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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