the fireside or at a country fair, from beggars to ballad singers
near Dublin and from servant girls in the kitchen.
The
major plays of Synge include: Deirdre of Sorrows, The Playboy of the Western
World; and Riders to the Sea. Deirdre of Sorrows reflects adventurous youth
with a hint of a time to come when youth is fled and man is left with only
memories to comfort. The best known Synge play, 'The Play Boy of the Western
World' is of Christine Mahon who left his father dead in the field and his
relations with villagers and the landlord's daughter. Likewise, Riders to the
Sea is a one-act tragedy which talks about a family destruction and is deeply
impressive.
e)
G.B. Shaw as a Dramatist of Social Phenomenon
He is one of the greatest dramatists of English
literature. Shaw believed that drama should be concerned with politics,
philosophy and social problems. The main purpose behind his writing was to
cause shock and offence in the mind of the audience by presenting completely
new ideas and outlook. He wanted to satirise not the invented characters in the
plays but the audience.
George
Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) was born in Ireland. He gave new points of view and
way of looking at the people and the society they lived in. He delighted in
showing the opposite of what his audiences expected. Several of his plays show
in various ways the working of his theory of the Life Force', the power that
drives people to value life as a great gift and fight for a better world, and
that leads women, in particular, to want to have children so that life can be
continued. He did not believe in t Christianity but believed in the life force.
He used comedy to expose social evils. Shaw wrote more than 50 plays during his
lifetime. Therefore, most of his dramas reflect the issues of the society.
Man and Superman: This drama shows that a woman's real aim in life is to find
the man that nature tells her is the right father for her children.
The
Apple Cart: This political play shows that he was in favour of monarchy rather
than democratic leaders.
The
Devil's Disciple: In this play, the man whom conventional society has thought
of as evil and selfish is willing to sacrifice himself for others, while the
minister of religion discovers that he should have been a soldier.
Major Barbara: In this play, the heroine, a woman of strong personality and
ideals, exchanges her belief in Christianity for that in the Life Force.
Arms
and the Man: In this novel, he presents a soldier as a sympathetic figure who does
not want to fight.
f)
George Orwell
He
was a politically conscious novelist. He attacked all kinds of falsity,
barbarism, and corruption in the British government. His major novels are:
Nineteen
Eighty-Four: This book describes a future world where word and action are seen
and controlled by the government. The government has developed a kind of
television that can watch the people in their homes. The government changes the
language and teaches them to talk about only the things the government wants
them to do. This book provides a pessimistic picture of future government where
people's feelings and emotions will be controlled by the government. Two terms
in the novel "newspeak" (new language) and "thought police"
(police who can make surveillance of people's thoughts) are very popular. The
thought police punished the people who commit thought crimes.
Animal
Farm: It is a political allegory, which tells the story of a political
revolution that has gone wrong. The animals on the farm, led by pigs, drive out
their master Jones and take control of the farm. Soon, the purity of their
political ideas IS destroyed and they end by being just as greedy and dishonest
as the farmer whom they had driven out. In the beginning, the animals make a
slogan. "All animals are equal" but as the power mongers become
corrupt, the slogan is changed as "Some animals are more equal than other
animals."
g)
Science Fiction
The stories which are based on developments in science
technology are known as 'Science Fiction'. Because of the development in
science many writers have turned to the subject 'of science in their writing.
Their work includes either exciting developments or fictional developments of
the future.
Early science fiction falls into three main areas:
• If the present scientific developments are carried
further, it may be dangerous to man and destroy the human races.
• What may happen after man has defeated the problem
of war, disease and poverty- perhaps he will be able to go beyond the limits of
the human body and gain some of qualities of machines?
• Although man may have lost something of natural life
on earth, he can explore the world of space.
Many writers who have been mentioned in term of their
other work have also written science fiction. One of such writers is H.G.
Wells. He was very interested in the scientific advances of his age and looked
ahead to imagine what the result might be in the future. He was optimistic
about the advantages of science. Many of his novels present a struggle between two
ways of life, the human and the non-human. Like Wells there are other writers
who have written in the area of science fiction such as, E.M. Forster, Aldous
Huxley, Kingsley Amis and Doris Lessing. George Orwell and Anthony Burgess also
give pictures of a future world in their work.
There is another group of writers who have mainly
written science fiction. John Wyndham in 'The Day of the Triffids' and 'The
Krakam Wakes' shows a different world after the destruction of present society.
Brian Aldiss has written many books in this area. His 'Graybeard' presents a
group of people trying to be alive even after the destruction of most of the
world. Arthur C. Clarke has written much science fiction including 'The City
and the Stars'. His '2001: A Space Odyssey' is about the exploration in space.
h)
Doris Lessing
She
is one of the most politically conscious women novelists the 20th century. Her
characters are unable to distinguish between the way things appear to be and
the way they really are. Much of her works are concerned with the everyday and
inner lives of sensitive women. She wrote psychological novels exploring the
madness of characters and their deeper self-analysis.
The
Grass is Singing: This novel is set in Southern Africa. It explores the mind of
the wife of a poor white farmer and her difficulties that lead to her
destruction.
Children
of Violence: This novel is about Martha Quest who tries to isolate herself from
the old ideas of the society, politics and religion. She lives by her own
beliefs and ideals.
The
Golden Notebook: It is a powerful attempt to write honestly about women's lives
and beliefs; and the pressures that political and social events in the 20th
century life and society put on them. The male characters in the novel often
try to hurt females because they themselves are weak.
i) Margaret Drabble
Her
main characters are always women, and they are often studious and intelligent.
Before joining literary career, she had been an actress in the theatre. She is
often called the "women's novelists". She explores the theme of
feminism, search for identity, equal rights, freedom and justice. Her
characters are confused women who try to integrate the family life and their
career. Her major novels are:
The
Milestone: It is about a girl who has avoided any deep feelings or close
relationships with other people. She finds that she is brought into the world
of human feelings by her love for her child.
The
Waterfall: It is about a poetess, who is unable at the beginning of the novel
to connect body and mind. She is saved from the coldness of her life by sexual
love, and is at last able to understand herself and her personality as a woman.
The
Ice Age: This novel presents a wider picture of an unhappy world in which the
coldness of the spirit and the feelings that come when people only live in one
part of their personalities are shown as dangers to the whole society.
j)
Virginia Woolf
Woolf
is the leading figure of modern experimental novel. She used the stream of
consciousness technique in her novels to reveal the true psyche of her
characters. Her novels are about loneliness and love. She was the supporter of
women's rights and her novels show the psyche of characters rather than
sequences of events in the external world. Her famous novels are:
To
the Lighthouse: This novel presents a family holiday in an island. In this
novel, the youngest son James Ramsay, has an inordinate desire to go by boat to
the lighthouse but is prevented by his father. The son becomes very sad but he
is comforted by his mother. After 10 years, after the death of the mother, the
same family goes to visit the lighthouse. This time also, he is sad and hates
his father. This novel shows the conflict between factual and deeper truth.
Mrs.
Dalloway: This is a novel written on the events of a single day. The novel
starts in the morning when Clarissa Dalloway goes to buy the flower and ends at
the same night after the party. The novel records the thoughts of various
characters of the novel, Mrs. Clarissa Dalloay, Septimus Warren Smith, Lucrezia
Smith, Richard Dalloway and others.
Orlando:
This presents a main character who begins as a man in the 16th century and ends
as a woman in 1928, still only thirty six years old. On the surface, the story
is fanciful and amusing but it is highly symbolic.
The Waves: The novel is about the lives of six characters; three boys and three
girls and records the waves of their thoughts from school life to the old age
and death.
Woolf's
other popular novels are: Jacob's Room, The Voyage Out, Between the Acts, Night
and Day, and The Years. A Room of Her Own is a feminist treatise based on the
rights and space for women. Besides, Woolf wrote diaries and essays too.
k)
E. M. Forster
Forster
is believed as the beginner of the modernism in twentieth century fiction. He
presented new ideas about people and society. He was a humanist writer. Though
he was a British, he made a critic on the British government for its inhuman
treatment to Indians. He attacked the false and pretentious behaviour of people.
He thought that society should be free from materialistic attitude to achieve
harmony and understanding. His famous novels are: A Passage to India, Howard's
Ends, The Longest Journey, A Room with a View and The Machine Stops.
A
Passage to India: Set against the backdrop of British Rule in India about two
decades before the Indian Independence, the novel deals with coincidence and
misunderstanding between Indian national Dr. Aziz and his British friends Mr.
Cyril Fielding, Mrs. Moore and Miss Adela Quested. The novel is based on
Forster's experiences in India and the title is from American poet Walt
Whitman's poem "Passage to India".
Howard's
End: This novel shows the conflict between spirituality and materialism. He
attacks the people who are running towards wealth and false appearance. The
people judged by society as failure may indeed be more successful than others.
Success is not marked by money and wealth but by goodliness, humanity,
humbleness and spirituality.
l)
D. H. Lawrence
His
works express the inner qualities of human, nature. His novels influence the
psychological theories of Sigmund Freud. His works analyze the human
relationship in-depth particularly men-women relationships and men-men
relationships in general. He shows how the relationship between people is
always changing. He analyzes the relationship between man and his environment,
the relationship between the generations, the relationship between man and
woman, and the relationship between instinct and intellect. His major novels
are: Sons and Lovers, Women in Love, The Rainbow, The White Peacock, The Lost
Girl, Kangaroo, and Lady Chatterley's Lover.
Sons
and Lovers: This is a thinly autobiographical novel. This novel deals with the
conflict between Paul's working-class father and his middle-class mother. The
mother turns towards her son for the emotional fulfilment denied to her by her
husband. The novel ends with the death of the mother which gives relief to the
son.
The
Rainbow: This novel tells the story of a family through three couples who are
of three generations:
First-generation (Lydia and Tom): They have a deep and loving
understanding of each other. They also communicate with the outside world.
Second
generation (Anna and Will): They have physical passion for
each other but their souls remain separate.
Third
generation (Ursula and Anton): They do not love each
other but try to force their own wishes on the other.
D. H. Lawrence became controversial after the publication of his novel Lady
Chatterley's Lover. A case was filed in the court blaming that the novel was
spreading pornography and it was banned. Later, Lawrence won the case and the
novel was circulated again.
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