Oscar Wilde Aesthetism: Art for Art’s sake Criticism of society Irony Wit

Joseph Conrad Born in Poland Joined British merchant marine and was granted British nationality Considered an early modernist The Heart of Darkness (1899)

VICTORIAN REALISM AND MODERNISM

Victorian Realism Representation of daily life Moral purpose – to instruct Focus on society and its problems Generally optimistic Plot and characters clearly described, not very poetic For popular consumption

Modernism Break from tradition The world is what people perceive it is There is no such thing as absolute truth Alienation, loss and despair Life is unordered Concern with the sub-conscious (Freud) and with individual thought

CONSCIOUS BREAK from traditional styles of poetry and verse EXPERIMENTATING with literature form and expression

Stream of Consciousness Meant to mimic human thought No chapter or sentences, but thought flow Mimics how human associate different ideas Lack of punctuation or traditional grammar

O that awful deepdown torrent O and the sea the sea crimson sometimes like fire and the glorious sunsets and the figtrees in the Alameda gardens yes and all the queer little streets and the pink and blue and yellow houses and the rosegardens and the jessamine and geraniums and cactuses and Gibraltar as a girl where I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes. Passage from Ulysses by James Joyce

Free indirect speech / discourse Third person narration which mixes third person with the essence of first person Slips in and out of people's minds and thoughts

Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself. For Lucy had her work cut out for her. The doors would be taken off their hinges; Rumpelmayer’s men were coming. And then, thought Clarissa Dalloway, what a morning — fresh as if issued to children on a beach. What a lark! What a plunge! For so it had always seemed to her, when, with a little squeak of the hinges, which she could hear now, she had burst open the French windows and plunged at Bourton into the open air. Passage from Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf 

AUTHORS

James Joyce (1882-1941) Always wrote about Dublin Famous for writing about human consciousness in a world that was changing Use of time and inner word Epiphanies

Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) Literary and intellectual upbringing Member of Bloomsbury Group Wanted to give voice to complex inner world of feeling and memory Moments of insight where characters can see reality of daily life

Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) “ the prophet of British Imperialism” English journalist, short-story writer, poet, and novelist Awarded Nobel Prize in Literature The Jungle Book, Kim, The White Man's Burden, If

The White Man's Burden: The United States and The Philippine Islands (1899) Take up the White Man's burden, Send forth the best ye breed   Go bind your sons to exile, to serve your captives' need; To wait in heavy harness, On fluttered folk and wild—   Your new-caught, sullen peoples, Half-devil and half-child. Take up the White Man's burden, In patience to abide,   To veil the threat of terror And check the show of pride; By open speech and simple, An hundred times made plain   To seek another's profit, And work another's gain.

Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) Tried to fight in WWI, but he couldn't Part of Bloomsbury Group Focused on the dehumanising aspects of scientific progress and pacifism

BRAVE NEW WORLD Set in London in the year AD 2540 Focused on Depression era, England's problems Conditioning of citizens to accept their lives Comfortable lives lead them to not think about anything

George Orwell (1903-1950) 1984 Political parties and power Imperial policeman in Burma Explored poor parts of London Focused primarily on poverty in writing 1984 Political parties and power War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength Brainwashing citizens to accep their lives

WAR POETS & MODERNIST POETS

WAR POETRY Some soldiers started to think that they were fighting for was pointless. And some young soldiers started to write poetry.

SIEGFRIED SASSOON (1886-1967) He fought in the war In 1917 he protested the continuation of war Was sent to hospital for shell shock

WILFRED OWEN (1893-1918) Fought in WWI Became friends with S. Sassoon at a hospital Was killed one week before WWI ended Dulce et Decorum Est

William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) Irish author He was NOT a war poet

The Lake Isle of Innisfree I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made; Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee, And live alone in the bee-loud glade. And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow, Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings; There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow, And evening full of the linnet’s wings. I will arise and go now, for always night and day I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore; While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey, I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

T. S. ELIOT (1888-1965) "one of the twentieth century's major poets" Born in the US moved to England at the age of 25 - eventually naturalised renouncing his American citizenship Nobel Prize in Literature The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock The Waste Land

The Waste Land Famously obscure Disilusionment of post-war generation Allusions Fragmentation The Waste Land

DRAMA

G. B. SHAW (1856-1950) Born in Ireland, moved to London very young some consider him the second greatest English playwright, behind only Shakespeare established drama as serious literature Nobel Prize in Literature Pygmalion