1、20th century English literature,Modernism,Definition,excludes from the external, objecive, material world against realism expresses the inner feeling focuses on the viewpoint of a single confused individual irrational philosophy base as theoretical base,Blackground,Two World Wars impaired the power

2、of Britain,The two catastrophic(disasterous) World Wars severely weakened British power and brought great sufferings to its peple as well. The economic recession and mental depression impacted British severely. Many British were disappointed with capitalism.,Sun-never-set Empire finally collapsed,Bl

3、ackground,Marx and Engels issued Communist Manifesto Einstein put forward Theory of Relativity which renewed the concepts of time and space tremendously Great progress in philosophy: analytical philosophy, Non-rationalism philosophy,In 1848, Scientific Socialism emerged, guiding the class of workers

4、. Meanwhile,it also gave an illustration of reforming capitalism.,October Revolution in 1917(Russia) confirmed peoples belief.,Fiction,Leading writer,Virginia Woolf (1882-1941),English novelist, critic, essayist Born and brought up in upper-class and literary family. Bisexual, feminist, married once

5、 suffered from depression after her parents died.,Quotes,What is the meaning of life?. a simple question; one that tended to close in on one with years. The great revelation had never come. The great revelation perhaps never did come. Instead there were little daily miracles, illuminations(=enlightm

6、ent), matches struck unexpectedly in the dark.,Virgina and her devoted husband,Main Works,Mrs. Dalloway To the Lighthouse Orlando: A biography A Room of Ones Own,Stream of consciousness,(non-fiction work),Mrs. Dalloway To the Lighthouse Orlando: A biography A Room of Ones Own,literary technique whic

7、h was pioneered by Dorthy Richardson, Virginia Woolf, and James Joyce. Stream of consciousness is characterized by a flow of thoughts and images, which may not always appear to have a coherent(=clear) structure or cohesion. The plot line may weave in and out of time and place, carrying the reader th

8、rough the life span of a character or further along a timeline to incorporate(=combined) the lives (and thoughts) of characters from other time periods. Important character traits are revealed through an exploration of what is going on in the mind.,Leading writer,James Joyce (1882-1941),Irish noveli

9、st, famous for stream of the consciousness one of the founders of Postmodernism led a destitute and homeless life, suffer from eye illness,Main works,Ulysses Finnegans Wake,records a salesman Leopold Blooms a single day in June 16, 1904 in Dublin.,depicts a dream of Mr. Earwicker, a Dublin innkeeper

10、, in a dream language,extensive use of inter monolog with complex network of symbolic parallels creative use of invented words, puns(雙關(guān)語(yǔ)) and allusions（典故）.,Leading writer,D.H.Lawrence(1885-1930),British novelist, critic, poet,playwright(劇作家) and painter. called on natural life The greatest imaginat

11、ive novelist of our generation. by E.M.Foster especially controversial and some works were banned as pornographic(色情的).,Main Works,Sons and lovers( Lawrences finest achievement) The rainbow,lies in the psychological development of characters and in his energetic criticism of dehumanizing(喪失人性的) effe

12、ct of the capitalist industrialization on hunman nature.,a story about three generations of the Brangwen family on Marsh farm.,Poetry,Leading poet,William Butler Yeats(1865-1939),Irish poet, dramatist and prose writer a towering figure in 20th century literature in English, a master of traditional v

13、erse(=poetry) forms winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923, famous for poetry, always interested in mystical theories and images, the supernatural, the esoteric and the occult.,Main works,The Wild Swans at Coole(柯?tīng)柷f園) Michael Robartes and the Dancer The Tower,Leading poet,T.S Eliot(1888-19

14、65),American-English poet, dramatist and literary critic winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1948 Nothing Can Be Done, But Something Can Be Said,Main Works,The Waste Land Four Quarters(四重奏),Burnt Norton（焚毀的諾頓） East Coker The Dry Salvages Little Gidding(吉丁村),Time and eternity, history and the present, the intervention(=interference) of the divine(=priest) in hunman life and the possibility of reconciliation(=settlement),Theme,Drama,Main Dramatist,George Bernard Shaw(1856-1950),Irish dramatist, literary critic, socialist sopkenman the Fabian Society the resentment of English societ