The Modern Period (1901 - 1939)
The period between 1901 and 1939 is generally accepted as the Modern Age of English Literature. Queen Victoria’s death in 1901 makes the beginning of this new literary era and the beginning of the Second World War in 1939 indicates its end. Modernism is more than a literary phenomenon; it is inclusive of many art forms that flourished in European countries including England.
The Modern Period comprise two shorter ages:
(a)Edwardian Period (1901 - 1910)
The first decade of the twentieth century (1901 - 1910) is called Edwardian Age due to the fact that King Edward-VII reigned over England during this decade. Some historians, however, think that the literary trends of this age continued until the outbreak of World War-01 in 1914; there are some others who think that those trends continued until the end of the First World War in 1918. Opinions about the end of this age vary because the literary features of this period did not have sharp closing point in time.
Main Literary Features of the Age
(b) Georgian Period (1910 - 1936)
The period between 1910 and 1936 is called Georgian Period after the name of George-V who reigned over England during these years. It is the second phase of the Modern Age. However, literary features of the Modern Age continued till 1939, the year in which the Second World War broke out. For this reason, it is generally agreed that the Modern Age ended in 1939.
Major Authors of the Modern period
1. Edward Morgan Forster
Birth: 1 January 1879, Marylebore, Middlesex, England
Death: 7 June 1970, Coventy Worwickshire, England
Important information:
-English novelist, short story writer, essayist and librettist.
-He is best known for his ironic and well plotted novels examining class difference and hypocrisy.
-His most optimistic work is the novel “A Room with a view.”
-The novel “A passage to India” brought him his great success.
Famous Novels:
Where Angels Fear to Tread (1905)
The Longest Journey (1907)
A Room with a View (1908)
Howards End (1910)
A Passage to India (1924)
Maurice (written in 1913 – 14, published posthumously * in 1971)
Famous Plays:
Abinger Pageant (1934)
England’s Pleasant Land (1940)
Famous Novels:
The Voyage out (1915)
Night and Day (1919)
Jacob’s Room (1922)
Mrs Dalloway (1925)
To the Lighthouse (1927)
Orlando (1928)
The Waves (1931)
The Years (1937)
Between the Acts (1941)
Famous short stories:
Kew Gardens (1919)
Monday or Tuesday (1921)
A Haunted House and Other Short Stories (1944)
The Complete Shorter Fiction (1985)
Mrs Dalloway’s Party (1973)
Carlyle’s House and Other Sketches (2003)
Biography:
Orlando
Flush
Roger Fry
Non- Fiction Book:
A Rom of One’s Own
On Being Ill
Three Guineas
Granite and Rainbow
Women and Writing
Modern Fiction
2. David Herbert Lawrence (D. H. Lawrence)
Birth: September 11, 1885, Eastwod, United Kingdom
Death: March 2, 1930, Vence, French
Impotent information:
English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, liberary critic and painter.
Famous Essays:
Abinger Harvest (1936)
Two Cheers for Democracy (1951)
Critical work: Aspects of Novel (1927)
Travel Writings
Alexandria: A History and Guide
Pharos and pharillon (A Novelist’s Sketch book of Alexandria through the Ages) (1923)
The Hill of Devi (1953)
3. Adeline Virginia Woolf
Birth: 25 January, 1882 Kensington, Middlesex, England
Death: 28 March, 1941 River Duse, Near lewes, Sussex, England
Important Information:
-English writer, one of the fore most modernists of the twentieth century.
-She is suffered from severe bouts of mental illness thorough out her life.
-She committed suicide by drowning in 1941
-She was a feminist.
Famous Novels:
Lady Chatterley’s Lover
Sons and Lovers
Women in Love
The Rainbow
The Escaped Cock
The Virgin and the Gypsy
The White Peacock
Famous short stories :
The Rocking – Horse Winner
The Virgin and the Gypsy
Odour of Chrysanthemums
The Captain’s Doll
The Fox
The Ladybird
The Princess
St. Mawr
4. William Butler Yeats (W.B. Yeats)
Birth: 13, June, 1865
Death: 28 January 1939
Important information:
-An Irish Poet, Dramatist and critic
-1923 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature as the first Irishman
-He wrote introduction of / for Rabindranath Tagore’s Gitanjali
-Famous for his symbolism and mysticism.
Famous Poems:
When You are Old
He wishes For the Cloths of Heaven
A Crazed Girl
A Drinking song
A Coat
The Second Coming
The Fiery song
A dream Of Death
The Lake Isle Of Innisfree
Sailing to Byzantium
An Irish Airman Foresees His Death
A Deep – Sworn Vow
A Dialogue of Self and Soul
Brown Penny
5. Bertrand Russell
Birth: 18 May, 1872, Manmouthshire
Death: 2 February, 1970
Important Information:
-A British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, social critic and political activist
-Full name is Bertrand Arthur William Russell
Famous Works:
The ABC of Relativity
On the philosophy of Science
Unarmed Victory
Has Man a Future
Wisdom of the West
The Amberley papers
Religion and Science
In Praise of idleness
Marriage and Morals
Mysticism and logic
Legitimacy Versus industrialist
Essays in Skepticism
Fact and Fiction
Common Sense and Nuclear Warfare
Logic and Knowledge
Nightmares of Eminent Persons and Other Stories.
Satan in the Suburbs and Other Stories
New Hopes for a Changing World
Which Way to Peace
Road to Freedom
The analysis of mind
The Conquest of Happiness
Justice in War – time
6. William Somerset Maugham
Birth: 25 January, 1874
Death: 16 December, 1965
Important information:
-A British playwright, novelist, and short story writer.
-He was the highest paid writer during the 1930s.
-His first novel ‘Liza lambeth’ sold out so rapidly.
-He served in British secret intelligence service.
-During World War-I he served with Red Cross.
Famous Novels:
Liza of Lambeth
The making of a Saint
The Hero
The Merry – go – round
The Explorer
Of Human Bondage
The Painted Veil
Christmas Holiday
The Razor’s Edge
The Sacred Flame
Mrs Craddock
The Bishop’s Apron
The Magician
The Moon and Sixpence
The Narrow Corner
The Hour before the Dawn
Then and Now
Cakes and Ale
Famous Short Stories:
Orientations
Six Stories Written in the First Person Singular
Ah King
Cosmopolitans
The Mixture as Before
Creatures of Circumstance
Encore
Ashenden: Or the British Agent
The Book Bag
Judament Seat
Princess September and the Nightingale
The Unconquered
Quartet
Trio
7. Pearl S. Buck (Pearl Sydenstricker Buck)
Birth: June 26, 1892, Hillsboro, West Virginia, USA
Death: March 6, 1973, Danby, Vermont, USA
Important Information:
-Writer, teacher, novelist
-She was a Noble Prize winner American woman novelist
-She was awarded Novel Prize in 1938 and Pulitzer Prize in 1932 for his book “The good Earth.”
Biography:
The Exile (1936)
Fighting Angle
Autobiography:
A Bridge for passing
Famous Novels:
East wind: West Wind
The good Earth (1931)
The mother
The Proud Heart
Other Gods
The Townsman
The angry wife
God’s men
Imperial Woman
The living Reed
The Time in Noon
The Three Daughters of madame liang
Mandala
The Goddes Abides
All Under Heaven
The rainbow
Sons. Kinfolk
The House Divided
All Men are Brothers
The Patriot
The promise
Portrait of a marriage
The long love
The Hidden Flower
Satan Never sleeps
Death in the castle
The New Year
Non – fiction books:
Of men and Women
A certain star
The Refugee
The Golden Flower
The Good Deed
Once Upon a Christmas
The Enemy
Novels:
The Rainbow – D. H. Lawrence
The Rainbow – Pearl S. Buck
Cautions:
The Patriot (Novel) – Pearl S. Buck
The Patriot (Poem) – Robert Browning
8. Sir Winston Churchill
Birth: 30 November, 1874, Woodstock, Oxfordshire, England
Death: 24 January, 1965, London, England
Important information:
-He was a British statesman and awarded Novel Prize in English Literature in 1953
-Full Name is Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill
-Two times Prime Minister of England
Famous Works:
The river war
Savrola
India
Victory
The senews of peace
The story of the malakand field force
The People’s Rights
The Unrelenting struggle
The History of the II World War
9. T. S. Eliot
Birth: 26 September, 1888 Lovis, Missouri, USA
Death: 4 January, 1965 Kensington, London, UK
Important information:
-An Essayist, Publisher, Playwright
-Nobel Prize winner in 1948
-He is famous “Objective CO - relative” theory.
Famous Poetry:
Prufrock and other Observations (1917): Some of its poems are-
The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock
Portrait of a Lady (Poem)
Aunt Helen
Poems (1919)): Some of its poems are-
Gerontion
Sweeney Among the Nightingales
The Hippopotamus
Whispers of Immortality
A Cooking Egg
The Waste Land (1922)
The Hollow Men (1925)
Ariel Poems (1927-1954): Some of its poems are-
Journey of the Magi (1927)
A Song for Simeon (1928)
Ash Wednesday (1930)
Coriolan (1931)
Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cals (1939)
Four Quartets (1945)
Famous poems:
A Fable for Feasters
Before Morning
On a Portrait
Morning at the Window
If Time and Space as Sages say
Circe’s Palace
Nocturne
Spleen
Hysteria
Famous Proses:
A Tale of a Whale
The Man Who Was King
The Point of View
Egoist
Gentleman and Seamen
The Birds of Prey
Famous Non – fiction books:
Christianity and Culture
The Second – Order Mind
Tradition and the Individual Talent
Homage to John Dryden
For Lancelot Andrews
After Strange Gods
Elizabethan Essay
The Frontiers of Criticism
Famous Plays:
Sweeney Agonistes
The Rock
Murder in the Cathedral
The Family Reunion
The Cocktail Party
The Confidential Clerk
The Elder Statesman
10. Ernest Miller Hemingway
Birth: July 21,1899, Qak Park, USA
Death: July 2, 1961, Ketchum, Idaho, USA
Important information:
-An American author and journalist
-His style was economical and understated
-Won the Nobel Prize in 1954
-Most of the works are considered classics of American literature
Famous Nobels:
The Torrents of spring
The Sun Also Rises
A Farewell to Arms
To Have and Have Not
For Whom the Bell Tolls
Across the River and into the Trees
The Old Man and the Sea
Islands in the Stream
The Garden of Eden
True at First Light
Famous Non – fiction books:
Death in the Afternoon
Green Hills of Africa
Hemingway, the Wild Years
A Moveable Feast
By – Lina: Ernest Hemingway
Ernst Hemingway: Cub Reporter
The Dangerous Summer
Dateline: Toronto
Under Kilimanjaro
Other Works:
Three stories and ten poems
In Our Time
Winner Take Nothing
Men without Women
The Fifth Column and the First Forty – Nine Stories
The Essential Hemingway
The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Other Stories
The Fifth Column and Four Stories of the Spanish Civil War
The Nick Adams Stories
88 Poems
Complete Poems
Other Authors and their work of modern age
Andrew Cecil Bradley (1851 - 1935), better known as A. C. Bradley, a famous critic on Shakespeare:
Shakespearean Tragedy (1904)
Oxford Lectures on Poetry (1909)
Joseph Conrad (1857 - 14924):
The Nigger of the Narcissus (1898)
Heart of Darkness (1902)
Typhoon (1903)
The Mirror of the Sea (1906)
Under Western Eyes (1911)
Victory (1915)
The Rescue (1920)
Lord Jim (1900)
The End of the Tether (1902)
Nostromo (1904)
The Secret Agent (1907)
Chance (1913)
The Shadow Line (1917)
The Rover (1923)
Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874 - 1936):
Heretics (1905)
Charles Dickens: A Critical Study (1906)
The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare (1908)
Orthodoxy (1908)
John Millington Synge (1871 - 1909), an Irish dramatist:
In the Shadow of the Glen (1903)
The Well of the Saints (1905)
The Tinker’s wedding (1907)
Riders to the Sea (1904)
The Playboy of the Western World (1907)
Deirdre of the Sorrows (1910)
Sigmund Freud (1856 - 1939), a psychologist known for his theory of psycho – analysis:
Interpretation of dreams (trans. 1913)
Psychopathology of Everyday Life (trans. 1914)
John Edward Masefield (1878 - 1967):
The Midnight Folk (1922)
Collected Poems (1923)
The Bird of Dawning (1933)
Dead Ned (1938)
Pelham Grenville Wodehouse (1881 - 1975), better known as P. G. Wodehouse. He is famous for his use of language. He wrote about 96 Books:
The Man with Two Left Feet (1917)
Jeeves (1923)
Blandings Castle (1935)
Lord Emsworth and Others (1937)
James Joyce (1882 - 1941), a novelist, famous for his narrative technique known as stream of consciousness:
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916)
Ulysses (1922)
Exiles (1918)
Finnegans Wake(1939)
Franz Kafka (1883 - 1924), a novelist, shorts story writer and an existentialist:
The Metamorphosis (1915)
The Trial (1925)
The Castle (1926)
Amerika (1927)
Ezra Pound (1885 - 1972) one of the exponents of “Imagism”
Umbra: Collected Poems (1920)
Cantos 1- 27 (1925 - 28)
Literary Essays (1954)
Make it New (1934)
Henry Miller (1891 - 1980):
Tropic of Cancer (1934)
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (1896 - 1940):
The Great Gatsby (1925)
Tender is the Night (1934)
The Love of the Last Tycoon (1941)
William Cuthbert Faulkner (1897- 1962):
The Sound and the Fury (1929)
As I Lay Dying (1930)
Light in August (1932)
Absalom, Absalom! (1936)
Graham Greene (1904 - 91):
It’s a Battlefield (1934)
Wystan Hugh Auden (1907 - 1973):
Poems (1930)
The Oxford Book of Light Verse (1938)
Dylan Marlais Thomas (1914 - 1953):
Twenty – five poems (1936)
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