MODERNISM (THE 1st HALF OF THE 20ш CENTURY
The flourishing of modernism dates back to the 20 - 30ss of the 20 century.
The non- realistic trends and tendencies of the late 19th century were taken up and furthered by a new generation of writers who were called modernists. Naturally the name of the trend comes of the word "modern" - something new and fresh. It differs from realism in many basic ways:
1) Unlike realists who viewed human characters as social types , predetermined by the environment, modernists saw the cause of human actions in man's subconscious or subliminal sphere.
2) Unlike realists who in their works portrayed people against more or less wide social background, modernists concentrated on man's inner world, thoughts and feelings. For this purpose they elaborated a special tecnnf&jue known as. "a stream of consciousness" ("техника потока сознания").
Modernists recorded the innermost emotions of human heart and soul. For this work they worked out a special technique, related to that of stream of consciousness - "an interior monologu e" ("внутренний монолог").
The Vf ry term "stream of consciousness" is a phrase which describes the unspoken thoughts and feelings of the character without resorting to objective description or conventional dialogue and often without logical sequence or syntax.
Modernism was both a period in art and a literary trend. Modernists in their treatment of human characters were influenced by the ideas of the Austrian scientist and psychologist Zigmund Freud [froid] (1856 -1939). He split human nature into three levels:
The Super Ego (Сверх Я) - the sphere of the social morals, conventions,
laws, according to which man in society has to live
---------------------------------.----------------------------------------- .——_---------- ,--------------
the Ego (Я) - this is a part of human aspect which combines both the Super Ego and the Id
the Id (Подсознательное) - the subconscious, subliminal sphere of human
basic instincts (like that of surviving)
Freud stressed that human nature is to a great extent influenced by these basic instincts. Very often the Id and the Super Ego are in conflict. And the Ego is a kind of field for their struggle. Such a conflict became the conflict of the new modernist literature (something like - "My instincts, feelings, emotions (the Id) want this, but the society (the Super Ego) is against").
Many of Freud's ideas acquired a vulgarized (легализированный, упрощённый) treatment in literary works. The most widely known of these conflicts are the Oedipus fidip3s] complex (the child's attraction to the parent of the opposite sex), the Death wish, the phallic symbol, etc. _
In accordance with Freud's ideas modernists attached great importance to the experiences -impressions - of man's childhood. Their narration is very often based associations rather than on logical grounds.
3) Unlike realists who strived to make their novels comprehensive to as many readers as possible, modernists meant their works for the "select few" - for the " h i g h -» b r A w i n t e 11 e с t u a 1 s " , the "elite", because their works abounded in historical, literary, mythological and other kinds of allusions (аллюзии).
The most prominent representatives of the English modernists were: . ' 1) James Joyce (Джеймс Джойс) (1882- 1941);
2) Virginia Woolf (Вирджиния В у л ф ) (1882 - 1941);
3) David Herbert Lawrence (Дэвид Герберт Лоуренс) (1885 - 1930);
4) Aldous Huxley (Олдос Хаксли) (1894 - 1963) The most prominent modernist poets were:
1) Thomas Eliot (Томас Элиот) (1888 - 1965);
2) Ezra Pound (Эзра Пзунд) (1885 - 1972).
James Joyce was born in Dublin. His father was an unbeliever (a Protestant), his mother -a devoted Catholic. This conflicted religious background is depicted in his works. He studied at a Catholic Jesuit College. Then'he entered Dublin U n i v e r s i t у (literature and history). His youth coincided with the so called Irish r e v i v a I , i. e. an attempt of the Irish intellectuals to develop the Irish culture and art. It was closely connected with the political struggle for the Irish independence. Although James Joyce shared the ideas ofthe movement, he nevertheless refused to join it, as he thought that a real artist should be "above the battle", that he should not be involved in any political struggle, that he should not take sides, because it would impose some dependence on him, it would deprive him of his creative freedom. That was the reason why he left Ireland in 1904 and spent the rest of his life on the Continent (Fiance, Switzerland). He visited Ireland only once "He left Ireland forever to come back to it on every page of his novels."
His life was very dramatic. He did not write very much. Besides he underwent a family drama, when his daughter became mentally ill. He had many financial problems. All this did not make him healthier. At the end of his life he got blind.
His best known works are the collections of stories "The Dublin ers" ("Дублинцы") (1914), which in.5 volumes depicted the atmosphere of Dublin ofthe beginning of the 19th century with its philistinism, bigotiy (ханжество) and hypocrisy. Some stories tell ofthe lost hopes and frustrations. It was in these stories that the writer worked out the device which later on became widely known and used by other writers -- the device of implication and understatement.
The implication is especially important in the episodes with epiphanies (a religious term), when some insignificant detail or episode gives an impetus to some important thought or resolution.
His next work was the autobiographical novel "A Portrait ofthe Artist as a Young Man" ("Портрет художника в юности") (1916), where the life story of the protagonist Stephen Dedalus is to a great extent based on the writer's own life experience. Stephen Dedalus is a meaningful name: Dedalus (Дедал) is the name of the mythological character who was a talented craftsman, engineer. He was taken in prison by tsar Minos ( M и н о с ), was brought to Crete (остров Крит), where he built the famous Labyrinth. But feeling that he could no longer create in captivities, Dedalus tried to escape from the island by making a pair of wings for. himself and for his son Icarus (Икар). The symbolic meaning - implication -ofthe name is that Joyce's Stephen Dedalus also did not want to live "in prison". Stephen is also not just a casual name for the character. Stephen was the first name of a Christian martyr (мученик), who was stoned to death for his beliefs and his attempts to attract people to Christianity.
By its contents - subject matter - this novel is a typical Bildungsroman ("роман воспитан и я " ), as it traces the f о r matron of a man from the very young years. But this novel is very untraditional by its f о r m , tending to the stream of consciousness technique (the record ofthe character's inner thoughts, emotions, etc.). The main themes of this novel are the following ones:
1) family;
2) religion;
3) motherland;
4) art.
This novel was a sort of introduction of James Joyce's major work - the novel "Ulysses" [ju'lisiz] ("Улисс") (1921). This is a very bulky and complex work which has several levels. It's based on Homer's "Odyssey" (Гомер, "Одиссея"). The title of the novel is the Latin version of Homer's hero Odyssey. But by its subject matter the novel has nothing to do with the ancient hero and ancient Greece. It describes one day of life of its main character - a small Dublin clerk
Leopold Bloom, of a young teacher Stephen Dedalus and of Leopold's wife Marion or Molly. The book contains a minute record of the perceptions, thoughts, impressions of the many characters caused by the events and incidents of this day. Apart from being a minute record of the events of the day as they are seen by the main characters, James Joyce conceived the novel as an allegory of human existence as a constant search for moral values and self - fulfillment. The three characters who are counterparts to Homer's characters( Odyssey - Leopold Bloom, Penelopa - Molly, Telemachus (Телемах) - Stephen Dedalus) can be viewed as the three main beginnings of human nature:
1) maternal (материнское начало);
2) paternal (отцовское начало);
3) filial (сыновнее начало).
The comparison with Homer's "Odyssey" (heroic and adventurous) stressed the prosaic and dull existence of modern people.
The novel is very hard to follow, it is very complicated, long (because of the many allusions, associations, etc.). Actually the novel paved the way for the destruction of the genre and literary form. And some critics and scholars thought that this would be the future of literature, for no other writer managed to further Joyce's experimentation. A British critic said that the novel was a "monster", and like every monster it did not have progeny (потомство). We could say that this idea is quite true.
Joyce's last novel "Finnegan's Wake" ("Поминки по Финнегану") (1939) is still even more complicated, full of allusions, symbolism, etc.
James Joyce made a great, enormous influence on contemporary English and world literature, because he enriched the form and matter of the traditional genre of the novel.
Virginia Woolf had a very dramatic life, at the end of which she committed suicide. She was a great admirer of James Joyce. Yet her writing was quite different from his. All her novels demonstrate that the events and happenings of practical living are the least important part of life for her. Her problem is the projection of mental processes, the subordination of actions to private thoughts and feelings. She is called the master of the psychological school and her manner of writing resembles the impressionistic technique of painting.
She was a real intellectual for her times and came from a very intellectual family as well. So her father was a publisher, critic, writer. She and her organized the famous Bloomsbury Group - a kind of home club which united and gathered people of art, literature and critics for discussions and meetings. Her most famous novels are:
"Mrs. Dalloway" ("Миссис Дэллоуэй") (1925); "To the Lighthouse" ("К маяку") (1927) - this novel renders the thoughts and impressions of several members of The Ramsay family at different stages of life; "The Waves" ("Волны") (1931); "The Years" ("Годы") (1937).
David Herbert Lawrence came from a mining family. His father was a miner and his mother was a former school teacher. The drama of his parents' life - the conflicts between his drinking father and his intellectual mother, who was very unhappy - told on his own life and on his literary world, as it was the relations between the two sexes and the role of love and sex in human life that constitute the main themes of his novels.
His manner of writing is more traditional in comparison with that of Joyce's and Woolf s. So some scholars call him a realist. But the psychological subtlety as well as his basic understanding of man a subconscious being, guided mostly by his subconsciousness, place Lawrence among modernists. What is man? He is a human being whose actions are predetermined by his subconsciousness, not society (as realists insisted). In this view Lawrence was a real disciple of Zigmund Freud.
His novel "Sons and Lovers" ("Сыновья и любовники") (1913) can be considered a talented illustration of the Oedipus complex. His other novels deal with sex and love:
"The WhitePeacock" ("Белый павлин") (1911);
"The Rainbow" ("Радуга") (1915);
"Women in Love" ("Влюблённые женщины") (1920); "Kangaroo" ("Кенгуру") (1923);
"Lady Chatterley's Lover" ("Любовник леди Чаттерлей") (1928) - the heroine abandons his husband and yields to her flesh. Lawrence showed the eternal desire to love and to be loved. He showed the relations between sexes as a constant struggle. He was often accused of immorality, because Great Britain was in grips ov Victorian morals. After World War II the publication of his novel "Lady Chatterley's Lover " brought about a public scandal, the publishers were brought before the court for advertising and propagating immorality. So he was considered a taboo writer.
Aldous Huxley was noted for the cynicism in his works. They showed that the writer did not believe in man. This grim view on the future of mankind is strongly felt in the writer's well known novel "Brave New World" ("Прекрасный новый мир") (1932).
Thomas Eliot's poetry is permeated with the fear of the reality, the disappointment with life and its values.