The modern age 1890 – 1930 An age of crisis

index Slide 3: Historical changes Different critical elements: Slide 4: Philosophical and Literary crisis Slide 5: Scientific crisis Crisis’ reactions: Slide 6: French Symbolists Slide 7: English poetry Novel development: Slide 8: New Dramatic Novel Slide 9: Old Novel T.S. Eliot: Slide 10: Eliot’s Mythical Method Slide 11: Eliot’s Objective Correlative Slide 12: Anthropology

Historical chances Industrialization of France, Germany, Japan and United States Creation of an atmosphere of tension that brings to alliances 1914: alliances bring to the First World War outbreak Many lose their faith in liberal democracy, capitalism and in the Victorian idea of progress European domination on the world ends: USA and Russia are the two greatest powers 1870’s – 1880’s: economic depression causes unemployment Beginning of the Welfare State: governments accept that states must control a part of the economy Marxism offers a secure future to a generation which has no faith in traditional values 1917: Lenin and the Bolsheviks establish a communist economy in Russia

Philosophical and literary crisis The most profound fear of the Victorians is neither political nor social; it was religious: Divine plans disappear: people experience a sense of isolation The only sure point of reference for an individual is himself Writer’s different reactions: T. Hardy and J. Conrad: believe in cultivating a stoical dignity and acceptation V. Woolf, D. H. Lawrence and E. M. Forster: substitute personal relationship to divine love H. Belloc, G. K. Chesterton and T. S. Eliot: ignore their doubts and become Christians G. B. Shown and H. G. Wells: dedicate themselves to social reform There are no values to which refer: characters speak for themselves presenting their point of view The novelist disappears from his work

Scientific crisis Euclidean geometry and Newtonian physics are shown to rest on false assumptions A. Einstein: space and time do not exist as separate H. Bergson and W. James: past and future exist together with the present in people’s mind (“stream of consciousness”) S. Freud: people’s behavior depends very largely on the unconscious part of their minds; man’s power of reason finds no space C. Jung: Man’s unconscious mind contains his racial memory (primitive memory about the evolutionary race experiences) Certain figures or objects in the ordinary world had great symbolic: only the psychologist, or perhaps the poet, discover the symbolic meanings

French Symbolists The Symbolist poets influence: Certain figures or objects in the ordinary world had great symbolic: only the psychologist, or perhaps the poet, discover the symbolic meanings French Symbolist poets (end of the 19th century): Mallarme and W.B. Yeats (elaborates a complete symbolical system) Give mystical significance to their impressions of the world of the senses Use language which spoke to the reader's irrational part The Symbolist poets influence: The writers of the Aesthetic Movement Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot: American poets that produce an anti-Victorian poetry

English poetry Poetry (end of the 19th century): is sentimental, elegiac and pastoral; it can not find a solution to the philosophical and literary crisis T. E. Hulme: Looks for a new order that Western society needs Art should be impersonal like Neo-Classicism had been Writers have to return to a Pre-Romantic idea of man Verses have to be Classical: controlled and dominated by critical reason T. S. Eliot: expresses better Hulme’s theories and is influenced by Pound T. S. Eliot and E. Pound: write in a difficult and obscure way, with literary references

New Dramatic Novel The narrator is invisible: characters tell and represent the story The scene substitutes the old novel The author is hidden or doesn’t appear: ambiguity and uncertainty permeate the novel Modern novelists: insert Aesthetic values in novels H. James: Explores the flux of his mental experience (“stream of consciousness”) The interior monologue appears where there is no perception for logical connection The reader has to listen to one of the characters: understand his identity Old Novel: narrative structure New Novel: dramatic structure

Old Novel Structure: narrative Omniscient narrator: alternates summaries of previous events, personal commentaries, scenes, characters’ description, conversation, reported conversations, conclusions Summary = panoramic vision Description = close up (primo piano) Scene= sonorous (close up) H. Fielding, J. Austen, W. Scott, C. Bronte, C. Dickens, W. M. Thackeray and A. Trollope: Omniscient narrator: 3rd person and in 1st person narrations De Foe and Moll Flanders Protagonist: speaks with the same voice of the author

Eliot’s Mythical Method Myth and ritual in T. S. Eliot: Potential means of ordering and transforming into significance contemporary experience It is simply a way of controlling and ordering, of giving a shape and a significance to the immense panorama of futility and anarchy which is contemporary history Eliot and Joyce's technique for presenting Eliot compresses and alludes: condensation of the “immense panorama” Joyce expands the moment to infinitude Both elevate their ideas/assertions using the mythology

Eliot’s Objective Correlative The only way of expressing emotion in the form of art 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 If the matter (thought, feeling, action) is too much we have a lack of unity; we say too much If the experience is buried by the words we have another kind of discrepancy and strain; we are speechless A successful artistic creation requires an exquisite balance between, and coalescence of form and matter

Anthropology J. Fraser, The Golden Bough, 1890: New interest in mythology and pre-history Sources of art lay in the “unconscious”, which can be a collective unconscious as well as a personal one Interest in the man beneath the surface of so - called “civilization” Discussion on the ancient myth of the Grail and on primeval customs We seem to move on a thin crust which may at any moment be rent by the subterranean forces slumbering below

source and author Source: School: Class: Student: http://www.marilenabeltramini.it/schoolwork1415/readInteracting.php?act=readTask&tid=67 School: A. Einstein high school, ISIS della Bassa Friulana, Cervignano del Friuli Class: 5^ ALS Student: Scarpin Cosetta