Late Victorian Era 1880 -1901 Late Victorian era

Late Victorian Era 1880 -1901 Late Victorian era – Reaction AGAINST Victorian values If Victorians believed that literature should be SERIOUS, USEFUL, OPTIMISTIC, PLAIN and MORAL – How did their children, the Late Victorians, react against that? ? ?

They Rebelled With Aestheticism • The Aesthetic movement believed in “Art for Art’s Sake” = Art’s purpose is to be beautiful, not useful – Art should provide pleasure, make life more wonderful • They were inspired by the Romantics, especially John Keats “Beauty is Truth, and Truth Beauty” • But UNLIKE the Romantics, Aesthetics championed the artificial over the natural – not the wild daffodil, but gardens of exotic flowers, expressive architecture, fancy costumes • Aesthetics sought to immerse and overwhelm the senses - Beauty is more important than truth. • They are closely related to the Decadent movement in France (Baudelaire) and Symbolists in Russia (A. Bryusov, S. Soloviev, Z. Gippius, A. Blok)

Aestheticism • The. T Art-Deco Architecture The Paintings of Aubrey Beardsley The Writings of Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde (1854 -1900) “Life is too important to be taken seriously” Yet, the Irishman Wilde IS a serious writer : The Picture of Dorian Grey (novel) -A picture that is painted of a beautiful Young man ages and shows all his sins – He hides The picture and keeps his youth and beauty - A classic discourse On ‘inner beauty’ versus ‘outer beauty’ The Importance of Being Earnest (play) – A brilliant comedy Making fun of the upper classes and their weaknesses

Other Important writers from the Late Victorian Era Thomas Hardey – His pessimistic novels rebel against Victorian optimism: Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Far From the Madding Crowd Joseph Conrad – His Heart of Darkness set in colonial Africa deeply questions the morality of British colonialism Lewis Carroll – Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland: Fantastic adventures and nonsense poetry rebel against Victorian ideals of logic and usefulness Rudyard Kipling –Kipling’s tales of India (Kim, The Jungle Books) support the British Empire’s colonial policies while being very entertaining stories Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – His Sherlock Holmes mysteries found the genre of the detective novel H. G. Wells – The Time Machine will pioneer new directions in the genre of Science Fiction Robert Louis Stevenson – His Treasure Island Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Become children’s classics George Bernard Shaw Plays that combine entertainment with social criticism Man and Superman, Pygmalion

The Early 20 th Century 1901 -1920 • 1901 – Queen Victoria dies. • 1912 – The Titanic Sinks • 1914 -1918 – World War I • 1917 – The Bolshevik Revolution • 1919 – Treaty of Versailles • 1920 – Einstein publishes his theory of Relativity In the Victorian era they believed in PROGRESS, that the world was growing MORE CIVILIZED and BETTER After the horrors of WWI, those ideas were shaken. After Einstein declared Relativity, even the universe was not stable. The world had fallen apart. This led to a NEW MOVEMENT

Modernism 1914 -1927 Poetry Prose – James Joyce Prose – Virginia Woolf Art - PICASSO Poetry – TS Elliot Poetry – William Butler Yeats Music – Stravinsky

Modernist Poetry Irishman William Butler Yeats’ poem “The Second Coming” (1919) is often said to most perfectly express the loss of optimism and innocence after WWI. Here are is the first verse: Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. …

Modernism is Associated with Experimental Forms and Ideas (Trying to find new ways to express the “new world”) James Joyce is the central figure of literary modernism – He will write Stream of Consciousness prose, trying to express how thoughts move inside the brain James Joyce (Irish) – Important works: Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) Ulysses (1922) – His first fully stream of consciousness work Finnegan's Wake (1939) Virginia Woolf is an important woman writer who will also pioneer stream of consciousness writing

Modernist Poetry T. S. Eliot – American born, moved to England Pioneered modernist poetry along with Americans such as Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams His most important poems are ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” “The Wasteland” “The Hollow Men” For kids - “Old Possums’ Book of Practical Cats” (Became the musical “Cats”!) He won the Noble Prize for Literature in 1948

James Joyce - Portrait of the Artist as Young Man -a Modernist ‘growing up’ story He opened the geography to study the lesson; but he could not learn the names of places in America. Still they were all different places that had different names. They were all in different countries and the countries were in continents and the continents were in the world and the world was in the universe. He turned to the flyleaf of the geography and read what he had written there: himself, his name and where he was. Stephen Dedalus Class of Elements Clongowes Wood College Sallins County Kildare Ireland Europe The World The Universe …. He read the verses backwards but then they were not poetry. Then he read the flyleaf from the bottom to the top till he came to his own name. That was he: and he read down the page again. What was after the universe? Nothing. But was there anything round the universe to show where it stopped before the nothing place began? It could not be a wall; but there could be a thin line there all round everything. It was very big to think about everything and everywhere. Only God could do that. He tried to think what a big thought that must be; but he could only think of God was God's name just as his name was Stephen. Dieu was the French for God and that was God's name too; and when anyone prayed to God and said Dieu then God knew at once that it was a French person that was praying. But, though there were different names for God in all the different languages in the world and God understood what all the people who prayed said in their different languages, still God remained always the same God and God's real name was God. It made him very tired to think that way.

TS Elliot – “The Hollow Men” (excerpt) We are the hollow men We are the stuffed men Leaning together Headpiece filled with straw. Alas! Our dried voices, when We whisper together Are quiet and meaningless As wind in dry grass Or rats' feet over broken glass In our dry cellar ….

William Carlos Williams Not all Modernist poetry is so depressing. For example, American poet William Carlos Williams studied Japanese Art and Poetry and tried to bring the same beauty and simplicity to English: so much depends upon a red wheel barrow glazed with rain water beside the white chickens.