Literature of the Middle Ages. The Anglo-Saxon period Beowulf

THE WORKING-CLASS NOVEL
An important development of the 1950s and early 1960s was the emergence of the working-class novel. By this time the "angry young men" had shown the first signs of reconciliation with the existing reality. In fact, the reading public was expecting something new and fresh.
The working-class novel of the 50s-60s brought new themes into the proletarian English literature. First of all they introduced a new working class hero, with his aimless protest and passionate fury against everything and everybody. Another peculiarity of the working class novels is a strong emphasis on the workers' private life. The first books were very favourably greeted by the English bourgeois critics, because the hero introduced by the writers agreed with the Labour ideal of the young worker.
The reading public and the critics saw in the books of Sillitoe, Chaplin, Barstow and others the true representation of the working class life, the sincere attempts of the writers to achieve a better understanding of life conflicts, to solve some of the urgent problems of our times.
13. Literature of the “lost generation”. E. Hemingway. S. Fitzgerald.

Many historians call the 1920s the roaring 20s or the Jazz Age. On the one hand American people were recovering from the tragedy & trauma of World War I. Those, who had taken part in the war, had come back home crippled either physically or morally or both. They tried to adjust themselves to the post - war mode of life, but often failed to do that as the dramatic war experience had ruined their old set of ideals & values, & made them unable to adopt themselves to the changed conditions. These people as well as the writers who described such people got the name of the “lost generation”.

— Ernest (his real name was Miller) Hemingway (1 899 -1961);
—Francis Scott Fitzgerald (1896 - 1940);
—John Don Passes(1896- 1970) -"Three Soldiers" (1921);
—William Harrison Faulkner (1897 - 1962) - "Soldier's Pay" (1926) - his first novel based on the problem of "the lost generation", it was not very successful, especially in comparison with the two titans of American "lost generation" writers - Ernest Hemingway & Francis Scott Fitzgerald.
On the other hand the 20s with their industrial boost also saw the great upheaval of the moods of the people, their desire to compensate for the austerity & deprivations of the war years. Moreover World War I turned out to be quite profitable for America as it was, the only country which really profited from the war. So the Americans partied, partied & partied. Besides the 20s can be summed up as the age of prosperity, entertainment (jazz music gets enormous popularity) & fashion.
In the 30s the situation changed drastically because of the Great Depression (not only in America but in the whole world). The living standards dropped very low. There was a rise of proletariat movement in America The 30s are sometimes called the red 30s, as society was oriented on socialist ideas. So the Depression & the natural disasters which aggravated the economic disaster – all this was naturally reflected in literature (especially in realistic literature).
One of the best books on the 30s was John Ernest Steinbeck's (1902 - 1968) novel "The Grapes of Wrath (1939) a story a family in Oklahoma which is a victim of the natural disasters & the economic crisis. They have to move to California - a sort of "promised land". And the author depicts their sufferings very well. The writers of that day tried to reflect the everyday life of common people, they showed people's search for the "promised land" & showed that there was no such land. Steinbeck's personages also move from place to place to find a better life.
14. Realism of the XXth century. J. Galsworthy, G.Greene

JOHN GALSWORTHY came of well-to-do bourgeois family; after graduating from Oxford University

He became a lawyer but soon abandoned this profession to take up literature. He began to write in the last years of the 19th century, but his first works were not very successful. His best novels were written in the first decade of the 20th century. In them the reader finds a reflection of the opposition of the progressive-minded people to imperialism, to Britain's Boer War adventure. In 1904 Galsworthy wrote The Island Pharisees. In it he attacked the British privileged classes. He criticized them for being content with the bourgeois way of life; he stressed the fact that their minds had become inert and lazy. In 1906 Galsworthy's best novel appeared. It was The Man of Property. He achieved great heights of generalization in this work. In it he told the story of the upper middle class that dictated its laws to the country.
During the period 1907—1918 Galsworthy turned to different subjects. He wrote many novels and plays. His main object, however, always remained that of reflecting social contradictions and trying to find a humanist solution to them. Galsworthy paid great attention to the composition of his novels. Thus, the composition of The Man of Property is thoroughly worked out. The events are presented so vividly that the chapters may be easily staged, for instance At Home, Dinner at Swithin 's, June's Treat and others.
Galsworthy's "feeling" for the language may be compared with a painter's "feeling" for colour. His choice of words is so accurate that it is difficult to paraphrase his sentences. He makes use of irony when describing his characters and the weaknesses of his own class.
John Galsworthy's contribution to the development of the English novel was very important. He was nearer than Wells and Shaw to his predecessors, the critical realists of the first half of the 19th century. Galsworthy brought the novel back to its former heights by creating a real "document" of the epoch, a deep, realistic picture of the bourgeois class. The Forsyte Saga, his greatest achievement, is the culmination of English critical realism of the early 20th century.
GRAHAM GREENE (1904—1991)
Graham Greene was born at Berkhamsted, near London. He was educated at Oxford. From 1926 to 1930 he was sub-editor of the London Times. He started writing in the late 20s. He wrote a lot of short stories, critical essays, travel books plays and novels. He travelled a good deal and his novels are set in various countries of the world. Since the beginning of his literary career Greene has been writing in two veins — the so-called "serious novels" and the "entertaining novels". While the former are generally a meditation on the psychology of man, the latter are more of the detective type of novel. The group of "serious novels" is represented by The Man Within (1929), England Made Me (1935), The Power and the Glory' (1940), The Heart of the Matter (1948), The Quiet American (1955), A Burnt-Out Case (1961). The "entertaining novels" are: Stamboul Train (1932), A Gun for Sale (1936), The Confidential Agent (1939), Loser Takes All (1955), The Ministry of Fear (1968) and others.
The borderline between these two groups is, however, vague because the former are often constructed along detective or adventure lines while the latter often pose serious problems. Greene's novels touch on the burning political issues of the day — the American war in Vietnam in The Quiet American (1955), the people's struggle against the reactionary dictatorship in Haiti in The Comedians (1966), racism in South Africa in The Human Factor (1978), political terrorism in Getting to Know the General: the Story of an Involvement (1984).
The social and political events serve as a background against which the problems of an ethical nature are dealt with. Greene's novels present a profound search into the depths of human psychology and are permeated with philosophical reflections on the nature of man and the human predicament. His last novel The Captain and the Enemy (1988) shows how complex and unpredictable human characters are. It treats of love and hatred, of devotion and betrayal. The major conflict in several of his novels occurs between believers, who live according to the law of the Church and unbelievers. And yet Greene avoids the easy solution that the believer will be saved and the unbeliever damned. He tries to find a way to reconcile these opposite views. This idea permeates the novel Monsignor Quixote (1982) and his public speeches, one of which was delivered at the International Forum "For Nuclear-Free World, for Survival of Humanity" held in Moscow in 1987. Well-known are also his short stories and funny entertaining tales for children such as The Little Fire Engine (1950), The Little Horse Bus (1952) and others. His last collection of short stories was prophetically headlined The Last Word (1990). The title story of the collection sounds as the writer's behest to the living. It asserts the necessity of faith for every individual and for society at large.
THE QUIET AMERICAN
The novel is essentially political and it brings forward the most important problem in the progressive
Literature of our days — the problem of choice. For the first time Greene strongly condemns the sordid laws of colonialism, presentsthe truth of the American colonial policy. The plot of The Quiet American is centred round a murder. It is not a detective novel, for the theme is profoundly political. The action of the novel is set in Vietnam in the 1950s, when the country was a French colony. The "quiet" American Pyle is employed in the American Economic Aid Mission, but his real duty is to arrange various acts of sabotage and provocation, trying to accuse communists of them and paving the way for the growth of American influence. His antagonist is Fowler, an English newspaper correspondent. Fowler is not young, he is unhappy in private life, disillusioned and tired. His creed is not to get involved in anything. Fowler reports only what he sees, trying to be indifferent to everything. But sooner or later one has to make a choice, and Fowler does so. He begins to help the people of Vietnam in their struggle against the French troops.
Greene is a contradictory writer; theoretically he is non-committal; in his works, however, the characters are forced to take sides, or to make a choice, in the political struggle. The novel Doctor Fischer of Geneva, or the Bomb Party (1980) disclosed a new aspect of Greene's literary skill. This relatively short work contains a sombre satire on the modem bourgeois world. It exposes the overwhelming power of money and the limitless lust for it in the rich.
Greene's novels are characterized by a great force of conviction, concreteness of description and precision in rendering characters and situations. These, as well as the wide scope and preoccupation with the most urgent problems of the day, make Greene one of the most prominent writers of contemporary world literature.
15. Philosophical novel. W. Golding, I. Murdoch.

THE PHILOSOPHICAL NOVEL

The political and social developments in the second half of the 20th century led the literary men of England to serious meditations on the future of mankind, the aim of man's life, man's place in society. These problems are the essence of the philosophical novel which came into existence in the early 1950s. The most prominent representatives of the genre are William Golding, Iris Murdoch, Colin Wilson and, to a certain extent, John Fowles.
Much of their work is influenced by the existentialist philosophy of the French modernists Sartre, Camus and others. Existentialism is a view of the world that stresses the uniqueness and isolation of individual experience in an indifferent and even hostile universe. Human existence is meaningless and absurd, yet people somehow can and do control their destiny through freedom of choice. Thus, ultimately every person must take responsibility for whatever he or she does. When individuals realize that they are completely responsible for their decisions, actions and beliefs, they are overcome by anxiety. They try to escape from this anxiety by ignoring or denying their freedom. The existentialists criticize this flight from freedom and responsibility into self-deception.
They insist that individuals must accept full responsibility for their behaviour, no matter how difficult it may be. If a person wants to live a decent and meaningful life in the alien and absurd world one must become fully aware of the true character of the human situation and bravely accept it. None of the English writers followed the ideas of the French existentialists completely, yet existentialist motifs permeate their works. Their novels are marked by pessimism and fear. Most of their heroes are lonely despairing individuals, powerless in a hostile and chaotic world. The relations between people are usually characterized by indifference and alienation. Symbolism and allegory are the chief literary devices in the philosophical novel.
WILLIAM GOLDING (1911—1993)
William Golding denied any links with existentialism, yet his ideas are close to it. His works are complicated, they are full of implication. In them modernist elements go side by side with realist ones, concrete pictures alternate with allegorical images. Golding himself called his novels fables, thus stressing their didactic nature. His aim, according to the writer, is to record everything dark that he sees around, to show people the dark abyss into which they are, or may be thrown, to warn them against it and, if possible, to change their lives.
Golding was born in 1911 in Cornwall. He graduated from Oxford University. During World War II he served in the British Navy; later he worked as a school teacher in the town of Salisbury. The atrocities of fascists, the horrors of the war made him think of the nature of man and the future of mankind. All his novels, in one way or another, raise the problem of Good and Evil in man and society.
This problem has occupied people's thoughts for a long time. In the 18th century philosophers and writers thought that man was born good and virtuous and it was the ugly environment that could sometimes spoil him. Yet they believed in the ability of man's reason to defeat Evil. The complicated atmosphere of the 20th century, the two world wars, the moral crisis of society, violence and crime characteristic of the modem world led some people, Golding among them, to see the cause of Evil in man's nature. In his commentary on the novel Lord of the Flies (1954) he wrote: "He who has passed through the years of fascist violence and has not realised that Evil is inherent in man is either blind or insane". Like many others, Golding came to the pessimistic conclusion that evil was inherent in man, that man was bom with a disposition to egoism, greed and violence.
He often presents his characters — either isolated individuals or small groups — in some extreme situations which bring out every man's basic traits, or his identity. Thus, Sam Mountjoy (Free Fall), when thrown into a concentration camp, betrays his comrades. He traces back his whole life and realises that his moral fall is the result of the numerous wrong "choices" he has made in the course of it. Another character, Jocelyn, (The Spire) is obsessed with an ambitious desire to build a high spire above the church. He stops at nothing, sacrificing his own life and the lives of other people, to accomplish his plan. The scene of the novel Darkness Visible is laid in present-day Britain. The characters are mostly abnormal people — thieves, madmen, maniacs. It tells the story of Matti, who, as a child, became a victim of the Nazi bombing of the London docks. Matti is kind and noble but very lonely because his burnt, ugly face scares people. In despair Matti leaves for Australia. A still greater misfortune befalls him there, he goes half-insane. He returns to England thinking himself a prophet. Though Matti dies saving a kidnapped child from a fire he is not a positive character. He makes friends with an evil old man and commits a crime. Golding stresses that the evil side of man's nature can easily triumph over the good one.
The life of Matti is shown against the background of English social life. Economic decline, immorality, violence, terrorism are characteristic of it. An English critic called the novel "a picture of England in the surrounding darkness".
However pessimistic Golding's books are, they pursue a highly humanist aim— to help people do away with Evil. The writer himself compared his books to a street sign, warning people of danger. A pessimist, he says, would have never put up the sign.
Golding's major work of the last period is the Sea Trilogy which consists of Rites of Passage (1980), Close Quarters (1987) and Fire Down Below (1989) set on an old ship bound for Australia during the Napoleonic wars. Like his other works the trilogy combines elements of several genres: a sea novel, a historical and a psychological ones. At the same time it is a profound philosophical fable dealing with such problems as man versus society and the contradictory prospects of human progress. For his contribution to world literature Golding was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1983.
IRIS MURDOCH (1919—1999)
Iris Murdoch may well be considered the initiator of the genre of the philosophical novel. In her novels one can find the most typical examples of correlation between philosophical ideas and life. She was born in Dublin into an Anglo-Irish family. She graduated from Oxford University and after the war lectured in philosophy both at Oxford and Cambridge. In her philosophical studies she followed Sartre, a famous French philosopher, and his existentialism.
The main problem in art, as Murdoch sees it, is the problem of man's personality. The novel, in her opinion, should touch upon the complicated moral aspects of man's life and the enigma of his individuality. Philosophical truths, she thinks, should be presented not in the form of abstract ideas but through well-drawn portraits of characters. Yet her method of portrayal is far from realistic. Nor does she ever give a concrete setting to her novels, it is usually only some small detail that helps the reader realize the time and place of action. Her early novels are practically devoid of a coherent plot and consist of a number of disunited episodes, reflecting the chaos characteristic of the modem world. All her novels have a more or less similar composition: they contain a set of five or six personages who interconnect and interact with each other.
Murdoch values a romantic dreamer in man. Such is Jake Donaghue in her first novel Under the Net (1954). The novel tells the story of his wanderings about Bohemian London and Paris. Jake attempts to find his own way in life. He wants to get away from the net of conventional ideas and notions and work out his own mode of thinking. The author's attention is concentrated on the psychological analysis of her hero's inner world, the world which is ruled not by laws but by man's strivings and aspirations.
In her second novel The Flight from the Enchanter (1956) the author deals with a different sort of illusion. All the characters are under spells and enchantments, they are held in a kind ofemotional captivity. The principal character, Misha Fox, exercises a spell over other people, yet he feels no responsibility for the effects of his influence.
The title of the novel The Sandcastle (1957), like those of her other works, is symbolic. The love between a married schoolmaster and a young artist, whose name is Rain, cannot last; it is a castle of sand. Human beings are unable to build anything lasting out of their deceptive dreams, and the castles of their dreams either crumble or are washed away.
In Murdoch's novel The Bell (1958) a group of people in a religious community attempt to place a bell on the tower of the nearby abbey, but accidentally it falls into the lake. Thus, the bell becomes part of another illusion, the image of another unsuccessful human attempt to build some sort of happiness.
For the first time the author takes up a historical subject in her novel The Red and the Green (1965), which deals with the Easter Rebellion of 1916, a major event in the Irish national liberation movement. However, we cannot call the novel a historical one. All its characters are fictitious; the only real name is that of Patrick Pearse, a teacher and a poet, who was executed by the English after the Easter Rebellion. The author concentrates her attention on the psychology of the fighters, on their patriotism. Through their characters Murdoch shows the romance of the contemporary national liberation movement.
In the late 1960s there came a change in Murdoch's philosophical orientation. She took up the ideas of the ancient Greek philosopher Plato and tried to work out some positive ethical ideals. In her lectures as well as the novels of the period — The Nice and The Good (1968), Bruno's Dream (1969), A Fairly Honourable Defeat (1970) — Murdoch asserted that good deeds were the most powerful means to overcome one's loneliness. An illustration of this thesis is Diana's (Bruno's Dream) resolution to dedicate herself entirely to the care of her decrepit old father-in-law after her dramatic separation from her husband.
Another cornerstone of her neo-platonic philosophy is the problem of love. Murdoch investigates different manifestations and aspects of this human feeling. She shows selfish and disinterested, passionate and rational love, love verging on hatred and self-sacrificing love. The most elevated form of love, in Murdoch's opinion, is the one that inspires man for artistic creation. Characteristic of the writer's preoccupation with this theme is the novel The Black Prince.
THE BLACK PRINCE
The main themes in the novel The Black Prince (1973) are those of love and chance. It seems that everything in people's lives happens by chance, that there is something fatal that influences human destinies. In the author's opinion this fatality is created by the people themselves, by their passions, deeds and intentions. Bradley Pearson, the main character of the novel, is, quite by chance, a person who influences the lives of all other personages, especially, of the Baffin family. Arnold Baffin is a prosperous commercial novelist. His private life is one of routine. Rachel, his wife, once persuades herself that she has fallen in love with Bradley Pearson, who seems attached to her. Very soon, however, Pearson understands that he loves Julian, Baffin's daughter.The action of the novel develops quite rapidly. Bradley and Julian have a few happy days together. Then due to her parents they are forced to separate. Bradley Pearson is unjustly accused of the murder of Arnold Baffin. He is put into prison and dies there. It is there that he creates his best novel, in which he tells of his life and love. The following short extract from the novel renders Pearson's, and, evidently, Murdoch's own idea of the present-day world and man's destiny in it:
Since the 1970s Murdoch's novels such as A Word Child (1975), The Sea, the Sea (1978), The Philosopher's Pupil (1983), The Book and the Brotherhood (1987) and others have acquired a more definite social background. The construction of the plot has become less schematic, the characters have grown more life-like and their actions have become more socially motivated though therelations between the personages of her novels are as always complicated and entangled. Her last novels were The Message to the Planet (1989), The Green Knight (1994) and Jackson's Dilemma (1995).
Murdoch is a contradictory writer. A search for moral values goes in her novels side by side with the assertion that the world is a place of continuous suffering where there is no room for any sort of lasting ties or relations. Alongside a truthful presentation of life she creates a mystical world. Her work is marked with an original endeavour to reflect the complicated relations between people in the world of today.
16. Two generations of American romanticism, F.Cooper, E.A.Poe, W.Irving, N.Hawthorne, H.Melville

ROMANTICISM IN AMERICAN LITERATURE (1820 -1860)

In America Romanticism emerged 30 years later than it did in England or France due to the peculiarities of American history, The aesthetics of American Romanticism had much in common with that of European. The economic & social development in America disappointed many people because many began to be seized by chase for money. Slavery & extermination of the Indians added to this disillusionment. That's why the works of the new generation of writers stressed the gap between the ideal & reality,
Like European Romanticists the American ones sought the ideal elsewhere in the past or some other
countries, some of them turned for inspiration to the folklore. The American leading romanticists were:
— Washinglon 1rving (1789 1859);
—James Fenimoro Cooper) (1789 - 1851);
—Edgar Allan Poe(1809 - 1849);
—Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804 - 1864);
—Herman Melville (1819 - 1891).