11. Modernism. J. Joyce and V. Woolfand their aesthetic programmes. D.H.Lawrence's work.

LITERATURE BETWEEN THE TWO WORLD WARS

Like many other European countries Britain was badly stricken by World War I, often called the Great War. Thousands of young Englishmen remained forever on the fields of France and Belgium, thousands more came home to die slowly and painfully of gas poisoning and wounds. The spirits of those who managed to survive were very low, too. They had entered the war full of romantic ideas and came out of it. Disillusioned and desperate as they had realized the futility and senselessness of it. These young people, as well as the writers who described them in their books, came to be called the "lost generation".

The first post-war years saw a boost in industrial production, but the Depression, that is, the general economic crisis of 1929—1934, brought about unemployment, starvation and misery. Class contradictions became especially sharp and obvious. The General Strike of 1926 and several hunger marches from various parts of Britain to London demonstrated the desperate position of the common people. The complicated political situation in Europe especially in Germany (Hitler came to power in 1933) could not but affect Britain, too. The industrialists organized "The British Fascist Union", but the majority of people reacted negatively against it. Then came the Civil War in Spain, and the English workers showed their solidarity with Spanish republicans. They organized protest demonstrations and refused to load arms for the fascists. A lot of British people joined the International Brigade which fought against fascism in Spain. Among them was Ralph Fox (1910—1937), a publicist, a historian and a literary critic. In spite of his short life (he was killed in Spain) his work, especially his book The Novel and the People (1937), had a great impact on

Literature. English writers reacted differently to the complicated and constantly changing situation of the 1910—1930s. Some of them continued the traditions of critical (social) realism, others preferred to turn away from the acute topical issues. They were searching for new themes and modes of expression, and fell under the influence of Decadence which at the beginning of the 20th century acquired the name of modernism. Modernism became the leading trend in the period between the two World Wars.

MODERNISM

At that time the works of Sigmund Freud (1856—1939), an Austrian psycho-analyst, professor of neurology, became very popular in England and had a great influence on the development of modernism.

The attitude of modernists to life and Man is different from that of realists. Modernism is characterized by an absolute disregard for social problems, by a strong emphasis on the hero's private world, his feelings, reactions, subconscious life. It refuses to depict characters as determined by concrete historical conditions. Man is pessimistically shown as a primitive and low creature guided by instincts. In order to reflect the workings of man's subconsciousness modernists employed a special technique of writing known as "the Stream of consciousness". It consists in recording a person's every thought, impression and sensation without any selection. The most outstanding representatives of modernism were James Joyce, Virginia Woolf and D. H. Lawrence.

JAMES JOYCE (1882—1941)

James Joyce was born in a well-to-do Irish family in a small town near Dublin. His father was interested in politics and his mother was a very religious woman. His parents' views made a very important influence on his outlook and creative work. He was educated at two Jesuit Colleges from where he went to Dublin University to study history and literature. His articles written when a student (1899—1902) give a good idea about the formation of his aesthetical views. It was then that he became utterly engrossed in the Dublin literary atmosphere which became a new Irish Renaissance. The leaders of that movement took a great interest in the ancient Irish traditions, in its folklore. They fought for the formation of national literature and the revival of national language which the English had endeavoured to do away with. His article The Day of the Crowd (1901) is typical of his further position. His point of view was that a real artist could only create abroad, far from his native land.

After the university he went to Paris to study medicine. There he met Nora Barnacle, his future wife. His mother's sudden illness, however, made him return to Ireland. Yet, the political situation in Ireland, which had been struggling for many centuries for its liberation from English oppression, forced him and his wife to leave the country. However, Joyce missed his native land during all the thirty-seven years that he lived on the continent. As one of his biographers said, he left Ireland forever to return to it on every page of his books. He died in Switzerland, in January 1941 and was buried there.

In 1914 his first book Dubliners appeared in print. The stories in it were true to life, they conveyed the gloomy atmosphere that ruined the hopes of the Irish intellectuals. In 1916 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man was published. Its plot is complicated and much of it is autobiographical. The novel consists of three parts and tells the reader of Stephen Dedalus' childhood, adolescence and youth, yet the form of presentation is untraditional. The book includes a number of fragmentary, disconnected episodes presented through the hero's perception. The reader has to work hard to put them together and to follow the main themes of the novel: family, politics, religion and art.

Gradually the reader comes to know about the complex political situation in Ireland which was closely interwoven with religious issues. He also traces the painful process of Stephen Dedalus' growing up, the development of his relations with his parents, his loss of faith and hesitations about his future career. The "stream-of-consciousness" method, of which Joyce is considered to be the initiator, is especially obvious in the last chapter of the novel. Here the author presents the reader with a new form of writing: short notes in which the main character puts down his disconnected thoughts: Joyce's contemporary, Virginia Woolf, in her turn, showed through the "stream-of-consciousness" the tragic aspects of human life and the way people were bound together by memories, reactions and obsessions.

VIRGINIA WOOLF brought together English intellectuals who were followers of Freud in a literary circle known as the "Bloomsbury group".' Virginia Woolf's best work, Mrs. Dalloway (1925), is an outstanding example of psychological prose of the 20th century. The novel shows Clarissa Dalloway spending one day of her life preparing for an evening party. This begins at nine in the morning when she goes out to buy flowers for her party, and finishes at dawn the next day. Here Woolf portrays the English society: the Nobility, the aristocracy, the bourgeoisie and the middle classes. She depicts every detail of a situation with vivid, impressionistic strokes. However, she never arranges these strokes rationally, but makes them "stream" through the minds of her characters. Woolf's other profoundly psychological novels are To the Lighthouse (1927), The Waves (1931), Between the Acts (1941).

The name of D. H. LAWRENCE (1885—1930) is worthy of special attention. He was an admirer of Freud, too. At the same time, however, he adhered to realism in art. The son of a Midland miner, brought up in a working class environment, Lawrence, for the first time introduced in English literature the working man in his everyday life, paying much attention to his inner, private world. The working people in Lawrence's novels are described as respectable, sensible, shrewd men.

The major novel that brought him success is Sons and Lovers (1913). Like the author, the main character Paul Morel was brought up in a working class environment. His life is greatly affected by the conflict between his parents — a rough, unambitious father and an intelligent and refined mother. Paul's mother has one passion in her life — a passion for her sons. And this strong feeling affects Paul's private life. He realizes that he cannot really love any woman. When his mother dies he finds himself quite alone. Much attention is given to the detailed and precise descriptions of men's feelings, the subconscious, to the world of natural human instincts. Lawrence's firm belief was that all the social injustice in the world could be overcome by love and sincere relations between people. The idea also permeates his other novels – The Rainbow (1915), Women in Love (1920), Lady Chatterley Lover (1928). Virginia Woolf lived in the suburb of London, called Bloomsbury. There the members of the group met and discussed their works.