20TH Century

REPUBLIC OF THE PHILIPPINES
NORTHWEST SAMAR STATE UNIVERSITY

COLLEGE OF EDUCATION
MAIN CAMPUS, CALBAYOG CITY
20TH CENTURY LITERATURE

AGE OF MODERNITY
MODERNISM
 Modernism is a term for a number of tendencies in the arts, which were
prominent in the first half of the 20th century.
 Modernism rejected the traditional (Victorian and Edwardian) framework of
narrative, description, and rational exposition in poetry and prose, in favour of a
stream-of-consciousness presentation of personality, a dependence on the
poetic image as the essential vehicle of aesthetic communication, and upon myth
as a characteristic structural principle.
 Modernist works (for instance, the poetry of Eliot and Pound) may have to the
unfamiliar reader a tendency to dissolve into chaos of sharp atomistic
impressions, and some critics have deplored their drift towards what has been
described as “dehumanization. In short, alienation and loneliness are the basic
themes of modernism.
 MODERNIST POETRY
Modernist poetry in English started in the early years of the 20th century with the
appearance of the Imagists. In common with many other modernists,
these poets wrote in reaction to the perceived excesses of Victorian poetry, with its
emphasis on traditional formalism and ornate diction.
 Imagist Movement
o Imagism was a movement in early 20th-century Anglo-American
poetry that favored precision of imagery and clear, sharp language.
It has been described as the most influential movement in English
poetry since the Pre-Raphaelites. As a poetic style it
gave modernism its start in the early 20th century, and is
considered to be the first organized modernist literary movement in
the English language.
Thomas Stearns Eliot

T.S. Eliot, the 1948 winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, is one of the giants of
modern literature, highly distinguished as a poet, literary critic, dramatist, and editor and
publisher. In 1910 and 1911, while still a college student, he wrote “The Love Song of J.
Alfred Prufrock” and other poems that are landmarks in the history of literature.
 MODERNIST FICTION
Heroic age of the modern novel (1912-1930)

 Three new trends of fiction
1. Personal notions of value

2. A new view of time
3. stream-of-consciousness
THEMES OF MODERN FICTION

 The possibility of love, the establishment of emotional communication in a
community of private consciousness.
 The search for communion and the inescapable isolation of Leopold Bloom in
Ulysses is symbolic of the human condition. The theme of all Lawrence's novels
is human relationships.
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce
- was an Irish novelist, short story writer, poet, teacher, and literary critic. He
contributed to the modernist avant-garde and is regarded as one of the most
influential and important authors of the 20th century.
Ulysses, novel by Irish writer James Joyce, first published in book form in 1922.
Stylistically dense and exhilarating, it is generally regarded as a masterpiece and
has been the subject of numerous volumes of commentary and analysis. The
novel is constructed as a modern parallel to Homer's Odyssey.
 MODERNIST DRAMA
 Since the end of World War Ⅱ, drama has been the major area of literary
innovation.
 Samuel Beckett changed the course of English drama with his first play Waiting
for Godot, which strongly influenced a younger group of playwrights, and which
started the history of Drama of Absurdity.
Samuel Beckett
- born on April 13, 1906, in Dublin, Ireland. During the 1930s and 1940s he wrote
his first novels and short stories. He wrote a trilogy of novels in the 1950s as well
as famous plays like Waiting for Godot. In 1969 he was awarded the Nobel Prize
for Literature.
Waiting for Godot, tragicomedy in two acts by Irish writer Samuel Beckett,
published in 1952 in French as En attendant Godot and first produced in
1953. Waiting for Godot was a true innovation in drama and the Theatre of
the Absurd’s first theatrical success.
The play consists of conversations between Vladimir and Estragon, who are
waiting for the arrival of the mysterious Godot, who continually sends word that
he will appear but who never does. They encounter Lucky and Pozzo, they
discuss their miseries and their lots in life, they consider hanging themselves,
and yet they wait. Often perceived as being tramps, Vladimir and Estragon are a
pair of human beings who do not know why they were put on earth; they make
the tenuous assumption that there must be some point to their existence, and
they look to Godot for enlightenment. Because they hold out hope for meaning
and direction, they acquire a kind of nobility that enables them to rise above
their futile existence.
PREPARED BY:
JEROMINA C. MONICARIO
BBED – 3A

20TH Century

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REPUBLIC OF THE PHILIPPINES

NORTHWEST SAMAR STATE UNIVERSITY

20TH CENTURY LITERATURE

Thomas Stearns Eliot

Heroic age of the modern novel (1912-1930)

1. Personal notions of value

THEMES OF MODERN FICTION

James Augustine Aloysius Joyce

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