20th Cent. Fiction – Norton Anthalogy
1. Novels in Henry James’s Phrase: “Loose Baggy Monsters”.
2. 20the Cent. novels can be divided into 3 subperiods:
- High Modernism through 1920s: celebrating personal and textual inwardness, complexity, and difficulty.
- 1930s, 40s, 50s: Reaction against Modernism; A return to social realism, moralism, and assorted documentary.
- After the collapse of the British empire (esp. 1960s): The fictional claims of various realisms; the enduring legacy of modernism.
3. At the end of the cent.: Postmodernism – Postcolonialism >> Panoramic mix of voices ind styles.
4. 1912 – 1930: The Heroic Age of the Modern Novel.
- The disappearance of the general background of belief which united the novelists with their public. >> Building up new values.
- A new view of time: as a continuous flow in the conscious of the individual.
- The new notions of the nature of consciousness.
5. The stream of consciousness technique was developed in 1920s.
6. The search for communion and inescapable isolation of Leopold Bloom in Ulyssis is symbolic of human condition as seen by modern novelists.
7. The dilemma of human condition is never solved in these novels.
8. Lawrence’s novels themes: Human relationships.
9. The documentary novelists presented the changing social scene. >> Woolfe called these writers materialists.
10. The short story benefited from the techniques of exploration in depth.