The20thBritishLiterature资料.pptVIP

PART IXTWENTIETH CENTURY LITERATURE THE TRANSITION FROM 19TH TO 20TH CENTURY IN ENGLISH LITERATURE Background of History The long and progressive reign of Queen Victoria came to a climax in the Diamond Jubilee Year(1897), a time of peace and plenty when the British Empire seemed to be at summit of its power and security. Of the discord that soon followed we shall here note only two factors which had large influence on contemporary English literature. . The first disturbing factor was imperialism, the reawakening of a dominating spirit which had seemingly been put to sleep by the proclamation of an Imperial Federation. Another factor that influenced literature for the worse was a wide spread demand for social reform of every kind; not slow and orderly reform, which is progress, but immediate and intemperate reform, which breeds a spirit of rebellion and despair. Literary Reactions Imperialism had its outstanding advocate in Kipling, who with drum and trumpet called upon England to “ take up the White Man’s burden ” by dominating all “ lesser breeds without the law.” Social reform had its advocates by the score, not in censorious essays only, following the example of Carlyle, but also in fiction, in verse, and especially in drama. The end of the 19th century is a period of struggle between realistic and anti-realistic trends in art and literature. The growth of anti-realistic art and literature reflected the crisis of bourgeois culture at the period of imperialism. R.L Stevenson Oscar Wilde The English realists of the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries continued and developed the traditions of their predecessors Dickens Thackeray Bronte Gaskell The later realists excelled in revealing the characters from a psychological point of view G. Meredith T. Hardy J. Galsworthy H.G. wells S. Butler THOMAS HARDY(1840-1928) Thomas Hardy, last and one of the great