History of English Modern Literature

History of English Literature in
Modern Age
By: Muhammad Hisyam Alfalaq (1930104039)
Society Background
• This period is considered a period of destruction and misery as a result of the

emergence of two world wars (I and II), even the threat of world war III still exists.
• In all the previous periods, experimentation and individualism were highly
discouraged but With the onset of the modern period both these things became
virtues.
• In this era, people's faith in religion and believes.
• England has lost the dominant power it had in the previous period.
• England lost a lot of money and resources, youth and wealth, especially during
World War II (1939-1945).
• There is a change in the order of citizenship. "British Empire" changed to "British
Commonwealth".
English Literature Background
• English literature of the modern age started with the initiation of the 20th century
and remain till 1965.
• The prominent feature of the literature during the modern age was that it opposed
the general attitude towards life as shown in Victorian literature.
• Literature in this modern era defines anti-war literature and absurd theatre.
• Moreover, it reflects thoughts over sciences and psychology to show the impact of
colonialism.
Modern English Literature Figures
1. David Herbert Lawrence (1885-1930)

He was an English writer and poet. His collected works represent, among other things, an
extended reflection upon the dehumanising effects of modernity and industrialisation.
Lawrence's writing explores issues such as sexuality, emotional health, vitality, spontaneity,
and instinct. His works include Sons and Lovers, The Rainbow, Women in Love, and Lady
Chatterley's Lover.
2. James Joyce (1882- 1941)
He was an Irish novelist, short story writer, poet, teacher, and literary critic. He contributed to
the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influential and important writers of the 20th
century. Joyce is best known for Ulysses (1922), a landmark work in which the episodes of Homer's Odyssey are
paralleled in a variety of literary styles, most famously stream of consciousness. Other well-known works are the short-
story collection Dubliners (1914), and the novels A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) and Finnegans
Wake (1939). His other writings include three books of poetry, a play, his published letters and occasional journalism.
3. Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888- 1965)

He was a poet, essayist, publisher, playwright, literary critic and
editor. Considered one of the 20th century's major poets, he is a central figure in
English-language Modernist poetry.
Eliot first attracted widespread attention for his poem "The Love Song of J.
Alfred Prufrock" in 1915, which was received as a modernist masterpiece. It was
followed by some of the best-known poems in the English language, including "The
Waste Land" (1922), "The Hollow Men" (1925), "Ash Wednesday" (1930), and Four
Quartets (1943). He was also known for his seven plays, particularly Murder in the
Cathedral (1935) and The Cocktail Party (1949). He was awarded the Nobel Prize in
Literature in 1948, "for his outstanding, pioneer contribution to present-day poetry"
4. William Butler Yeats (1865- 1939)

He was an Irish poet, dramatist, prose writer and one of the foremost figures of 20th-
century literature. A pillar of the Irish literary establishment, he helped to found the Abbey
Theatre, and in his later years served two terms as a Senator of the Irish Free State. He was a
driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival along with Lady Gregory, Edward Martyn and
others.
5. John Galaworthy (1867- 1933)
He was an English novelist and playwright. Notable works include The Forsyte
Saga (1906–1921) and its sequels, A Modern Comedy and End of the Chapter. He won
the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1932..
The Example of Modern English Literature
• Heart of Darkness (Joseph Conrad)

First published in three instalments in Blackwood’s Magazine in 1899, and
then in book form in 1902, Heart of Darkness thus straddles the Victorian
and ‘modern’ eras: it first appeared when Victoria was still on the throne,
but by the time the book version was published, Britain had a new
monarch and was firmly in a new century.
• The Waste Land (T. S. Eliot)
This 1922 long poem features (as it must) in our pick of Eliot’s best
poems, and it’s one of the landmark works of modernist literature –
perhaps the most important poem in all of modernism.
• Tickets, Please (D. H. Lawrence)

Written during WWI and focusing on the men and women who work on the
trams in Nottingham, ‘Tickets, Please’ examines the shifting gender roles in
the early twentieth century and the latent desires and impulses which
Freudian psychoanalysis had lain bare.
• In a Station of the Metro (Ezra Pound)
His two most famous works are among the longest and shortest in canonical
‘English’ literature: The Cantos runs to nearly a thousand pages, while ‘In a
Station of the Metro’ (1913) is just two lines in length (you can read it
online here; we offer an in-depth commentary on Pound’s poem here).
• Ulysses (James Joyce)

Published in the annus mirabilis of modernism, 1922, Ulysses is Joyce’s
masterpiece. It’s also one of the best modernist novels ever written. The
novel is a retelling of Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey, about Greek hero
Odysseus’ return home from the Trojan Wars (a journey which took him
ten years, but which Joyce condenses to a single day in Dublin, 16 June
1904).

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History of English Literature in

• This period is considered a period of destruction and misery as a result of the

1. David Herbert Lawrence (1885-1930)

3. Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888- 1965)

4. William Butler Yeats (1865- 1939)

• Heart of Darkness (Joseph Conrad)

• Tickets, Please (D. H. Lawrence)

• Ulysses (James Joyce)

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