20th Century Background Notes

3rd Tri. Senior English

Early 20th Century – Progress!• Rejection of traditional Victorian views and values• More rights and democratic freedoms• Expansion of British power over the rest of the world• Science, technology, and medicine helped improve

daily lives for millions• Rise in living conditions and average wages• Rise in literacy and education• Symbol of British and world progress and idealism:

The Titanic• “Roaring 20’s” – wealth, parties, optimism

1912 – Sinking of the Titanic

WWI• England went in with sense of patriotism

and sense of duty/honor - anticipated glory of past conflicts

• 60,000 young Brits killed on first day of Battle of the Somme

• 300,000 young Brits killed, wounded, or frozen to death at the Battle of Ypres?

• An entire generation of young Englishmen devastated, nearly wiped out

WWI – Trench warfare

• Technological developments are good, right?– Machine gun (majority of Brits killed at Somme

died by machine gun)– Poison gas (at least 100,000 died during WWI due

to chemical weapons)– Traditional method of large forces marching

against other large forces no longer worked trench war

Trench Poets• Soldiers, medics, photographers all came back

from WWI with a new understanding of what war REALLY is– Dismissed the past ideas about the “glory” of war– Used verse and powerful imagery and figurative

language to bring realism of experiences to readers– More cynical about warfare

• Two most well-known British trench poets:– Wilfred Owen– Siegfried Sassoon

WWII

• Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Communist Russia/Soviet Union all represented two modern philosophies taken to their most-feared extremes– Charles Darwin’s “Darwinism” from Origin of

Species – “survival of the fittest”– Karl Marx’s Das Kapital - communism and

socialism / anti-capitalism, anti-democracy

WWII• During WWII, Britain lost over 300,000 soldiers

and over 60,000 civilians• Britain fought in France, Europe, and the Middle

East – but the Nazis also bombed London• Massive damages inflicted to military empire and

at home• Britain and Allied Powers find out at end of war

the extent of Hitler’s Holocaust of the Jews

Cynicism of 20th Century• Just as humanity reached the 20th century and looked

poised to create a world based around peace, technology, democracy, and seek to eliminate social ills like hunger, is the exact same era where we kill more human beings in two wars than the rest of human history combined, while the legacy of colonialism/imperialism by Europe leaves Africa and parts of Asia and the Middle East in shambles...

• In midst of all this science/technology march forward for sake of peace, by creating most destructive weapon --- then using it to end war by killing 10,000s of Japanese civilians Cold War

• 20th Century – new era of doubt, cynicism, and fear

Decline of England as a world power

• During the late 1800s, England lost control of colonies in Australia, South Africa, and New Zealand

• After World War II, Britain was recovering from the war and was in massive debt– Loss of India– Loss of colonies in the Middle East and Africa

20th Century British Literature• WWI Trench Poets – describe realities of war and

dismissive of “glory” of war• More cynicism/pessimism – some would say “realism”• More satire and dark humor• More criticisms of the traditional elite and powerful –

more political writing• More open writing about sexual and gender issues• More global/international diversity from authors who

traveled abroad and were from former British colonies

20th Century British Literature• Dystopian literature – novels and stories about

the worst future imaginable, where everything that could be wrong about society is wrong (“dystopia” is the opposite of a “utopia” – “utopia” = a perfect society)– 1984 by George Orwell• Term “Orwellian” - an adjective to describe a

government or conditions which feature excessive government control and invasion and loss of personal privacy and individual rights

– Brave New World by Aldous Huxley