General Characteristics of the 20th Cen Lit

Modernity is a philosophical movement and an art movement

that emerged from the sweeping changes in Western society in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. As we know there are many periods in English literature like Old English (Anglo-Saxon) Period, The Renaissance, The Neoclassical Period, The Romantic Period, The Victorian Period, The Edwardian Period, The Georgian Period,  The Postmodern Period  20th-century literature is a diverse field covering a variety of genres, there are common characteristics that changed literature forever. The twentieth century was like no time period before it. Einstein, Darwin, Freud, and Marx were just some of the thinkers who profoundly changed Western culture. These changes took distinct shapes in the literature of the 20th century. Modernism, a movement that was a radical break from 19th century Victorianism, led to postmodernism, which emphasized self- consciousness and pop art. While 20th-century literature is a diverse field covering a variety of genres, there are common characteristics that changed literature forever.

Prior to the 20th century, literature tended to be structured in linear, chronological order. Twentieth-century writers experimented with other kinds of structures. Virginia Woolf, for instance, wrote novels, whose main plot was often “interrupted” by individual characters’ memories,. Ford Maddux Ford's classic "The Good Soldier" plays with chronology, jumping back and forth between time periods. Many of these writers aimed to imitate the feeling of how time is truly experienced subjectively.

 

 

 George Bernard Shaw turned the Edwardian theatre into an arena for debate upon the principal concerns of the day: the question of political organization, the morality of armaments and war, the function of class and of the professions, the validity of the family and of marriage, and the issue of female emancipation. Nor was he alone in this, even if he was alone in the brilliance of his comedy. John Galsworthy made use of the theatre in Strife (1909) to explore the conflict between capital and labor, and in Justice (1910) he lent his support to the reform of the penal system, while Harley Granville-Barker, whose revolutionary approach to stage direction did much to change theatrical production in the period, dissected in The Voysey Inheritance (performed 1905, published 1909) and Waste (performed 1907, published 1909) the hypocrisies and deceit of upper-class and professional life.

 

The twentieth century was like no time period before it. Einstein, Darwin, Freud, and Marx were just some of the thinkers who profoundly changed Western culture. These changes took distinct shapes in the literature of the 20th century. Modernism, a movement that was a radical break from 19th century Victorianism, led to postmodernism, which emphasized self- consciousness and pop art. While 20th-century literature is a diverse field covering a variety of genres, there are common characteristics that changed literature forever. If there's one thing readers could count on before the 20th century, it was the reliability of an objective narrator in fiction. Modernist and postmodern writers, however, believed that this did a disservice to the reliability of stories in general. The 20th century saw the birth of the ironic narrator, who could not be trusted with the facts of the narrative. Nick Carraway, the narrator of Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby," for example, tells the story with a bias toward the novel's titular character. In an extreme case of a fragmented perspective, Faulkner's "As I Lay Dying" switches narrators between each chapter.

 

Modernity is a philosophical movement and an art movement that emerged from the sweeping changes in Western society in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected the desire to create new forms of art, philosophy and social organization that reflected new emerging industrial worlds, including features such as urbanization, new technologies and warfare. Artists sought to break away from traditional forms of art, modernist innovations include abstract art, novels of the flow of consciousness, montage cinema, autonomous and bar-tone music, and separatist painting. Modernism explicitly rejected the ideology of realism and used past works through reincarnation, reunion, rewriting, retrieval, reformation, and the employment of parody. Modernism also denied the certainty of the doctrine of enlightenment, and many modernists also rejected religious beliefs. A notable feature of modernism is the self-consciousness associated with artistic and social traditions, leading to experiments with form, with the use of techniques and techniques to draw attention to the materials used to create works of art. Looking on, others see it evolving into late modernity or high modernity. Modernism bids farewell to modernity and rejects its basic assumptions.