Karakoram International University

 Department of Modern Languages

Topic
 Modern Century Literature, Poetry, Novel
and Stream of consiousness
Presentation Group 3
 Hajat Hussain (Group Leader)
 Haseena Jan
 Haseen Zehra
 Aien Shah
 Shaheena Bano
 Raja Zubair Hassan
 Shamsullah
1901-1960
Modern Age
 Started from beginning of 20th Century

Political History
 World War 1 (1914-1918)
 Emergence of new Nations
 Women Rights Issues

Prepared by Hajat Hussain

A Major Literary Movement
 Started in Early 20th Century
 Influenced by Charles Darwin
and Karl Marx Theories
 Psychoanalytic Theories
 No Connection With History
 When Writers felt they required new
form of writing

 Dissillusionment of Victorian
ideas,belief and their way of writing
 The age of Dissillusionment
 The age of Machine
 The age of innovations
 The Age of Interrogations
 The Age of War
 The Age of Disintegration
 Irony and satire as a tool of point out
faults, problems within society

 Important characteristic of Modern

literature is that it is oppositon of the
Victorian writers

 At the end of Victorian era There was

felt the need of a change in the sphere of
literature
 The modern writers could no longer write in
the old manner

 Writers of the twentieth saw the coming

future of the ‘Golden age’

 Artistic experiment
 This Victorian idea of permanancy was
replaced among the twentieth century
writers by the sense that nothing is fixed
and final in the world.

 The Victorians believed in the sanctity of

home life, but in twentieth century the
sentiments of family life declined
 Science and Arts really influenced the
modern man.

 Psychology also influence

 The Psychoanalytic theories of Sigmund

Frued became more popular and widely
read
 T.S Eliot was dominant figure

 The Waste Land His famous Poem

 Totally Against Victorianism and

Romanticism

 The twentieth century poets who were in

revolt against Victorianism
 In the nineteenth century poetry the main
characteristics was preoccupation with a
dream world

 Under the new conditions modern poets

could not take dream habit seriously.
 Arnold was not qualified to give a new
direction to the poetry

 Browning had no aptitude to

understand the complexities of modern life

 It was essential that a new techniques of

communicating meaning
be discovered
 Which brought about the movements
known as Imagism and Symbolism in
modern poetry.

 Modern Poets excercise to get a freedom in

choice of new themes

 Use new and wide range of subjects ,

themes and issues.
Features of Modern Poetry....
 Totally against the Victorian and
Romantic poetry
 The disappearance of religious faith
 regular metre have been discarded
 no regular rhyming scheme
 Juxtaposition of ideas
 Use of free verse
 Use of irony
 Use of metaphors
Movements in Modern Poetry.....

Imagism

Symbolism
 Literary movement in early 20th century

 This Movement was Active for 10 Years

 First revolt against the Victorian and Romantic

Poetry

 The Imagists rejected the 19th century poetic

form and language.

 The imagists rejected the sentiments of

Victorian and Romantic Poetry
Characteristics....
 They use the Common language

 They used exact words instead of

decorative words

 They create new rhythms

 According to them poems are works of art
and not pieces of emotional

 A revolutionary impact on English-

language writing for the rest of the 20th
century.

 Leader of Imagists was Ezra Pound. Other

poets were F.S Flint, James Joyce etc.
 First started in France

 Representing things by means of symbols.

 The symbolists found beauty in every detail

of normal day by day life
 The symbolists doesnot consider any
particular topic, diction or rhytm to be used
in poetry

 The technique of the symbolists is

impressionistic not representational
 The Symbolists poetry in England came
into prominence with the appearance of

 Yeats, Joyce etc were Symbolists.

Poets....
Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888-1965)
 Born in USA
 Chief representative and a dominant figure
 Great critic
 Classicist
 A social philospher
 Educated at Harvard University
His Work....
he poet surveys the desolate scene of the
world
 Other Poems
 The Love Song of J.Alfed Prufrock
 Burnt Norton
 East Coker
 The Dry salvages
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)

 An Irish
 He was anti-rationalist
 Founder of Celtic Movement
 A symbolist
 Due to World War 1 Yeats wrote in
realistic Direction
 The Wanderings of Oisin
 The Poet Pleads with the Elements powers
a symbolism poem
Other Poems
 The Shadowy Waters
 The Winding Stair
 The Tower
 The Wind at Coole
Trench Poets or War Poets
The poets who wrotes about war

 Siegfried Sassoon
 Wilfred Owen
 Robert Bridges
 G.M Hopkins
 A.E Houseman
 Ezra Pound
 Satirical
 War
 Social Injustice
 Arts
 Human Rights
 Life
 Dissatisfaction
 Futurism
Modern Novel....
 Most important and popular literary
medium

 Only literary form which can compete for

popularity with the film and the radio.

 Only literary form which meets the need of

the modern world
 The modern man also under the influence
of science, is not particularly interested in
the metaphorical expression which is the
characteristic of poetry.

 The modern man prefers the novel form

 The modern scientific discoveries, the new
technologies

 The development of psychology

 The stream of consciousness technique,

became an important part of novelist
technique in the twentieth century.
 The modern novel is realistic. Realistic
opposed to idealistic

 The modern novel is Psychological

 Under the influence of Sigmund Frued

theories the modern novel tends to reveal
the hidden inner motives behind people’s
action
 This term was introduced by William James.

 Used in Novels

 A technique that reveals the character

completely historically as well as
psychologically

 Used by Virginia Woolf and James Joyce

MODERN NOVELIST...
1. The Ancestors

2. The Transitionalists

3. The Moderns
Novelists who dominated the earlier part of the
20th century
Herbert George Wells (1866-1946)
 Most intellectual

 insisted that classical humanism should be

discarded in favour of science and biology

 No loyalty to the past.

His Work...
Their novels divided into three parts

1. Scientific romance

2. Domestic novels

3. Sociological novels
 Unrivalled
 Masterpieces of imaginative power
Novels
 The Time Machine –hero invent time
machine and accelerate the and project
himself into the future.
Other Novels...
 The Island and Dr. Moreau (1896)
 The War of the Worlds’ (1898): Theme of
the invasion of Earth by Mars.
 When the Sleeper Wakes (1899)
 The First Man in the Moon (1901)
 The Food of the Gods (1904)
Domestic novels ....
 familiar with the life in London.
Novels
 Kipps (1905): Comedy of class instincts, full
of satire and humour
 Tono Bungay (1909): Disintegration of
English society,
 Anna Veronica (1909):
 Love and Mrs. Lewisham (1910)
 The History of Mr. Polly (1910)
Social problems confronting the men of his
time
Novels
 The New Machiavelli (1911): Story of political
and sociological creeds.
 Mr. Britling sees it Through (1916): Reaction
of people to World War I.
 The Undying fire (1919): Religious and
satiric fantasy.
Other Ancestors...
 Arnold Bennett
 Henry James
 Joseph Conard
 Kiplings
 the new forces resulted from the war which
broke the old tradition.
James Joyce (1822-1941)
• An Irish
• Unique and extraordinary genius
• symbolist
Cont.....
 born linguist
 highly gifted
 worked in the ‘stream of consciousness’
technique.
His Work....
 Ulysses (1922): Masterpiece, epic,
counterpart of Homer’s Odyssey, speech not
action-a token of humanity, does not present
to life. Used stream of consiousness
 The Dubliners (1914)
 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
(1916)
 Exiles (1918)
 Woman writer
 Used ‘stream of consciousness’ technique
 Impressed by Ulysses
 Gifted with poetic temperament
Her Novels....
 The Voyage Out (1918): Meaning of life.
 Night and Day (1919)
 Jacob’s Room (1922): first serious
experiment in the stream of consciousness
 Mrs. Dalloway (1925)
 To the Lighthouse (1927)
 Orlando (1928): Liveliest, fantasy.
 The Years (1937): Simpler form of fiction
Other Transitionalists...

 Aldous Huxley

 D.H Lawrence
The Moderns
 William Somerset Maugham (1874-1965)
 He was Novelist
 Dramatist
 Short story writer
 Naturalistic
Novels...
 Liza of Lambeth (1897): Naturalistic,
Picture of life.
 Of Human Bondage (1915)
 The Moon and Sixpence (1919)
 Cakes and Ale (1930)
 The Razor’s Edge (1944): Maugham
seeks the meaning of life.
Other Moderns...

 J.B Priestly

 Charles Morgan

 Graham Greene
Themes...

War
Social
Woman right
Scientific