Lecture 9 20世纪英国文学.pptVIP

英国文学史及作品选读 Lecture 8 20世纪英国文学 Two world wars, an intervening economic depression of great severity, and the austerity of life in Britain following the second of these wars help to explain the quality and direction of English literature in the 20th century. Modernism The Angry Young Men The Theatre of the Absurd The traditional values of Western civilization, which the Victorians had only begun to question, came to be questioned seriously by a number of new writers, who saw society breaking down around them. Traditional literary forms were often discarded, and new ones succeeded one another with bewildering rapidity, as writers sought fresher ways of expressing what they took to be new kinds of experience, or experience seen in new ways. In the meantime, the growth of science and technology in the 19th century had held forth the promise of a new and richer life. It became clear, however, that what people did with their discoveries and their newly found mechanical power would depend upon their ability to master themselves. With new inventions upsetting old ways, it became increasingly difficult to find order or pattern in life. People began to talk of the “machine age” and to ask whether it was wholly good. Could humankind trust science to bring about a better life? Other developments began to influence thought. Psychologists explored the mind and advanced varied and conflicting theories about it. Human behavior was no longer easily explainable. The new sciences of anthropology and sociology contributed to the upheaval of ideas. Religious controls and social conventions again were challenged. Naturally, there were changes in literary taste and forms. Old values were replaced by new values or were lost. Literature became pessimistic and experimental. 1. Modernism Modernism is a rather vague term which is used to apply to the works of a group of poets, novelists, painters, and musicians between 1900 and the early years after World War II. The term includes variou