20th century literature

1) Setting of the 20th century :

Hello everyone I am Dhruvita Dhameliya. I write this  Blog on 20th century literature as part of thinking activity given by our professor Dr.Dilip Barad. 

20th century's literature called Modern literature it is not that much old just 100 year old literature. There was time when development and progression as such as regression at material level. 

Feminism

Feminism start with this age because there was war in which many man dies and women have to fight for their lives and then they started for asking their rights in many fields such as voting, education and many other. There was time when life became too faster than any other age  many progression are there, scientific revolution are there and people come to know about the universal aspects and with world also.

women education

But there was spiritual regression and this thing reflected in literature. There was kind of literature talking about science, religion and history. For example ,

Wasteland written by T.S Eliot which talked about how explores life in London in the aftermath of the First World War.

The twentieth century was in contrast with the Victorian age. How Victorian ideals became stupidity in the twentieth century. Every aspect of life is changed with the industrial revolution and through the welfare state. The time has come to attract towards urbanization. So that's how we also understand the literature of that time. 

People become more religion and sentimental because there was such institutions to control them and support them.

Religion - priest /Pope

Politics - political party /leader

Home - father 

In which Home is the safe institution. But with the passing of the time idea of home start breaking and people started living life according to their values of life. There was development of motors and bikes. People have economic opportunities and there was Freedom in every field and people become economical also free so they started earning and living alone. During the Victorian time people are not able to accept the idea of breaking home so they feel it like suffering and meaningless but in 20th century this became easy for people to accept.

1)Political Agitation : 

Country like France don't allow people to do what they want to do then youth and college students start Agitation and they demand of change but government don't allow for political agitation.

According to A.C ward youth misuse the political right people like Hitler who misuse the power. Political demonstrations by untutored youth and someone control them by making law. For example in today's context we can say that youth express their agression towards rail and burn down it and government made new  law and decided to identify them and never give to job and announced them as criminal.

So politics is something which students should know and how it's work but political party never allow anybody to interfere in this and when someone try to know then they stopped by applying new law and restrictions. That is the thing which we found similar in every age of literature.

2) Anti victorianism : 

 

Victorian sociaty are very religious and table manners are very important - like how to chew and eat how sit at table but for modern people it was hypocrisy and it was like showoff. Victorian people have to do that because many other people do that.

Education system in Victorian era is not for all. But in modern time education is for all , people raise there voice and it become strong in modern era. For example there was writer like Hardy who speaks about current issue of the society but people don't listen him but in Victorian time people get idea about reality of life.

Interrogative habit of mind is developed in modern time - new people- modern people start questioning, examine and testing before believing in anything.

At this point, however, there is no need to distinguish between two groups of writers: the group that was already established in the first decade of the present century; and the group that had not so far begun to produce, but was shaping its ideas largely in conformity with a work which had no public impact, G E Moore's Principia Ethica (1903). 

     There are also two types of groups that are Fabianism, socialist movement and theory that emerged from the activities of the Fabian Society, and another one is Bloomsbury group of thinkers and writers.

Fabian society :

"ART FOR LIFE SAKE "

Fabian Society for the purpose of reconstructing British society on a non-competitive basis in order to secure its general welfare and happiness. The founding members included Edward Pease, Edith Nesbith, Hubert Bland, and Frank Podmore. Nine months later George Bernard Shaw became one of its most active members, and in May 1885, he invited two young Colonial Office clerks, Sidney Webb and Sydney Olivier to join the Society. 

Bloomsbury group : 

"ART FOR ART SAKE "

The Bloomsbury Group—or Bloomsbury Set—was a group of associated English writers, intellectuals, philosophers and artists in the first half of the 20th century, including Virginia Woolf, John Maynard Keynes, E.M. Forster and Lytton Strachey.

Bloomsbury style involves transforming, upcycling, and decorating everything that surrounds you, from painting the walls and doors to the wood furniture and even lamp bases and lamp shades.

In the first fifty years of the twentieth century the human race moved through a remarkable series of upheavals than during perhaps fifty generations in the past. Man's growing mastery of the physical world and its material resources is a story of ever-accelerating progress accompanied in its later phases by an unprecedented moral and spiritual relapse. Progress and regress, both, are fruits of the Scientific Revolution which has been the outstanding feature of this century. The perfecting of the internal combustion engine made possible the aeroplane and other means of mass slaughter in two world wars, with nuclear power to follow, bringing the threat of universal destruction though also the possibility of world protection by reason of the nation's saving fear of mutual annihilation.

The 20th century was like no time period before it. Einstein, Darwin, Freud and Marx were just some of the thinkers who profoundly changed Western culture. These changes took distinct shape in the literature of the 20th century. Modernism, a movement that was a radical break from 19th century Victorianism, led to postmodernism, which emphasized self-consciousness and pop art. While 20th century literature is a diverse field covering a variety of genres, there are common characteristics that changed literature forever. 

The early twentieth century was a period of extraordinary literary activity in England. The publishing industry was expanded and modernized as there was a huge demand for books. There were various reasons for this:

· Elementary education became universal

· The public library system was developed

· There was reaction against excessive working hours from the trade unions and laborers got vast increase in leisure.

Modernism is a comprehensive movement which began in the closing years of the 19th century and has had a wide influence internationally during much of the 20th century. reveals breaking away from established rules, traditions and conventions, fresh ways of looking at man’s position and function in the universe and many experiments in form and style. It is particularly concerned with language and how to use it and with writing itself. style or movement in the arts that aims to break with classical and traditional forms”

MODERNISM INCLUDES MANY “ISMS” :

Imagism: 

Imagism was a movement in early 20th-century Anglo-American poetry that favored precision of imagery and clear, sharp language. The Imagists rejected the sentiment and discursiveness of much Romantic and Victorian poetry. They wrote short poems that used ordinary language and free verse to create sharp, exact, concentrated pictures.

Symbolism: 

Symbolism in France began as a reaction against Naturalism and Realism, movements which attempted to objectively capture reality. The practice of representing things by means of symbols or of attributing symbolic meaning to objects, events or relationships.During the 20th century the use of symbolism became a major force in British literature. T. S. Eliot adapted it in the development of his individual style and praised it in his criticism.The most outstanding development of symbolism was in the art of the novel.

IMPRESSIONISM: 

The term ‘Impressionism’ comes from the school of mid- nineteenth century French painting. The impressionists made the act of perception the key for the understanding of structure of reality. They developed a technique by which objects were not seen as solids but as fragments of color which the spectator’s eye unified.It is representation of reality through impressions. I have put in image how are reflect this art with thought.

CUBISM :

A 20th century art movement that inspired other art forms. In cubist artworks, objects are broken up and reassemble into an abstract form.Cubist poetry attempts to do in verse what cubist painters.o on canvas; that is, take the elements of an experience, fragment them  (“destructions”), and then rearrange them in a meaningful new synthesis (“sum of destructions”).

DADAISM:

A nihilistic art movement especially in painting that flourished in Europe early in the 20th century.based on irrationality and negation of the accepted laws of beauty. It is a protest against the barbarism of warthe rejection of prevailing standards of art and ignored logical relationship between idea and statement, argued for absolute freedom,delivered itself of numerous provocative manifestoes. I have share image example of Dadaism. 

SURREALISM:

 A 20th century aesthetic, artisticn and cultural movement developed in France that attempts to express the workings of sub-conscious mind.They focused upon using all forms of art as a means to express the real functioning of human mind.

EXISTENTIALISM:

It is a concept that became popular during the Second World War in France. Existentialists believe that life is very difficult and that it doesn't have an "objective" or universally known value, but that the individual must create value by affirming it and living it, not by talking about it.

FUTURISM: 

In the 1920's and 1930's the term Futurism was loosely used to describe a wide variety of aggressively modern styles in art and literature.the futurists love speed, noise, machines, pollution and cities as they embraced the exciting new world that was then upon them.Futurist paintings were made to glorify life .Futurists developed to glorify urban life as well as machinery and industrialization.

Some famous modern writers are ,

Conclusion : 

This particular time we find that a lot of war poets are there who write a poem about war. Twentieth century literature is about individualism, stream of consciousness, to read against power and religion, science fiction, short stories about class distinction, about workers etc.

2) Dystopian Literature :

Dys - Bad (old Greek)

Topia - place ( old Greek)

What is opposite of a dystopia??

Utopia-  A place , state or condition that is ideally perfect in respect of politics, laws, customs and conditions.

What is dystopia in literature??

It is a world in which everything is imperfect and everything goes terribly wrong. Dystopian literature shows us a nightmarish image about what might happen to the world in the near future. Usually the main themes of dystopian works are rebellion, oppression, revolutions, wars, overpopulation and disaster.

Dystopian Literature explores the darkest facets of the human mind and human nature. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a dystopia is,

 "An imaginary place or condition in which everything is as bad as possible." 

The easiest way to think about Dystopian Literature and dystopias is to consider that a dystopia is often the result of a society's arranging its government and laws around good qualities for a perfect society, such as order, equality, and obedience, and taking those qualities to the absolute extreme. Dystopian Literature, while fiction, can also spookily echo our own past, present, and future. Dystopian Literature is one of the best genres to understand man's inhumanity to his fellow men. 

What’s the Difference Between Utopia and Dystopia?

The term “utopia” was coined by Sir Thomas More in his 1516 book Utopia, which was about an ideal society on a fictional island. Unlike utopian literature, dystopian literature explores the dangerous effects of political and social structures on humanity’s future.

What Is the Significance of Dystopian Fiction?

Dystopian novels that have a didactic message often explore themes like anarchism, oppression, and mass poverty. Margaret Atwood, one of literature’s most celebrated authors of dystopian fiction, thinks about it like this:

 “If you’re interested in writing speculative fiction, one way to generate a plot is to take an idea from current society and move it a little further down the road. Even if humans are short-term thinkers, fiction can anticipate and extrapolate into multiple versions of the future.”

Here are other reasons why dystopian fiction is significant in literature:

Dystopian fiction can be a way to educate and warn humanity about the dangers of current social and political structures. Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel The Handmaid’s Tale takes place in a futuristic United States, known as Gilead. It cautions against oppressive patriarchy.

Dystopian stories may convey an author’s beliefs. For example, H.G. Wells’ 1895 novel The Time Machine reflected Wells’ socialist views. The story follows a Victorian England scientist who builds a time machine and witnesses the pitfalls of a capitalist society.

Dystopian stories require a greater suspension of disbelief and can be very imaginative. For example, George Orwell’s allegory Animal Farm is about a group of pigs who stage a rebellion against their human farmer. The farm animals’ rise to power is based on the Russian Revolution.

Dystopian novels can also be satirical critiques. For example, the 1962 novel A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess is a social satire of behaviorism. It takes place in a futuristic society with a youth subculture of extreme violence. A totalitarian government protects society by prescribing good behavior and abolishing violent impulses.

Function of Dystopia : 

Through Dystopia authors express their concern about issues of humanity and society and warn the people about their weaknesses. Authors use Dystopia as a literary techniques. That might happen in the future. Thus the role of Dystopia in literary works is to educate and give awareness to the audience.

Characteristics of Dystopian Fiction   :

The central themes of dystopian novels generally fall under these topics:

1)Government control

2)Environmental destruction

3)Technological control

4)Survival

5)Loss of individualism

Government Control :

Government plays a big role in dystopian literature. Generally, there is either no government or an oppressive ruling body.

In George Orwell’s 1984, the world is under complete government control. The fictional dictator Big Brother enforces omnipresent surveillance over the people living in the three inter-continental superstates remaining after a world war.

Fiction: Technological Control :

Advanced science and technology in dystopian works go beyond tools for improving everyday life—technology is often depicted as a controlling, omnipresent force and is often used as a fear-mongering tactic.

Environmental Disaster :

Dystopian novels are often set in places that are inhabitable, have been destroyed, or are preparing for destruction.

Survival :

The oppressive powers and destruction in dystopian worlds often leave the inhabitants to fend for themselves.

Loss of Individualism :

How should the needs of society as a whole compare to individual needs? Many dystopian futures depict the dangers of conformity.