1. 20th-Century British and Irish Modernist Literature
A Quick Overview of General Characteristics, Themes, and Agendas

2. Historical Background
The End of the Reign of Queen Victoria
1903- Ford Motor Company Founded
1905- Einstein Unveils the Theory of Special Relativity
WWI
1916- Easter Rising in Dublin
1920- League of Nations Formed
1929- Stock Market Crash
1933- Hitler Rises to Power
WWII
1945- Atomic Bomb Dropped on Japan
1969- Apollo Lands on the Moon

3. Who is a “British” Writer in the 20th Century
20th-century writers who we call British
Conrad (Polish)
T.S.Eliot & Pound (Americans)
Yeats & Joyce (Irish)
The British Empire has Stretched Across the Globe

4. Who is a British Writer in the 20th Century?
Writers that were once marginalized by sexuality, gender, and class were now celebrated.
D. H. Lawrence
W. H. Auden
Virginia Woolf

5. Much has Been Brewing in the World of Science, Philosophy, and Ideology
Marx ( )
Marx felt that reality was determined by materialist cultures and economics.
He called for a social revolution.
Darwin ( )
Darwin's theory of evolution and “survival of the fittest” suggests that survival
is determined by the ability to adapt. The Origin of the Species
Nietzsche ( )
Feels that traditional religions have been debunked by physical and natural
sciences and thus, that moral and ethical systems that arise from traditional
religions are illogical.
Freud ( )
Freud ‘s theories of the dynamic unconscious suggested that humans are not
fully aware of what they think or why they think it. His ideas proposed that
awareness existed in layers and that many thoughts occur "below the surface.”
Einstein ( )
Overturns Newtonian conceptions of Physics. The universe is uncertain
and we are ill-equipped observers.

6. Reed’s Reflections on Modernist Literature
Modernist literature is a movement away from Romanticism, Victorian trends in literature, and Realism, and really, is marked by its determined desire to break away from all previous forms and conventions. It reflects the lack of order seen in a growing urban society, celebrates passion over reason, and questions traditional moralities.

7. Some Formal Characteristics of Modernist Literature
Open and Experimental Form
Discontinuity
Juxtaposition
Intertextuality
Classical Allusions
Borrowings From Other Cultures and Texts

8. Some Thematic Characteristics of Modernist Literature
Alienation of the individual and the artist
Society as fractured and culture as fragmented
Sense of dislocation and meaninglessness
Questioning the value of cultural norms
Rejecting recorded history and valuing the mythic
Focusing on the urban, the mundane, and the marginalized