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

Samuel Butler (1835—1902) was another critical realist of those years, who analysed the psychology of the bourgeoisie. His best known work is The Way of All Flesh, in which he depicted a clergyman's family, for whom money was the most important thing in life.
Probably the most outstanding novelist of those years was Thomas Hardy (1840—1928). He was born and lived most of his life in one of the Southwest rural counties of England, Dorsetshire, which is called Wessex in his novels. He began by portraying idyllic pictures of country life, and little by little took up tragic themes in such novels as Tess of the d'Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure. 109I and 1891 Hardy wrote Tess of the d'Urbervilles which, as a challenge to puritan bigotry, he called "the story of a pure woman". It is the tragedy of a poor girl, whose life is broken by the bigotry of society in that period.
Jude the Obscure, which is considered to be Hardy's best novel, was written in 1895. In it he continued to develop his theme. Jude, a gifted boy who grows up into a talented man, goes through life seeing all his hopes and expectations shattered. He belongs to the lower classes of society and every road of life seems to be closed to him. After a life of countless sufferings he dies a young man with the words "Let the day perish wherein I was born" on his lips. Hardy differed from other critical realists of the 19"' century in that his criticism of society developed into a psychology of pessimism. He was one of the last representatives of the old patriarchal farmer's England and saw in the villages the terrible effects of capitalism that spoiled the life of their inhabitants; this gave rise to his tragic world outlook.
A follower of the great traditions of the critical realists, whose life and works span practically a hundred years, is Ethel Lilian Voynich (1864—1960). She was the daughter of a prominent English mathematician, George Boole. Her mother, Mary Everest, was the niece of a famous engineer and geographer, George Everest (after whom Mount Everest, the highest peak of the Himalayas was named). Ethel Lilian Boole studied at the Berlin conservatory and in 1887—1889 worked in Russia as a governess. In 1890 she married a Polish revolutionary, Wilfrid Michael Voynich, who fled from tsarist exile to London. All her novels of the end of the century are a reflection of revolutionary movement, for Voynich was very close to Russian members of the "Narodnaya Volia", especially to Stepniak-Kravchinsky.
The Gadfly (1897), her masterpiece, is the story of a young man, Arthur Burton, one of the leaders in the struggle of the Italian people against Austrian religious and social oppression during the 1840s. To his underground friends Arthur is known under the name of the Gadfly. In this novel, one of the strongest among atheist fiction in world literature, we see better than in any of her other works connection of Voynich's creative art with the revolutionary romantic traditions of English letters. It is not mere chance that Shelley is the favourite poet of Gemma Warren, Arthur's beloved. The novel is written with courage, all the more notable in that it was finished on the eve of the Boer War, at a time of the violent imperialist reaction. In the character of the Gadfly Voynich portrayed the main features of progressive people. Her peculiarity lies in the exceptional interest she shows in the lives of other peoples — a fact that is entirely inherited from the romanticists — peoples of Italy, Russia and France. This is her own, special way of expressing her patriotism, for while describing other peoples and other customs she never forgot her own country just like the great revolutionary romanticists Byron and Shelley.
During the last decade of the 19th century and the first years of the 20th century three names were prominent among the among the writers who continued the traditions of critical realism. They were Galsworthy, Herbert G. Wells and the great playwright Bernard Shaw. All three possessed remarkable individual talent and developed critical realism along their own, individual lines.
JOHN GALSWORTHY came of well-to-do bourgeois family; after graduating from Oxford Univercity 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 20thcentury.
HERBERT GEORGE WELLS (1866—1946)
Herbert G. Wells was born in a poor family. In his youth he worked very hard, and, at the same time, managed to get an education. He became a biologist and for some time worked as assistant to a well-known English scientist, a follower of Charles Darwin. When Wells was quite young he became interested in social problems. He always called himself a socialist, but his socialism was very peculiar. He understood that the world had to be changed. At an early age he came to the Utopian conclusion that only scientists and technicians could solve the existing contradictions. According to Wells it was not revolution, but evolution — through certain reforms — that could change the world. And only science and technology could do it.
World War I came as a shock to Wells. He could no longer be sure of peaceful progress. The October Revolution was, in his opinion, a social "experiment". He did not have much faith in it. However, in 1920 he visited Russia and was received by V. Lenin in Moscow. During his stay in Russia, Wells saw the devastation of the country. He described his impressions of this visit in his book Russia in the Shadows and called Lenin "the Kremlin dreamer".
In Wells' novels science and technology form the background against which the plot develops. Besides this, there is always a very strong social aspect in his works. In this connection Wells always said that he was a follower of Swift. Swift's Gulliver's Travels, he pointed out, was also based on fantasy. This fantasy Served as a basis for social criticism. His early cycle of science fiction was written from 1895 to 1901. Among the works of those years were The Time Machine, The Invisible Man, The War of the Worlds, The First Men on the Moon and others. In the novels of this cycle Wells wrote about the fate of civilization. This was his main theme In The Island of Dr. Moreau he warned humanity against reckless experimentation. A later cycle of novels was written between 1901 and World War I. In these he reflected on the fate of mankind. Among them were The War in the Air, The World Set Free and others. After World War I, Well turned to the genre of the social novels. After his trip to the USSR he returned to social fantasies. In these novels he tried to reflect the danger of fascism in his country and in the rest of the world.
THE WAR OF WORLDS This novel is many-levelled. We hear the author's question, addressed to all mankind: "What will happen to humanity if cold intellect triumphs over feelings and emotions?" This question is, at the same time, a call to people to reorganize their way of life. And, above all, it is a warning to humanity to avoid destructive wars. Thus, Wells revealed in his novels the possible negative consequences of technical progress. He showed how tragic the achievements in science could be if they were applied with destructive intentions. The pessimistic theme that the earth is a temporary phenomenon, and that the human race is determined to destroy itself, permeates all his work.
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW (1856—1950)
George Bernard Shaw was born in Dublin in a middle class family. In 1876 he came to London. After an unsuccessful career as a novelist he wrote art, music and book criticism for several periodicals. In his articles on drama he protested against the artificiality of the London theatre which at that time was full of shallow sentimental plays. He demanded that theatres should perform plays dealing with contemporary social and moral problems and should rouse people, make them think and suffer.
He called the first cycle of his dramatic works — Widower's Houses (1892), The Philanderer (1893) and Mrs. Warren's Profession (1894)—Plays Unpleasant. They were unfavourably received by the public because they unmasked bourgeois espectability by exposing the true source of rich families' wealth. It were his witty comedies to which he gave the name Plays Pleasant—Arms and the Man (1894), The Man of Destiny (1895), etc. — that established his popularity. In these, as well as in Caesar and Cleopatra, he destroyed romantic illusions about some historical personages and showed the true motives of human actions.
Shaw wrote over 50 plays including John Bull's Other Island (1904) and Saint Joan (1923). In the former he criticized England's colonial policy in Ireland. In the latter he gave his own dramatic interpretation of the character of Joan of Arc, the national heroine of France, also called the Maid of Orleans, who fought against the Englishmen during the One Hundred Years' War. One of his best known works is the comedy Pygmalion (1913), later turned into a popular musical My Fair Lady. His plays are, as a rule, based on paradoxical situations and dramatic discussions; they are full of brilliant witty dialogues. A lot of his remarks have become well known aphorisms. Here are a few of them:
— A pessimist? A man who thinks everybody as nasty as himself and hates them for it.
— A lifetime of happiness? No man alive could bear it; it would be hell on earth.
— He who can, does, he who can't, teaches.
— The test of a man's or woman's breeding is how they behave in a quarrel.
Shaw was always very active in political and social life of his country. In his younger years he joined several literary and political societies. Thus, he was a member of the Fabian society which advocated gradual reforms as a way of social reorganisation, opposed to immediate revolutionary action. In his numerous essays he set down his socialist and collectivist principles; he supported women's rights, abolition of private property and radical changes in the voting system. He also stood for the simplification of spelling and punctuation and the reform of the English alphabet. Omission of the apostrophe in all contracted verb forms in his plays (cant for can't, youre for you're, whats for what's, etc.) Is due to his hope to initiate these
Changes with his own writing. Shaw was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1925.
11. Modernism. J. Joyce and V. Woolfand their aesthetic programmes. D.H.Lawrence's work.

LITERATURE BETWEEN THE TWO WORLD WARS

Like many other European countries Britain was badly stricken by World War I, often called the Great War. Thousands of young Englishmen remained forever on the fields of France and Belgium, thousands more came home to die slowly and painfully of gas poisoning and wounds. The spirits of those who managed to survive were very low, too. They had entered the war full of romantic ideas and came out of it. Disillusioned and desperate as they had realized the futility and senselessness of it. These young people, as well as the writers who described them in their books, came to be called the "lost generation".
The first post-war years saw a boost in industrial production, but the Depression, that is, the general economic crisis of 1929—1934, brought about unemployment, starvation and misery. Class contradictions became especially sharp and obvious. The General Strike of 1926 and several hunger marches from various parts of Britain to London demonstrated the desperate position of the common people. The complicated political situation in Europe especially in Germany (Hitler came to power in 1933) could not but affect Britain, too. The industrialists organized "The British Fascist Union", but the majority of people reacted negatively against it. Then came the Civil War in Spain, and the English workers showed their solidarity with Spanish republicans. They organized protest demonstrations and refused to load arms for the fascists. A lot of British people joined the International Brigade which fought against fascism in Spain. Among them was Ralph Fox (1910—1937), a publicist, a historian and a literary critic. In spite of his short life (he was killed in Spain) his work, especially his book The Novel and the People (1937), had a great impact on
Literature. English writers reacted differently to the complicated and constantly changing situation of the 1910—1930s. Some of them continued the traditions of critical (social) realism, others preferred to turn away from the acute topical issues. They were searching for new themes and modes of expression, and fell under the influence of Decadence which at the beginning of the 20th century acquired the name of modernism. Modernism became the leading trend in the period between the two World Wars.
MODERNISM
At that time the works of Sigmund Freud (1856—1939), an Austrian psycho-analyst, professor of neurology, became very popular in England and had a great influence on the development of modernism.
The attitude of modernists to life and Man is different from that of realists. Modernism is characterized by an absolute disregard for social problems, by a strong emphasis on the hero's private world, his feelings, reactions, subconscious life. It refuses to depict characters as determined by concrete historical conditions. Man is pessimistically shown as a primitive and low creature guided by instincts. In order to reflect the workings of man's subconsciousness modernists employed a special technique of writing known as "the Stream of consciousness". It consists in recording a person's every thought, impression and sensation without any selection. The most outstanding representatives of modernism were James Joyce, Virginia Woolf and D. H. Lawrence.
JAMES JOYCE (1882—1941)
James Joyce was born in a well-to-do Irish family in a small town near Dublin. His father was interested in politics and his mother was a very religious woman. His parents' views made a very important influence on his outlook and creative work. He was educated at two Jesuit Colleges from where he went to Dublin University to study history and literature. His articles written when a student (1899—1902) give a good idea about the formation of his aesthetical views. It was then that he became utterly engrossed in the Dublin literary atmosphere which became a new Irish Renaissance. The leaders of that movement took a great interest in the ancient Irish traditions, in its folklore. They fought for the formation of national literature and the revival of national language which the English had endeavoured to do away with. His article The Day of the Crowd (1901) is typical of his further position. His point of view was that a real artist could only create abroad, far from his native land.
After the university he went to Paris to study medicine. There he met Nora Barnacle, his future wife. His mother's sudden illness, however, made him return to Ireland. Yet, the political situation in Ireland, which had been struggling for many centuries for its liberation from English oppression, forced him and his wife to leave the country. However, Joyce missed his native land during all the thirty-seven years that he lived on the continent. As one of his biographers said, he left Ireland forever to return to it on every page of his books. He died in Switzerland, in January 1941 and was buried there.
In 1914 his first book Dubliners appeared in print. The stories in it were true to life, they conveyed the gloomy atmosphere that ruined the hopes of the Irish intellectuals. In 1916 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man was published. Its plot is complicated and much of it is autobiographical. The novel consists of three parts and tells the reader of Stephen Dedalus' childhood, adolescence and youth, yet the form of presentation is untraditional. The book includes a number of fragmentary, disconnected episodes presented through the hero's perception. The reader has to work hard to put them together and to follow the main themes of the novel: family, politics, religion and art.
Gradually the reader comes to know about the complex political situation in Ireland which was closely interwoven with religious issues. He also traces the painful process of Stephen Dedalus' growing up, the development of his relations with his parents, his loss of faith and hesitations about his future career. The "stream-of-consciousness" method, of which Joyce is considered to be the initiator, is especially obvious in the last chapter of the novel. Here the author presents the reader with a new form of writing: short notes in which the main character puts down his disconnected thoughts: Joyce's contemporary, Virginia Woolf, in her turn, showed through the "stream-of-consciousness" the tragic aspects of human life and the way people were bound together by memories, reactions and obsessions.
VIRGINIA WOOLF brought together English intellectuals who were followers of Freud in a literary circle known as the "Bloomsbury group".' Virginia Woolf's best work, Mrs. Dalloway (1925), is an outstanding example of psychological prose of the 20th century. The novel shows Clarissa Dalloway spending one day of her life preparing for an evening party. This begins at nine in the morning when she goes out to buy flowers for her party, and finishes at dawn the next day. Here Woolf portrays the English society: the Nobility, the aristocracy, the bourgeoisie and the middle classes. She depicts every detail of a situation with vivid, impressionistic strokes. However, she never arranges these strokes rationally, but makes them "stream" through the minds of her characters. Woolf's other profoundly psychological novels are To the Lighthouse (1927), The Waves (1931), Between the Acts (1941).
The name of D. H. LAWRENCE (1885—1930) is worthy of special attention. He was an admirer of Freud, too. At the same time, however, he adhered to realism in art. The son of a Midland miner, brought up in a working class environment, Lawrence, for the first time introduced in English literature the working man in his everyday life, paying much attention to his inner, private world. The working people in Lawrence's novels are described as respectable, sensible, shrewd men.
The major novel that brought him success is Sons and Lovers (1913). Like the author, the main character Paul Morel was brought up in a working class environment. His life is greatly affected by the conflict between his parents — a rough, unambitious father and an intelligent and refined mother. Paul's mother has one passion in her life — a passion for her sons. And this strong feeling affects Paul's private life. He realizes that he cannot really love any woman. When his mother dies he finds himself quite alone. Much attention is given to the detailed and precise descriptions of men's feelings, the subconscious, to the world of natural human instincts. Lawrence's firm belief was that all the social injustice in the world could be overcome by love and sincere relations between people. The idea also permeates his other novels – The Rainbow (1915), Women in Love (1920), Lady Chatterley Lover (1928). Virginia Woolf lived in the suburb of London, called Bloomsbury. There the members of the group met and discussed their works.
12. Realism in the English post-War II literature. Ch.P.Snow, G.Greene, their major works.

LITERATURE FROM THE 1940s TO THE 1970s

The Second World War influenced greatly the ideological and economic life of Britain. This could not but affect the development of English literature.During the war Great Britain suffered heavy financial losses. The post-war programme of the Labour Party became the only hope for a better future for the British people. It promised to do away with unemployment, to improve living conditions, to level out prices. Great attention in the programme was paid to cooperation with the Soviet Union. So the elections of 1945 brought defeat to the Conservatives and ensured victory to the Labour Party. Very soon, however, the British people saw that the policy of the labour leaders did not differ much from that of their predecessors. From 1946 Great Britain faced strong resistance on the part of the oppressed people of India and Egypt. Great Britain was losing one colony after another and becoming more dependent on the USA. The failure of the Labour Government that promised a lot and did nothing, the cold war and the atomic threat, the rapid intensification of the cultural and moral crisis — these were the factors in the 50s—60s which influenced the minds of the British people, particularly the intellectuals, and caused their disillusionment.
Due to the deepening of the capitalist economic crisis the position of the working masses became worse in the 70s. Prices were rapidly going up. By the end of the decade inflation had reached more than 25 % annually and the number of unemployed amounted to the unprecedented figure of 2.5 mm. The workers responded to the government's economic policy with numerous strikes and demonstrations. The continuous arms race and the growing threat of a third world war led to a new wave of the anti-war movement which developed on a wide scale and involved millions of British people. All this was reflected in the literature of that time.
Special mention should be made of Jack Lindsay (1900—1990), whose important contribution to English literature is his series of novels under the collective title Novels of the British Way. The first of these. Betrayed Spring, was well known to Soviet readers. In it Lindsay gave a fine picture of the complicated political situation in Britain after World War II. Besides socialist literature, other literary tendencies appeared one after another: "the angry young men" (1953—1957), "new left" and "teenager's literature" (after 1958), the "working-class novel" and the "new wave drama". The novel with a philosophical tendency was born and the traditional satirical novel flourished to the full. The essence of all these literary phenomena was the earnest search of the writers for their place in life, for a better future.
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, presents the 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 noncommittal; 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.
CHARLES PERCY SNOW (1905—1980)
C. P. Snow is one of the most outstanding realist writers of the 20th century England. He was bom in Leicester in 1905, the second of the four sons. Snow's father was a clerk in a shoe factory. Charles was educated in Alderman Newton Grammar School, where, in the sixth form, he specialized in science. Later he worked as a laboratory assistant at the same school, while studying for a university scholarship. At Leicester University College in 1927 he took a First Glass Honours degree in chemistry. After that he worked on molecular physics and became a Fellow of Christ's College in 1930. When World War II broke out. Snow joined the Civil Service and was engaged in selecting scientific personnel. Alongside with his public activities Snow devoted himself to literature. His first novel was a detective story Death Under Sail (1932). Literary fame came to Snow when in 1940 he started publishing a series of novels under the general title of Strangers and Brothers. In took him more than a quarter of a century to finish his work comprising eleven novels, the most important ones being: The Light and the Dark (.1947), Time of Hope (1949). The Conscience of the Rich (1958), The Affair (1960), Corridors of Power (1964). His last novel of the series was finished in 1970, it is called Last Things.
The title of the series came from the title of the first novel, Stangers and Brothers (1940). It is about George Passant, a qualified clerk in a solicitor's firm. His strong personality makes him the focus of a group of young people who follow him. The life of George Passant is tragic; he is an idealist, who believes in man and society, and the ability of man to live in freedom. But his best dreams are frustrated and life shows its darker side. The title of the series is highly symbolic. People are "strangers" if they live alone, isolated from their environment. But there is something uniting all of them: griefs and sorrows, happiness and joy which make all of them "brothers". The limits of these notions are very frail, for today's "strangers" may become tomorrow's "brothers", and vice versa. Thus the main problems of all the novels are as follows: what makes people brothers? What should a man do to survive in a hostile world?
All these novels are united by one main character, Lewis Eliot. Through him Snow set out to examine and portray the life of an English man in the post-World War I years. Eliot is clearly a man of modern society: he is ambitious, anxious to gain comfort and power. He understands that to achieve these he must struggle and compromise.
Snow is realistic in his description of the vast labyrinths of a bureaucratic society where the individual, if he has no guidance, has to look for the way out himself. He is a master of the social portrait, too. In his series of novels he creates a gallery of typical representatives of all the strata of contemporary society.