What You Know About Modern Age of English Literature?

The history of English literature starts with the Germanic tradition of the Anglo-Saxon settlers. Beowulf stands at its head and is the epic poem that belongs to the old English period. Those who are only familiar with the modern English cannot understand this poem. Frances Burney is known as the “Mother of English Literature” and Geoffrey Chaucer is referred to as “the father of English Literature” because of being a pioneerin contributing recognized poems and stories in English literature.Almost 8 periods are there in English literature and today in this blog we will be discussing the Modern period Literature.

• The modern period in Englishliterature starts with the 20th century and last till 1965. Many changes occur in this period and what was discouraged in the previous periods, such as individualism and experimentation, become virtues in the modern period.
• The modern period had to witness many cultural shocks and feeling of uncertainty amongst the people because of world wars 1 and 2. The dramatists, poets, and novelists of this period adopted the slogan “Make it new”.
• They rebel against Victorian protocol, to despise the middle class reading public, to make art more deliberately obscure, and to discriminate between highbrow and lowbrow writing.

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Literary facts about the modern period

Several changes took place in modern literature. The imaginative verses, writings, and the structure of the verses of the Victorian period started becoming outdated. The writings of the previous period writers started losing its magic and readers stopped getting attracted to these writings. Art and literatureneeded to be recreated to re-energize the readers. Modern writers provided freshness in the content and also elicit the spirits of readers.The famous writers of modern periods are David Herbert Lawrence, James Joyce, Thomas Stearns Eliot, George Bernard Shaw, William Butler Yeats, etc. and various literature trends such as stream of consciousness, cubism, futurism, expressionism, symbolism, etc. emerged after the end of first world war.

• Opposed views:In the early decades of the 20^th century, there was an evolution in natural science and social science. Material wealth and industrialization were growing rapidly. This was that period in which the differences between aristocrats and clergy increased more.The literature of modern age opposed the general attitude of people towards life as per Victorian literature.
• Development of critical thinking:Before this modern age, people were giving more importance to those in power and they were accepting the rules made in the church. People started to accept the laws without questioning them.But in the modern age, generation was having critical thinking and they started posing questions about the rules and decisions made by the supreme authorities. They started keeping their viewpoint and even rebel against some of the wrong decisions made by authorities. Therefore, Writers of English literature in the modern period consider all these changes and revolutionized their writings by repudiating the old ideas and beliefs.
• Vanished Hypocrisy:In the modern age, people started taking victorian age or previous periods as a hypocritical age with mean and superficial ideals. The Hypocrisy of previous periods gives rise to a rebellious attitude amongst the writers of modern English literature. The whole idea changes in the modern period as the things and ideas which were considered honorable and wise were considered useless and unwise in the modern age. A of questioning arose among the people in the modern age which was absent in the Victorian age or previous periods. Writers of literature also contributed to shifting the ideologies and generating critical thinking among the people.
• Deteriorated values:In the previous periods, people were more of family persons and believed in home life but in the modern age, people were more into independence. Values of love and romance also changed as people started giving more importance to physical love in the modern age. The literary work of the modern age also depicts a similar lifestyle and ideas. Sentiments and values declined in the modern age as people became materialistic and greedy in this period. The modern literature showed less zeal and energy for natural beauty, love, and sentiments.
• Material growth:The modern period literatureis famous for the machinery and is also known as the age of machinery as lifestyle improved and the production of goods increased in this age. But it made people more mechanical and they were using their energy and efforts not as per there will but for the materialistic aspects which increased the distress among people.

To conclude, Modern age in English literature helped in putting back the ideas and beliefs of the Victorians into a modern man’s opinions and desires. Writers of modern age generatedinquisitive behavior and habits in the people of the modern age.Theyattacked the old superstitious religious beliefs among the society and also questioned the superstitions of science through his writings.

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