Chapter 12
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
OR
THE MODERN AGE
Chief Characteristics of the Age
(i) Art for Life’s Sake—The writers of this period rejected the doctrine
of “art for art’s sake”. They evolved the new literary creed of “art of life’s
sake.” The chage of outlook in the beginning of twentieth century was due to
the growth of restless desire to probe and question. G.B. Shaw vigorously
attacks the “Old superstition of religion” and the “new supersition of science.”
(ii) The Influence of Radio and Cinema—The development of radio,
cinema and television had an enormous impact on literature. According to
Edward Albert, “In so far as the radio brought literature into the home in the
form of broadcast stories, plays and literary discussions and opened up an
entirely new field for authors, its influence was, for the good. At the same time
it must be remembered that film techniques were the basis of a number of
experiments in the novel.
(iii) Realism and Symbolism—The new poetry is a poetry of reovlt,
resulting largely from the impact of science. Realism in subject matter had led
the modern poet to reject the highly ornate and artificial poetic style of romantics
in favour of a language, which resembles closely the language of everyday
life.
Every language has some words which are not merely connotative but
also emotive and evocative. These words are known as symbols. Symbol is a
literary ornament of language. It evokes before the mental eye a multitude
ideas of thoughts and feelings. According to Webster, “Symbol is especially a
visible sing for something invisible as an idea, quality, a totality such as a state
or a church.”
A symbol means “mark”, “sign”, or token. It means presentation of some
hidden thing there and apparent thing. Arnold Houser writes “Symbolic
Language is the language in which the word outside is a symbol at the inside,
a symbol of our soul and mind.”
Through symbols a poet can express much more than by the use of ordinary
words. It increases the expressive parea of writer and provides an ability for
communicating highly abstract and metaphysical truths, which do not find
expression in the ordinary words. Therefore, it is an indispensible and
ornamental factor of the language. A symbol may be an image, a metaphor, a
simile, or any other figure of speech or it may be all these together. A literary
symbol embodies an image with a concept, for example, a lily is a symbol of
innoccence and simplicity, a rose of beauty, a dove of peace.
Baudeline was the pioneer of this movement mallarine, Verbaline and
Rimbaul also played signficant parts in this movement. The Symbolist
movement in modern poetry has a special significance. The important English
symbolists are W.B. Yeats, T.S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas and W.H. Auden.
According to Yeats, “A symbol embodies vision and represents reality which
is unchangeable. Symbolism deepens the philosophy and enables the artist to
grapple with divine reality. With the help of symbols deeper effects can be
created and subtler shades can be expressed.”
To W.J. Tyndale Yeats was a symbolist from beginning of his career to
the end. Arthur Symons dedicated his book “The Symbolist Movement in
Literature” to W.B. Yeats and called him “The chief representative of that
movement in our county,” W.B. Yeats himself wrote in “Upon A Dying Lady.”
I have no speeck but symbol, the pagan speech I made amid the dreams of
youth.
Yeats was influenced by the French symbolists, but he was a symbolist
poet long before he had heard of French. He based his symbolism upon the
poetry of Blake, Shelley and Rossetti.
“In the Vision”, the earth, the water, the air, and the fire are symbols of
the four ages of individual man as well as the four ages of civilization.
“He with body wages a flight,
Body won and walks uppright
Then he struggled with the heart,
Innocence and peace depart,
Then he struggled with the mind,
His proud heart he left behind,
Now his wars with God begins
At stroke of midnight God shall win.”
In the later poems like “the Tower” and “The Winding Stair” the tower
and stair are both traditional and presonal symbols.
Poetry in the Modern Age
1. The Transitional Poets
1. Alfred Austin (1835-1913).
2. W.E. Henley (1849-1903)—A Book of Verse (1888), The Song of the
Sword (1892), HOwawthom and Lavender (1899), For England’s Sake (1900).
3. John Davidson (1857-1908)—Fleet Street Eclogues, Ballads and
Songs.
4. William Waston (1858-1935)—Lachrymae Musarum, Lyric Love, The
Father of the Forest, The Eloping Angels, Odes and Other poems, The Year of
Shame, Collected Poems and The Heralds of Dawn.
5. Francis Thompson (1859-1907)—The Hound of Heaven, Sister Songs,
New Poems.
6. Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)—Barrack Room Ballads, The Seven
Seas, The Five Nations, Inclusive Verse and Poems.
7. Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)—Wessex Poems (1898), Poems of the
Past and the Present (1901), The Dynasts (Part I to III 1903-1908), Time’s
Laughing Stocks (1909), Satires of Circumstance (1914), Moments of Vision
and Miscellaneous Verse (1917), Late Lyrics and Earlier (1922), Songs and
Trifles (1925), Winter Words (1928), The Dynasts.
8. Robert Bridges (1844-1930)—Shorter Poems, Prometheus, The Fire
Giver (1884), Eros and Psyche (1894), Demeter (1905), The Poetical Works
of Robert Bridges (1898, 1905), The Growth of Love, The Purcell
Commemoration Ode, New Poems, Poems in Classical Prosody, Later Poems,
The Testament of Beauty (1929).
9. A.E. Housman (1859-1936)—A Shrophsire Lad (1896), Last Poems
(1922), More Poems (1936).
2. The Imagists
Just before the first world war there was a reaction against Georgian poetry.
This reaction is represented by a group of poets who called themselve ‘Imagists’
because their aim was to reperesent real life in images that were clear, precise
and exact. The founder of this School was T.E. Hulme (1833-1917), and his
famous disciple Ezra Pound insisted that “poetry should restrict itself to the
world perceived by the senses and to the presentation of its themes in a
succession of concise, clearly visualized concrete images, accurate in detail
and precise in significance”. Ezra Pound and Edith Sitwell are two most
original poets of this School.
The Imagist Movement flourished from 1910 to 1918. Its first anthology
‘Des Imagists’ was published in 1914 by Ezra Pound. Its contributiors were
Richard Aldington. Hilda Doolittle, Amy Lowell, William Carlos James,
James Joyce, Ford Madox Ford.
Army Lowell’s anthology, Some Imagist Poets (1915) was the first great
landmark in Imagism.
Richard Aldington—Images of Desire (1914), Images Old and New
(1915), Images of War (1919), Collected Poems (1929-1934).
F.S. Flint—Cadences (1915).
Ezra Pound—Personae (1926), Selected Poems (1928).
About this aims of Imagism, Albert Pinto writes—
(i) To create new rhythms and not to copy old rhythms, which merely
The Twentieth Century 83. 84. A HAND BOOK OF VIVA-VOCE
echo old moods.... They (the Imagists) aimed at the clarity and concentration
of the Classic Chinese lyric and the Greek epigram.
(ii) To us the language of common speech but to employ always the exact
word, not the merely exact, not the merely decorative word.
3. The War Poets
Rupert Brooke (1887-1915)—Collected Poems, The Soldier.
Wilfred Owen (1893-1918)—Collected Poems.
Siegfried Sassoon—Counter-attack (1918).
Charles Scerley—Into Battle, Break of Day in the Trenches.
4. The Georgian Poets
1. Walder de la Mare (1873-1956)—The Listeners and Other Poems
(1912), Peacock Pie (1913), The Fleeting and Other Poems (1933), Bells and
Grass (1941), Collected Poems (1942), The Burning Glass and Other Poems
(1945), The Traveller (1946).
2. W.H. Davies (1879-1940)—The Soul’s Destroyer and Other Poems
(1905), New Poems (1907), Collected Poems (1916, 1928, 1934), Love Poems
(1935).
3. John Masefield (1878-1967)—The Salt Water Ballads (1902), The
Everlasting Mercy. The Widow of the Bye Street, Dauber, The Daffodil Fields,
Reynard, The Fox, Right Royal, Mid-summer Night, Collected Poems, England
Beginning and Wondering Sea Fever, Cargoes, The Seekers Sea Change.
4. James Elory Flecker (1884-1915)—The Bridge of Fire, Forty-two
Poems, The Golden Journey to Samarkand, The Old Ships.
5. Edard Thomas (1878-1917)—
6. Ralph Hodgson (1871-1962)—The Bull (1913), Eve and Other Poems
(1913), The Song of Honour (1913), Poems (1917), The Skylark and other
Poems (1958), Collected Poems (1961).
7. W.W. Gibson (1878-1962)—Collected Poems, The Golden Helm, The
Note of Love, Stone Fields, Daily Bread, Fires, Thoroughfares, Borderland
Battle, Likelihood, Home and Neighbours, I Heard A Sailor, The Golden
Broom, Hazards.
8. John Drinkwater (1882-1937)—Poems of Men and Hour, Poems of
Love and Earth.
9. Harold Monro (1872-1932)—
10. Alfred Noyes (1880-1958)—Drake Tales of Mermaid Tavern, Torchbearers.
11. G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936)—The Wild Knight and Other Poems,
The Ballad of White Horse, Wine, Water and Song, The Ballad of St. Barbara,
Lepanto.
12. Lascelles Abercrombie (1881-1938)—Interludes and Poems.
5. Modern Poets
1. W.B. Yeats (1865-1939)—Wandering of Oisin (1889), The Wind
Among the Reeds (1809), The Shadowy Water, The Lake Isle of Innisfree,
The Green Helmet and Other Poems (1910), Responsibilities, The Wild Swans
at Coole (1919), The Tower (1928), The Winding Stair (1933), New Poems
(1938), Last Poems (1939).
2. Gerald Manley Hopkins (1844-1899)—Collected Poems (1948).
3. Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888-1965)—The Egoist (1917-19), Prufrock
and Other : Observations (1917), Gerontion, The Waste Land (1922), The
Hollow Man (1925), Ash Wednesday (1930), Four Quartels (1949).
4. Edith Sitwell—The Wooden Peagsus (1920), Bucolic Comedies, Street
Songs, Green Song, Song of the Gold.
5. Richard Church—News from the Mountain, The Twentieth Psalter,
The Flying Terrapin, Adamastor.
6. Herbert Reade—Naked Warriors, Collected Poems.
6. The Oxford Poets
1. W.H. Auden (1907-73)—The Shield of Achilles (1949), Homage to
Clio (1960), About the House (1966), In Memory of W.B. Yeats.
2. Stephen Spender (1909)—Vienna (1934), The Still Centre (1939)
Ruins and Visions (1942), Poems of Dedication (1946), The Edge of Being
(1949), World Within a World (1951).
3. Cecil Day Lewis (1898-1963)—The Poetic Image (1947), From
Feathers to Iron (1931), The Magnetic Mountain (1935), A Time For Dance
(1935), Overtunes to Death (1938), World Over (1943), An Italian Visit (1953),
Christian Eve (1954), Peagsus (1957).
4. Louis Mac Neice (1907-1963)—The Earth Compels (1939), Plant and
Phanton (1941), The Burnt Offerings (1952), Autumn Sequel (1954), The Other
Wing (1954), Visitations (1957), Eighty Five Poems (1959), Solstices (1961),
The Burning Perch (1963).
7. Neo-Romanticists
1. Dylan Thomas (1914-53)—Eighteen Poems (1934), Twenty Five
Poems (1936), Deaths and Entrances (1946), Collected Poems (1952), Milk
Wood (1953).
2. George Barker (1913 )—Thirty Preliminary Poems (1933), Eros in
Dogma (1944), News of the World (1950), The True Confession of George
Barker (1950), A Vision of Beasts and Gods (1954), The Golden Chains (1968).
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8. Apocalyptic Poets
The famous Apocalyptic poets were G.F. Henry, Henry Treece, Nicholas
Moore, G.S. Fraser, Tom Scott Vernon Watkins’ work are : The Death
Bell, Cypress and Acacia (1959), Affinities (1962), The Lady with the Unicorn.
9. The Moment Poets
The Moment Poets include Kingsley, Annis, John Holloway, Donald
Devie, Philip Larkin, Thomas Gunn and Elizabeth Jennings.
Elizabethan Jennings—A Way of Looking (1955), A Sense of the World
(1958), Song for a Birth or A Death (1962).
Philip Larkin—The Less Deceived (1955), Deceptions, At Grass.
Kingsley Annies—A Frame of Mind (1953).
Thomas Gunn—Fighting Terms (1954), The Sense of Movement (1957),
My Sad Captains (1961).
10. Other Poets
Roy Campbell (1901-57)—The Flaming Thrapin (1924), Adamostor
(1930), Flowering Rifle (1939), Nativity (1954).
Kathleen Raine—Stone Flower (1943), Living in Time (1946), The
Hollow Hill (1964), On A Deserted Shore (1973).
Edwin Muir—The Chorus of the Newly Dead (1926), The Voyage (1946).
William Empson—The Gathering Storm (1940).
Laurence Durrell—Private Country (1943), Cities, Plains and People
(1946), On Seeming to Presume (1948), The Tree of Idleness (1955).
Sir John Bet Jeman—Mount Zion (1933), Continual Dew (1937), Old
Light for New Chancels (1940), New Bats in Old Belfries (1944), A Few Late
Chrysanthemums (1954).
Prose in the Twentienth Century
1. Essay Writers
1. G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936)—His reputation as an essayist rests on
Heretics (1905), All Things Considered (1908), Tremendous Trifles (1909).
The Pleasures of Ignorance, The Little Angel.
2. Hilaire Belloc (1870-1953)—Path to Rome, Marie Antoinetee and
History of England, On Nothing, On Something and On Everything.
3. E.V. Lucas (1868-1938)—Character and Comedy (1907), Old Lamps
for New (1911), Lotterer’s Harvest (1913), Cloud and Silver (1916).
4. A.G. Gardiner (1865-1946)—Pebbles on the Shore (1917), Leaves in
the Wind (1920).
5. Robert Lynd (1879-1949)—Ireland : A Nation (1919), Olde and New
Masters (1919), The Art of Letters and Dr. Johnson & Company (1927), Other
Workds are Irish & English, Rambles in Ireland, The Book of This and That,
The Pleasures of Ignorance, Life’s Little Odclities.
6. Max Beerbohm (1872-1956)—The Works of Max Beerbohn (1896),
More (1899), Yet Again (1909), And Even Now (1920), Mainly on the Air
(1946).
7. W.H. Hudson—The Naturalist in La Plata (1892), Idle Days in
Pantagonia (1893).
8. Lord Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)—The Philosophy of Leibnitz
(1900), Principles of Social Reconstruction (1917), Mysticism and Logic
(1918), The Analysis of Mind (1921), The Conquest of Happiness (1930),
The Scientific Outlook (1931), Authority and the Individual (1949).
9. J.B. Priestley—I for one (1923), Open House (1927), Apes and Angels
(1928), The Balconinny and other Essays (1929), Self Selected Essays (1937).
10. Verginia Woolf—The Death of the Moth (1942), The Moment (1947).
11. Aldous Huxley—Along the Road (1925), Essays New and Old (1926),
Holy Face and Other Essays (1929), Music At Night (1931).
Criticism in Twentieth Century
1. T.S. Eliot—The Use of Poetry and Use of Criticism, Elizabethan Essays
(1934), After Strange Gods (1934), Points of View (1941), What is a Classic
(1945), The Sacred Wood.
2. Lytton Stratchey (1880-1932)—Eminent Victorians (1918), Queen
Victoria (1921), Elizabeth and Essex (1928), Portraits in Miniature (1931).
3. T.E. Lawrence—The Seven Pillars of Wisdom (1926).
Fiction in Twentieth Century
1. Joseph Conrad—Almayer’s Folly, An Outcast of the Islands (1896),
The Nigger of Narcissus (1897), Lord Jim : A Tale (1900), Chance (1914),
Shadow Lines—A Confession (1917), The Rescue—A Romance of the
Shallows (1920), The Arrow of Gold (1919), The Rover (1923), Suspense, A
Napoleonic Novel (1925).
2. George Moore (1852-1933)—A Modern Lover (1883), Esther Waters
(1994), A Mummeris Wife (1884), Evelyn Inns (1888), Sister Teresa (1901),
The Brook Kerith (1916).
3. H.G. Wells (1886-1946)—H.G. Wells was the pioneer of scientific
fiction in the twentieth century. The Time Machine (1895), The Invisible Man
(1897), The War of the Worlds (1898), The First Man in the Moon (1901),
The Food of the Gods (1904), Kipps (1905), Tons-Bungay (1909), The History
of Mr. Polly (1910), The New Macheavelli (1911), The World of Mr. Clirold
(1926), Marriage (1912), The Passionate Friends (1913), The Autocracy of
Mr. Parham (1930), Brynhild (1937), Apropos of Dolores (1938), The Holy
Terror (1939).
The Twentieth Century 87. 88. A HAND BOOK OF VIVA-VOCE
4. John Galsworthy (1867-1933)—The Man of Property (1906), In
Chancery (1920), To Let (1921), The Forsyte Sage (1922).
5. Arnold Bennet (1867-1931)—The Old Wives’ Tales (1908),
Clayhanger (1910), Hilda Lessways (1911), These Twain (1916).
6. Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)—Kim (1901).
7. E.M. Forster (1879-1970)—Where Angels Fear to Tread (1905), The
Longest Journey (1907), A Room with A View (1908), Howard’s End (1910),
A Passage to India (1924).
8. William Somerset Maugham (1874-1965)—Liza of Lambeth (1897),
Of Human Bondage (1915), The Moon and Sixpence (1919), The Painted
Veil (1925), Cakes and Ale (1930), The Razor’s Edge (1944).
9. Aldous Leonard Huxley (1894-1963)—Chrome Yellow (1921), Antic
Hey (1923), Those Barren Leaves (1925), Point Counter Point (1928), The
Brave New World (1932), Gaza (1936), After Many a Summer, Time Must
Have a Stop (1944).
10. Hugh Walpole (1884-1941)—Mr. Perrin and Mr. Traill, Rogue Herrie
Sinister Street.
11. D.H. Laurence (1885-1930)—The Rainbow (1915), The White
Peacock (1911), The Trespassers (1912), Sons and Lovers (1913), Rod (1922),
Kangaroo (1923), The Boy in the Bush (1924), Plumed Serpent (1926), Lady
Chatterley’s Lover (1928).
Stream of Conscious Novelists
1. Dorothy Miller Richardson (1873-1957)—Painted Roofs (1915).
2. James Joyee (1882-1941)—The Dubliners (1914), A Portrait of the
Artist As a Youngman (1916), Ulysses (1922), Finnegans (1939).
3. Virginia Woolf (1882-1941)—The Voyage Out, Night and Day, Jacob’s
Room (1922), Mrs. Dalloway (1925), To The Lighthouse (1927), The Waves,
Flush (1933), The Year (1937), Orlando, A Biography (1928), Between the
Acts (1941).
4. Elizabeth Bowen (1899-1973)—The Hotel (1927), The House in Paris
(1935), The Death of the Heart (1938).
5. Ivy Compton Burnett (1892-1969)—Brothers and Sisters (1929), Men
and Wives (1931), Daughters and Sons (1937), Parents and Children (1941),
Elders and Betters (1944).
6. Wyndham Lewis (1884-1957)—Tarr (1912), The Childermass (1928),
The Apes of God (1930).
7. Rebeca West’s—The Return of the Soldier, The Judge.
Other Novelists
1. J.B. Priestley’s (1894-1984)—The Good Companions (1929), Angel
Pavement (1930), Let the People Sing (1939), Daylight on Saturday (1943),
Bright Day (1946), Festival at Farbridge (1951).
2. Comption Macknezie (1883-1972)—Carnival (1912), Sinister Street
(1913-14), The Altar Steps (1922), The Parson’s Progress (1923), The Heavenly
Ladder (1924), the Monarch of the Gleen (1941), Whisky Galore (1947).
3. Robert Graves (1895-1985)—I, Claudius (1934), count Belisarius
(1938), Wife of Mr. Milton (1943), The Golden Fleece (1944).
4. Christopher Isherwood—Mr. Morris Changes Train (1935), Goodbye
to Berlin (1939).
5. Graham Greene (1904-1995)—It is a Battlefield (1934), England Made
Me (1935), Brighton Rock (1938), The Power and The Glory (1940), The
Heart of the Matter (1948), The End of the Affair (1951), The Quiet American
(1955).
A Burnt Out Case (1961), The Comedians (1966), Travels with my Aunt
(1969), Shades of Greene (1976).
6. Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966)—Decline and Fall (1928), Vile Bodies
(1930), A Black Mischief (1932), Scoop (1938), Put Out More Flags (1942),
Brideshead Revisited (1945), Sword of Honour Triology—Men at Arms (1952),
Officers and Gentlemnan (1955), Unconditional Surrender (1961).
7. Henry Green (1905-69)—Living (1929), Caught (1943), Concluding
(1948), Doting (1952).
8. George Orwell (1903-50)—Burmese Days (1934), The Road to Wigan
Pier Animal Farm (1945), Nineteen Eighty Four (1949).
9. Sir Charles Percy Snow (1905-2001)—Strangers and Brothers (1940),
Time of Hope (1950), Home Affair (1956), The Light and the Dark (1947),
The Masters (1951), The Affair (1960), The New Man (1954), The Conscience
of the Rich (1958), The Corridor of Power (1964).
10. William Golding—Lord of the Flies (1954), The Inheritors (1955),
Pincher Martin (1956), Free Fall (1959), The Scorpion God (1971).
11. Laurence Durrell—Justine (1957), Balthazar (1958), Mount Olive
(1958).
12. Joyce Cary (1888-1957)—Mister Johnson (1939), The Horse’s Mouth
(1944), Prisoner of Grace (1952), Except the Lord (1953), Not Honour More
(1955).
13. William Cowper—Scenes From Provincial Life (1950), Scenes From
Married Life (1961), The Ever-Interesting Topic (1953), Memories of a New
Man (1966), Love on the Coast (1973), You’re Not Alone (1976).
14. Kingsley Amis (1922 )—Lucky Jim (1954), The Uncertain Feeling
(1955), Take A Girl Like You (1960).
15. Alan Silbitoe (1920)—Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1958),
The Twentieth Century 89. 90. A HAND BOOK OF VIVA-VOCE
The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1959), The Death of William
Posters (1966), A Start in Life (1970), The Widower’s Son (1976).
Drama in the Twentieth Century
1. The Realistic Drama
1. Henry Arthur James (1851-1929)—Silver King.
2. Sir A.W. Pinero (1851-1929)—Weaker Sex, The Second Mrs.
Tanqueracy, The Notorious Mrs. Abbsmith, The Magistrate, The Fantastics,
Iris, Mid Channel.
3. John Galsworthy (1867-1933)—The Silver Box (1906), Strife (1909),
Justice (1910), The Skin Game (1920), Loyalties (1922).
4. G.B. Shaw (1856-1950)—Plays : Pleasant and Unpleasant (1898),
The Widowers Houses (1892), Mrs. Warrens Pofession (1894), The Philanderer
(1893), Arms and the Man (1894), Candida (1895), The Man of Destiny (1895),
You Never can Tell (1897), The Devil’s Disciple (1897), Caesar and Cleopatra
(1898), Man and Superman (1903), Major Barbara (1905), The Doctor’s
Dilemma (1906), Getting Married (1908), Androcles and the Lion, Pygmalion
(1912), Back to Methuselah (1921), St. Joan (1923), The Apple Cart (1929),
Too True to be Good (1932), The Millionaires (1936), Geneva, Buoyant Billions
(1949).
5. Harley Granville Barker (1877-1946)—The Moving of Ann Leete
(1899), The Voyasey Inheritance (1905), Waste (1907), The Madras House
(1910), The Secret Life (1923).
6. William Somerset Maugham (1874-1965)—Circle (1921), Our Betters
(1917), Services Rendered, A Man of Honour.
7. J.M. Barrie (1860-1937)—What every Woman Knows, The Profesor’s
Love Story (1894), Quality Street (1902), Mary Rose (1920), A Kiss for
Cinderella (1916), The Admirable Crichton (1902), What Every Woman Knows
(1908), The Will (1913), Dear Brutus (1917), Marie Rose (1920), The Boy
David (1936).
8. J.M. Synge (1871-1909)—The Shadow of Glen (1903), The Well of
Saints (1905), The Tinker’s Wedding (1907), The Playboy of the Western
World (1907), Riders to the Sea (1904), Deirdre of Sorrow (1910).
9. Sean O’ Casey (1884-1964)—The Shadow of A Gunman (1923), Juno
and the Paycock (1924), The Plough And The Stars (1926), Within the Gates,
The Stars Turn Red (1940), Purple Dust (1941), Red Roses For Me (1946),
Oak Leaves and Lavender (1946), Cockadoodle Dandy (1949).
10. James Bridie (1888-1951)—the Anatomist (1931), Jonah and the
Whale (1932), A Sleeping Clergyman (1933), Mr. Bolfry (1943), Dr. Angelus
(1947), Daphne (1949).
11. J.B. Priestley (1894-1984)—Laburnum Grove (1933), Eden End
(1934), When We Are Married, Time and the Conways, I Have Been Before,
Johnson Over Jordan.
12. Sir Noel Coward (1899-1973)—The Vortex (1924), Easy Virtue
(1926), This Year of Grace (1928), Bitter Sweet (1929), Private Lives (1930),
Design for Living (1933), To-night At Eight Thirty (1936), Blithe Spirit (1941),
Present Laughter (1943), This Happy Breed (1943), Hay Fever.
13. Sir Terence Rattingan (1911-77)—Trench Without Tears (1936), O
Mistress Mine (1944), Flare Path (1942), The Winslow Boy (1946), The
Browning Version (1948), Separate Tables (1954), Ross (1960), Cause Celebre
(1977).
14. John Drinkwater (1882-1937)—Abraham Lincoln (1918), Mary
Stuart (1921-22), Oliver Cromwell (1922), Robert E. Lee (1923).
15. Clifford Bax (1933-1988)—Mr. Pepys (1926), Socrates (1930), The
Venetian (1931), The Immortal Lady (1931), The Rose Without A Thorn.
16. Samuel Beckett (1906-1996)—Waiting For the Godot (1953),
Endgame (1957).
17. John James Osborne (1929 )—Look Back in Anger (1956), The
Entertainer (1957), Luther (1961), In Admissible Evidence (1964), A Patriot
For Me (1965), The West of Suez (1971), Watch It came Down (1976).
18. Arnold Wesker (1932-2001)—Chicken Soup With Barley (1958),
Roots (1959), I’m Talking About Jerusalem (1960), Chips with Everything
(1962), Their Very Own and Golden City (1965), The Friends (1970).
19. Henry Livings (1929 )—Big Soft Neslie (1961), Nil Carborundum
(1962), Kelley’s Eve (1963), Honour and Offer (1968), The Finest Family’s in
the Land (1970), Pongo Plays (1971).
20. John Arden (1932-2003)—Live Like Pigs (1958), The Happy Heaven
(1960), Left Handed Liberty (1965).
21. Christopher Hampton (1946 )—When Did you Last See My
Mother ? (1971), The Philanthropist (1970), Hebeas Corpus (1973).
Poetic Drama in Twentieth Century
1. T.S. Eliot (1885-1965)—The Murder in the Cathedral (1935), The
Family Reunion (1939), The Cocktail Party (1950), The Confidential Clerk
(1953), The Elder Stateman (1958).
2. Stephen Philis (1864-1915)—Paolo and Frncesca (1900), Herod
(1901), Ulysses (1902), The Son of David (1904), Nero (1906).
3. John Masfield (1878-1967)—The Tragedy of Man (1909), The Tragedy
of Pompey, The Great (1910), Good Friday (1917), Teh Trial of Jesus (1925),
The Coming of the Christ (1928).
4. Lascelles Abercrombie (1881-1938)—Deborah (1913), The Adder
(1913), The End the World (1914), The Stair Case (1922), The Derter (1922),
Phoenix (1923), The Sale of St. Thomas (1930).
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5. John Drinkwater (1882-1937)—Rebellion (1914), The Storm (1515),
The God of Quiet (1916), X = 0 : A Night of the Trojan War (1917).
6. James Elory Flecker (1884-1915)—Hassan (1922).
7. Gordon Bcttomley (1874-1948)—The Crier By Night (1902),
Midsummer Eve (1905), King Lear’s Wife (1915), Grauch (1922).
8. W.B. Yeats (1865-1939)—The Countess Cathleen (1892), The Land
of Heart’s Desire (1894), The King’s Threshold (1904), The Hour Glass (1904),
Deridr (1907), the Resurection (1913), At The Hawk’s Well (1917), Cavalry
(1921), The Cat and the Moon (1926).
9. Christopher Fry (1907-85)—The Lady is Not For Burning (1948),
Venus Observed (1950), The Dark is Light Enough (1954), Curtmantle (1962).
10. Christopher Isherwood (1904-1988)—Ascent of F6 (1936), Across
the Frontiers (1938).
QUESTIONS
Q. 1. What are the divisions of the Modern Age?
Ans. The divisions of the modern age are—
(i) The post Victorian Literature (1890-1910).
(ii) The Georgian Literature (1910-1925).
(iii) The Modern Literature (1925-Onwards).
Q. 2. What are the influences upon Modern English Literature?
Ans. Freud, Marx, Henry Bergson, Dostoievsky of Russia, Flaubert of
France had a very great influence on modern English literature.
Q. 3. What are the main factors which have shaped on modern
literature?
Ans. The following are the main factors which have shaped the Modern
English Literature—
(i) Awakwening of the social consciousness.
(ii) Teh enormous output of books.
(iii) The spreading of education.
Q. 4. What are chief features of the Modern English Novel?
Ans. Modern English novel is characterised by realism, a note of cynicism,
a note of dis-illusionment, pre-occupation with the mind of man, and predominance
of intellectual element.
Q. 5. Give some names of War poets.
Ans. The War poets are—Rupert Brooke, Wilfred Owen, Edmund
Blunden, Sigfrind Sassoon, Robert Graves.
Q. 6. What were the reasons behind the popularity of the novel in the
Modern Age?
Ans. In the twentieth century the novel has acquired predomiance over all
other literary forms. The form of the novel is also suited as a vehicle for the
sociological studies which have influenced many great artists of this period.
Q. 7. Name a few books which were written on the theory of novel.
Ans. The following books were written on the theory of novel—
(i) E.M. Forster—Aspects of the Novel.
(ii) Mr. Edwin Muir—The Strucutre of the Novel.
(iii) Mr. Percy Lubbock—The Craft of Fiction.
(iv) Mr. Robert Liddell—A Treatise on Novel.
Q. 8. Give the names of two Modern Writers of Detective Fiction.]
Ans. (i) Agatha Christie.
(ii) Earle Stanley Gardner.
Q. 9. What do you know about Ibsenism?
Ans. The dramatic works of the modern playwrights based on the lines
and methods laid down by Henrik Ibsen, a Norwegian dramatist, are the
landmarks of Ibsenism.
Q. 10. Give the chronology of the Modern Novel.
Ans. (i) From 1890-1918—Henry James, George Gissing, George Moore,
Rudyard Kipling, Samuel Butler, Arnold Bennett, John Galsworthy Joseph
Conrad.
(ii) From 1918-39—D.H. Lawrence, Dorothy Richardson, James Joyce,
Verginia Woolf, Aldous Huxley.
(iii) From 1939-63—Ivy Comption Burnett, Joyce Cary, Henry Church,
Christopher Isherwood, Elizabeth Bowen.
Q. 11. Give the theme of ‘A Passage to India’.
Ans. E.M. Forster in his novel ‘A Passage to India’ describes the
incompatibility of the Britishers and Indians. It is the story of Miss Quested, a
British lady and Dr. Aziz, an Indian. The evidence of English girl brings justice
to Dr. Aziz, an Indian.
Q. 12. What are the influences on Modern English drama?
Ans. The modern English drama has been influenced by the Scandinavian
dramatist Henrik-Ibsen, the French dramatists Emile Zola, Flaubert and
Maeternick and Dumas, and the Russain dramatists Leo Tolstoy, Tchekov and
Gorki.
Q. 13. What is George Moore’s contribution in the field of Realism in
modern Fiction?
Ans. The famous works of George Moore are A Modern Lover, Spring
Days and Esther Waters, George Moore was influenced by Emile Zola and
Gustave Flaubert. There is an element of realism in his novels.
Q. 14. What is the central theme of ‘Man and Superman’?
Ans. The play ‘Man and Superman’ is a comedy and chase of the man by
the woman.
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Q. 15. What is the theme of Arnold Bennett’s ‘The Old Wives’ Tale?
Ans. This novel describes Bennett’s experience of seeing an old lady
entering in a Restaurant at Paris, Bennett enjoyed the sight of this woman
whom the thought, must have been once young slim and beautiful.
Q. 16. Tell us about G.B. Shaw’s ‘Life-Force’.
Ans. According to G.B. Shaw, ‘Life-Force’ shows that it is a power that
seeks to raise mankind, with its co-operation to a better and higher existence.
G.B. Shaw’s ‘Life Force’ tries to express itself is new forms and is relentless in
its self-realisation, it is aimed at enabling a man to know that he actually exists
in the world and thus it reveals his dynamic nature.
Q. 17. Tell us about the theme of Samuel Butler’s ‘The Way of All
Flesh’.
Ans. This work exposes the shams and taboos of the Victorian Age. This
novel deals with a youngman whom his parents wanted to enter the church
much against his own will. This novel is a bitter satire against the Victorian
conventions and the Victorian sense of paternal authority.
Q. 18. What are the contributions of W.B. Yeats and J.M. Synge to
the movement of Irish Renaissance?
Ans. In 1901 W.B. Yeats founded the Irish national theatre and he wrote
all his works completely soaked in the Irish history and mythology. J.M. Synge
contributed very significantly in this movement with the collaboration of W.B.
Yeats.
Q. 19. Who introduced Psychological Realism in the Modern English
novel?
Ans. Henry James (1843-1916) introduced ‘psychological realism’ in the
Modern English novel. James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Dorothy Richardson,
and Henry James made the modern novelist aware of the little half decisions,
fears and hopes of the human mind.
Q. 20. Tell us the chief characteristics of the novels of Henry James.
Ans. The chief features of the novels of Henry James are the pre-dominance
of the intellectual element and interest in human psychology.
Q. 21. What are the names of two Irish plays?
Ans. (i) The Playboy of the Western World. (J.M. Synge)
(ii) Cathleen Ni Honlith.
Q. 22. What are the features of the novels of Mr. Huxley?
Ans. The novels of Aldous Huxley are marked with irnical brilliance and
philosophical depths. Perhaps he is the greatest satirist of our age.
Q. 23. Tell us the theme of James Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’.
Ans. This novel deals with the wandering of Leopald Bloom and Stephen
Dedalus through the city of Dublin on one particular day.
Q. 24. What is the central theme of Virginia Woolf’s novel ‘Mrs.
Dalloway’s?
Ans. This novel composed of the day-dreams, memories and immediate
impressions of this central character, enriched by transitions into the
consciousness of other characters, who are connected with Mrs. Dalloway in
some emotional or even merely passing relationship.
Q. 25. Name some important essayists of the twentieth century.
Ans. Some of the important essayists of the twentieth century are—G.K.
Chesterton E.V. Lucas, A.G. Gardiner, Robert Lynd, Max Beer bohm, J.B.
Priestley, and E.V. Knox.
Q. 26. Name some critical works of T.S. Eliot.
Ans. The critical works of T.S. Eliot are—The Secred Wood (1920), The
Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism (1933), Essays Ancient and Modern
(1936), Dante (1929), Homage to John Dryden (1924), Elizabethan Essays
(1934), What is a Classic? (1945).
Q. 27. Give the names of some of the biography writers.
Ans. Lord David Cecil (A Life of Cowper), Lytton Strachey (Eminent
Victorians), Queen Victoria (1921), Elizabeth and Essex (1928).
Q. 28. Give the names of the inter-war year poets.
Ans. Cecil Day Lewis, Edith Sitwell, Edwin Muir, Stephen Spender.
Q. 29. What are the important collections of the essays of E.V. Lucas?
Ans. The important collections of the essays of E.V. Lucas are Character
and comedy, Old Lamps for New, Loiterers Harvest, and Cloud and Silver.
Q. 30. What are important collections of Belloc?
Ans. The important collections of Belloc are Avril, Hills on the Sea on
Nothing, On Something.
Q. 31. Name some important collections of J.B. Priestley as an essayist.
Ans. Self-Selected Essays, I For Open, Open House, Apes and Angels.
Q. 32. What is the theme of John Galsworthy’s ‘Strife’ (1909)?
Ans. In this drama there is struggle between Directors and Employees
The employees complain of starvation wages. Trade Union delegate brings
about a compromise between the two even though the leaders of the two
groups—Roberts and Anthone remain pitched against each till the last. In the
end both sides surrender to each other almost at the same time.
Q. 33. What is Celtic Revival?
Ans. W.B. Yeats ‘Celtic’ Twilight’, the gospel of Irish Renaissance, was
published in 1893. The Irish Literary Movement was a reaction against the
over-intellectualization of the European theatre in the hands of G.B. Shaw and
a positive return to Nature in dramatic construction, language and acting.
Q. 34. What is T.S. Eliots theory of ‘Objective Correlative’?
Ans. T.S. Eliot believed that emotions cannot be expressed directly, “The
The Twentieth Century 95. 96. A HAND BOOK OF VIVA-VOCE
only way of expressing emotion in art” says Mr. T.S. Eliot, “is by finding an
objective correlative, in other words, a set of objects, a situation, a chain of
events which shall be the formula of that particular emotion, such that when
the external facts which must terminate in sensory experience, are given the
emotion is immediately evoked.”
Q. 35. Who are called Decadents?
Ans. The Decadents were essentially Victorians who lived on into the
twentieth century. They followed their aim ‘art for art’s sake’. The important
of them are Ernest Dowson, Lionel Johnson, Arthur Symons, Oscar Wilde,
Thomas Hardy etc.
Q. 36. Name some poetic works of Thomas Hardy.
Ans. The important collections of poems of Thomas Hardy are Wessex
Peoms, Poems of the Past and Present, The Satires of Circumstance and
Collected Poems.
Q. 37. Compare G.B. Shaw and John Galsworthy as dramatists.
Ans. G.B. Shaw seems to take up the cudgels against the then existing
social institution. Galsworthy gives to the social force the same status as the
Greek damatists provide to fate. John Galsworthy does not deal with the
traditional hero but with the man in street. Galsworthy himself points out the
difference—
“It may be said of Shaw’s plays that he creates characters who express
feelings which they have not got. It might be said of mine that I create characters
who have feelings which they cannot express.”
Q. 38. What od you understand by ther term Georgian Poets?
Ans. This term Georgian poetry is used for the poetry written during the
reign of George V, the poetry written between 1910 to 1920. The important
Georgian poets are Rupert Brooke, G.K. Chesterton, Seigfried Sassoon,
Edmund Blumden, James Elory Flecker.
Q. 39. What are the important features of Georgian poetry?
Ans. The important features of Georgian poetry are—
(i) Quest for simplicty and reality.
(ii) Love of natural beauty.
(iii) Their adherence to forms and techniques of the main traditions of
English poetry.
Q. 40. What is the central theme of ‘The Waste Land’?
Ans. The Poem ‘The Waste Land’, is dramatic in nature and its symbolism
is based on the legend of the Holy Grail. In this poem Eliot seeks to create a
sense of the sordidness and vulgarity, the moral debility and spiritual
degeneration.
Q. 41. Name the important works of Henrik Ibsen.
Ans. The important works of Henrik Ibsen are A Doll’s House. The Pillars
of Society, Wild Duck and The Ghost Ibsen was a romantic dramatist and
there is realism in his plays.
Q. 42. Who has called his plays as ‘Unpleasant Plays’?
Ans. G.B. Shaw has called some of his plays as ‘Unpleasant Plays’. These
are Widower’s Houses, Mrs. Warren’s Profession and the Philanderer. Shaw
called them unpleasant because they deal with the unpleasant aspects of the
contemporary British society.
Q. 43. Name some important poetic plays of Mr. Christopher Fry.
Ans. The important poetic plays of Fry are The Dark is Light Enough,
Venus, observed, The Lady’s Not for Burning.
Q. 44. What is the them J.M. Synge’s play ‘Riders of the Sea’?
Ans. Synge’s play ‘Riders to the Sea’ is a powerful and deeply moving
tragedy in one act, which deals with the toll taken by the sea in the lives of the
fisher folk of the west coast of Ireland.
Q. 45. Tell us about the Irish Theatre Movement.
Ans. The Irish Theatre Movement was to produce national Irish plays.
Abbey Theatre produced Irish plays written for the purpose of expressing the
life and thoughts of Irland. The important dramatists who are associated with
this movement are W.B. Yeats, Lady Gregory, J.M. Synge and Lennox
Robinson.
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