English literature module 3 + 4

The Age of Reason: The Great Age of Satire (1700-1740)

• Age of Reason (enlightenment, Neo-Classicism)   * rational, scientific thinking   * way research is conducted changes, science still in its infancy (looks a bit like modern way of research)
• The Royal Society   * institution to promote science and share results of research   * one of earliest presidents: Sir Isaac Newton
• Writing   * based on common sense, intellectual, emotion kept under perfect control
• Democracy started progressing in 18th century under King William III of Orange   * Conservative Party a.k.a. Tories and Liberal Democrats a.k.a. Whigs   * Britain was a large new trading empire with strongest navy in the world   * this wealth/capital → agricultural and industrial revolution → most advanced economy in the world
• Jonathan Swift   * made fun of everything he felt was wrong in hopes of people avoiding making the same mistakes and seeing their weaknesses and errors   * Gulliver’s travels (1726)     * allegory consisting of 4 parts, making fun of political and social situation in England (liliputians)

The Romantic Period (1798-1830)

• Reaction to rationalistic attitude in the age of reason   * industrialization, urbanization, secularization, consumerizm   * religion = less   * delight in emotion and imagination above intellect   * new interest in nature and Britain’s unknown past   * children and poor people are best subjects
• William Wordsworth:   * grew up close with nature and country people → crucial impact on his poetry   * poetry: the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings   * averse to artificiality & literary conventions, poetry should come from heart

Jane Austen: Comedy of manners (1775-1817)

• First female novelist, her novels of manners: neoclassical belonging to Age of Reason   * characters (gentle people) become happy after controlling emotions and rational attitude and are dealing with social prestige, marrying right person and filling time pleasurably   * despite uneventfulnes and repetition of themes, characters have psychological depth and precision     * she introduces weaknesses of her characters and moral & social questions   * with mild irony she attacks the narrow-mindedness and provincialism   * they make grave mistakes, are led by false views and go through a process of ripening before achieving happiness in marriage based on sensible thinking and moderate feeling

The Victorian Age (1830-1900)

• Name comes from Queen Victoria (1837-1901)
• England was the most powerful nation at the time and many people came to work there which led to overpopulation   * poor conditions for working classes, child labour and hardly any education
• Average Victorian wants to be respected and refined   * proper thinking and correct behaviour taught in public schools   * life in this age was prudish and repressive resulting in tendency to hypocrisy
• Novels are the most important literary form at the time (George Eliot, Thomas Hardy)   * enormous length, published in serial form (equivalent to soap operas)   * complex, clear distinguishment between good and bad, ends with poetic justice     * good characters live on, bad are punished for evil deeds   * highly moralistic tone
• Charles Dickens   * fits romantic era better (too sentimental and melodramatic)   * great comedian/entertainer, master of language   * dialog = vivid, natural, vulgar   * sympathy with poor, distrust to rich, clever and powerful (returns in novels)

Wuthering Heights - Emily Brontë (19th Century)

• Gothic literature (Dracula/Frankenstein), romance vs. horror/supernatural   * not chronological and complex, tales withing tales, change of narrator   * atmosphere: claustrophobic, fearful ; plot: revenge, imprisonment, murder   * present haunted by past (physical reminders)
• Byronic hero (after Lord Byron)   * dark, outsider antihero     * intelligent, arrogant, violent outbursts, emotionally tortured, manipulative, self-destructing, prone to substance abuse, seductive

Britain in the Great War (1914-1918)

• WW1 put an abrupt end to comfort for upper and middle class.   * shocked country out of its Victorian attitude of greatness and superiority
• Causes of this trench war:   * assasination of Franz Ferdinand by Gavrilo Princip   * nationalism, imperialism**, militarism,** alliances
• Weapons:   * rifles (Bayonet), machine gun, barbed wire, grenades and mortons, poison gas, tanks and submarines
• Diseases   * trench foot and fever   * STD’s   * self inflicted injuries   * shell shock (PTSD)
• propaganda:   * going to war was made popular: ‘‘heroes for our country’’ → many volunteers

Modernist Movement (early 20th century)

• Modernism   * reaction to industrialization, globalization, horrors of WW1   * sudden break with tradition, experimentation (‘make it new‘ ~Ezra Pound)   * collage and stream of consciousness   * main character says everything that’s on his mind   * images (may be figurative), symbols   * non-linear time (flashbacks and flashforwards)   * imagism (Ezra pound); clarity and economy of language

George Orwell (1903-1950)

• Wrote Animal Farm, because he’s Anti-stalin
• 1984 (published in 1949)   * Oceania in constant war with Eurasia and/or Eastasia   * The party, big brother   * free thought, sex and expression of individuality are prohibited   * winston smith- works for ministry of truth, rewriting history   * 4 ministries:     * truth (lies)     * plenty (scarce)     * peace (war)     * love (torture, hate)   * war = peace; freedom = slavery ; ignorance = strength
• dystopian novels (negative utopia, repressive and controlled state)
• reaction to totalitarianism

Postmodernism and the Theatre of the Absurd

• Postmodernism (experimental and pessimistic)   * literature after WW2   * reaction to the high culture ideas of modernism   * post 1950’s society → technology and commercialism
• Sisyphus and the meaning of life   * worst punishment: doing something for no reason   * human need to find meaning clashes with meaningless universe
• tragicomedy: funny play about something dark
• Theathre of the Absurd:   * bizarre characters in bizzare situations   * often no plot, nothing seems to happen   * characters are stuck, everything is unpredictable   * absurdist movement: human existence is inherently meaningless

Postcolonial literature (1980 and forwards)

• Explores experience of colonialism and its past and present effects   * Slavery, migration, suppression and resistance, difference, race, gender and place     * Zadie Smith, Chinua Achebe, J.M. Coetzee
• Zadie Smith   * history, search of identity, ethics of science and technology, politics of race and gender, uncertainty future and past

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