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George Bernard Show (1856 - 1950) defended Ibsen against the attacks of the critics, and stated that this was the way the new drama should go - it should not be afraid to shock, it should concentrate on ideas, it should rely on its own inner life rather than on external "accidents" like spectacle & comic turns. Shaw put hisown notions of drama into practice, and from "Widower's Houses" (1892) onward he dominated the European theatre & influenced American drama, too.
August Strindherg was another playwright who introduced some novelty into drama. He & Ibsen introduced elements of expressionism into European drama.
Like Shaw, Chekhov in Russia also introduced drama of ideas (remember his words – Люди едят, пьют, спят, я в это время проходят человеческие жизни” - so, nothing may happen, there may be quite few actions in the play, but the dramatism will be found in the principle of stoicism – people should live whatever the circumstances are).
So American Drama had many examples to follow in the theatre developing, and had its own geniuses in this field. Drama in America focused on the evils of American society: its economic conditions & impossibility to achieve the American Dream. That is how the American Dream turns out to be the American Tragedy due to the impossibility to implement this dream!
At that time many small theatrical companies began to appear in the USA. One of the most influential among them was the one of "province town players" (near Boston). They were dissatisfied with the productions on Broadway. E. O'Neill got acquainted with them. They all wanted to introduce new American drama. (By the way one of the members of this group was John Rid who wrote the famous book "The Ten Days That Shocked the World” His wife fell in love with E. O'Neill but for him art was more important than love).
R. O'Neill found Broadway plays absolutely stupid. He read & was influenced by the works of Strindberg, Ibsen, Chekhov. In his works he managed to combine elements of expressionism with the traditional realism, mythology, classical tragedy (the Ancient Greek traditions) & usage of Biblical myths. In all his plays E. O'Neill touches upon the problem of dramatism of our human existence, nevertheless all his works differ from one another.
E. O'Neill was born at the theatre. His parents were actors. And he was always behind the scene. His play "Long Day's Journey Into Night" (1956) is autobiographical. His will was not to publish the play until 25 years after his death but his wife broke the will & published it shortly after his death.
24. Postmodernism in British and American literature. Its basic features. J.Fowles, M.Amis, S.Rushdie; K. Vonnegut, J. Heller, V.Nabokov, Th.Pynchon.
LITERATURE OF POSTMODERNISM (SINCE THE 70 - 90SS OF THE 20TH CENTURY)
There is no definition for postmodernism as a term. The word itself suggests that the period came after modemism.
The 20-30ss the period between the two World Wars - can be regarded as the summit of modernism (J. Joyce, V . Woolf, D. H. Lawrence). In the 50-60ss modernist and realistic tendencies coexisted in literature. "The Angry Young Men" as a phenomenon was a certain return to realism (they discussed the position of the lower middle class).
Postmodernism started in the 70 - 90ss . It is a new phenomenon and has features which make it different from modernism and realism. The metaphorical image of literature (from the point of postmodernism) is a mirror.
REALISM
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MODERNISM
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POSTMODERNISM
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1) period – the 2nd part of the 19th c. – Critical or Social Realism – but actually realism breaks the period limits.
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1) period – the 1st part of the 20th c.
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1) period – we can’t say for sure that postmodernism is limited only by the 70-90ss
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2) method –
1. Realistic literature mirrors (reflects) objective reality
2. Realistic literature aims at consistency, continuity – logical, chronological order, which is not interrupted.
3. The massage is clearly defined, it is explicit . The message is social and moral, ethic.
4. Realistic personages are social types
5. Realistic literature is addressed to all people without any discrimination
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2) method –
1. Modernist literature refuses to deal with objective reality, it mirrors subjective reality.
2. Modernist literature rejects consistency and continuity. The narration is as if from the inner world of the character ( as a result we deal with psychologism and elements of psychoanalysis). So the narration is based on reminiscences, and as the inner world is chaotic, based on associations, the narration is also based on associations.
3. The message is implicit, the message doesn’t lie on the surface, as modernists refused to deal with social and moral issues.
4. Modernist characters are unique personalities, they are psychological types (for example, we may remember the interpretation of the articles in the title “A Portraid of the Artist As A Young Man”
5. Modernists wrote their books only for high-brow intellectuals, the elite.
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2) the method, the tendency and the whole trend are still being a point for discussion.
1. Literature is like a big mirror that is broken intopeaces, it no complete picture, no continuity: in one peace literature reflects objective reality, in another – it mirrors subjective reality. So postmodernist literature is like fragments of objective and subjective reality + art reality.
2. Postmodernist literature rejects both of these orders (of modernism and realism), as such as artificial order, i.e. Structural organization is the source of artificiality in literature.
3. There is no message. It is indefinable, interminate.Books have open ends (like the novel “Thr French Lieutenant’s Woman”). There is usually no definite clue to the characters’ further fates.
4. Postmodernist characters are archetypes (“archtype” is the most typical example of something, as it has all the most important features, such types are repeated throughout centuries. Eg: Merlin is the archetype of the wise old man)
5. Postmodernist literature is for all categories of readers
( including mass readers), because of the multi-levelled character of these works and the fact that postmodernist works have features of doth high and mass culture (pulp culture)
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