Of the Modern Age
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1 1 Interior with a Table, 1921. Vanessa Bell. Oil on canvas. 21 /4 x 25 /4 inches. Tate Gallery, London. ©1961 Estate of Vanessa Bell. Courtesy of Henrietta Garnett. 1028 Tate Gallery, London/Art Resource, NY 1028-1042 UOU6-845482.indd 1028 1/29/07 1:43:43 PM UNIT SIX THE MODERN AGE 1901–1950 Looking Ahead When the twentieth century began, Britain was at the height of its power. During the next half century, the British endured bitter class conflict, two world wars, global economic depression, and growing demands for independence among the colonial peoples they ruled. This period of profound change also witnessed the emergence of powerful Modernist writers, who modified and broke with the forms and traditions of British literature. Keep the following questions in mind as you read: ▲▲▲ ▲ How did World Wars I and II impact British literature? How was class conflict represented in British literature? How did attitudes toward the British Empire begin to change during this period? What were some major characteristics of Modernism? OBJECTIVES In learning about the Modern age, you will focus on the following: • analyzing the characteristics of modern literature and how issues of the period influenced writers • evaluating the influences of the historical forces that shaped literary characters, plots, settings, and themes in modern literature • connecting modern literature to historical contexts, current events, and your own experiences 1029 11028-1042028-1042 UOU6-845482.inddUOU6-845482.indd 10291029 11/10/07/10/07 8:29:258:29:25 AMAM TIMELINE 1901–1950 BRITISH LITERATURE 1900 1920 1901 1914 1917 1920 Rudyard Kipling publishes Modernist journal Blast William Butler Yeats Wilfred Owen’s Collected Kim begins publication ▼ publishes The Wild Swans Poems is published at Coole 1907 1922 Rudyard Kipling wins Nobel 1918 Katherine Mansfield Prize in Literature Siegfried Sassoon publishes publishes The Garden Party Counter-Attack 1913 1922 George Bernard Shaw’s T. S. Eliot publishes Pygmalion is first produced The Waste Land 1922 James Joyce publishes BRITISH EVENTS Ulysses 1900 1920 1901 1909 1922 Queen Victoria dies; Old-age pension is Irish Free State is established Edward VII becomes king introduced 1922 1902 1912 BBC begins radio broadcasts Boer War ends in South Luxury liner Titanic sinks 1924 Africa 1915 First Labour government 1903 Germans sink British is formed Women’s Social and liner Lusitania Political Union is formed 1916 1918 ▲ Easter Rebellion occurs British women over the age in Dublin of thirty gain voting rights WORLD EVENTS 1900 1920 1903 1911 1917 In the U.S., Orville and Manchu Dynasty falls in United States enters Wilbur Wright make first China; Chinese republic World War I successful airplane flight is proclaimed 1917 1905 1914 Russian Revolution Einstein publishes special World War I begins removes czar from power theory of relativity ▼ 1914 1918 1922 ▲ Panama Canal opens World War I ends King Tut’s tomb is discovered in Egypt Timeline Visit www.glencoe.com for an interactive timeline. 1030 UNIT 6 THE MODERN AGE (t)Percy Wyndham Lewis/ Stapleton Collection, UK/Bridgeman Art Library, (tc)Snark/Art Resource, NY, (bc)Scala/Art Resource, NY, (b)The Art Archive/Culver Pictures 11028-1042028-1042 UOU6-845482.inddUOU6-845482.indd 10301030 66/27/06/27/06 1:14:411:14:41 PMPM /Culver Pictures Archive Art 1925 1940 (bc)Getty Images, (b)The , ▲ Library 1925 1931 1945 Art George Bernard Shaw wins Virginia Woolf publishes George Orwell publishes Nobel Prize in Literature The Waves ▼ Animal Farm 1929 1945 Ltd./Bridgeman Virginia Woolf publishes Elizabeth Bowen publishes A Room of One’s Own The Demon Lover 1930 1946 1948 W. H. Auden publishes Dylan Thomas publishes T. S. Eliot wins Nobel Prize Poems Deaths and Entrances in Literature 1949 George Orwell publishes Nineteen Eighty-four 1925 1940 (tr)Joy Halas and John Batchelor/ & Batchelor Collection 1926 1940 1946 General strike begins Winston Churchill becomes National Health Service prime minister is established 1928 Alexander Fleming discovers 1940 1947 penicillin Battle of Britain begins Princess Elizabeth marries Duke of Edinburgh 1936 1945 King Edward VIII abdicates; Clement Attlee becomes George VI becomes king prime minister 1925 1940 1930 1942 1945 Gandhi leads Salt March Nazi “final solution” United Nations is in India establishes death camps established for Jews 1933 1947 Adolf Hitler becomes 1945 India and Pakistan gain German chancellor United States drops atomic independence bombs on two Japanese ▲ 1936 1927 cities; World War II ends Charles Lindbergh makes Spanish Civil War begins first transatlantic solo flight 1937 1929 Japan invades China Reading Check Great Depression begins 1939 Analyzing Graphic Information What major British World War II begins literary works were published in 1922? INTRODUCTION 1031 (tl)Sava Botzaris/Private Collection, Bonhams, London, UK/Bridgeman Art Library, (tc)Vanessa Bell/Private Collection, The Stapleton Collection/Bridgeman Art Library 11028-1042028-1042 UOU6-845482.inddUOU6-845482.indd 10311031 11/29/07/29/07 1:53:501:53:50 PMPM BY THE NUMBERS World War I Casualties ALLIED POWERS PRISONERS TOTAL TOTAL FORCES TOTAL DEATHS WOUNDED AND MISSING CASUALTIES Russia 12,000,000 1,700,000 4,950,000 2,500,000 9,150,000 British Empire 8,904,467 908,371 2,090,212 191,652 3,190,235 France 8,410,000 1,357,800 4,266,000 537,000 6,160,800 Italy 5,615,000 650,000 947,000 600,000 2,197,000 United States 4,355,000 116,516 204,002 4,500 323,018 CENTRAL POWERS PRISONERS TOTAL TOTAL FORCES TOTAL DEATHS WOUNDED AND MISSING CASUALTIES Germany 11,000,000 1,773,700 4,216,058 1,152,800 7,142,558 Austria-Hungary 7,800,000 1,200,000 3,620,000 2,200,000 7,020,000 Source U.S. War Department, reprinted in Encyclopaedia Britannica SINKING OF PACKAGES FROM HOME VACATION TIME THE TITANIC During World War I, British civil- During the 1920s, 1,500,000 On the night of April 14, 1912, ians sent their troops 1,742,947 British workers received a vaca- the British luxury liner Titanic scarves, 1,574,155 pairs of mit- tion with pay. By 1938, this fig- struck an iceberg in the North tens, 6,145,673 hospital bags, ure had doubled. The Holidays Atlantic and sank two hours and 12,258,536 bandages, and with Pay Act (1938) increased forty minutes later. Of the 2,224 16,000,000 books. the number of British workers passengers and crew aboard, entitled to paid vacations to more than 1,500 people PANDEMIC 11 million in the following year. drowned or froze to death in the In 1918 and 1919, an influenza icy water. CLASS AND DIET epidemic spread around the world with devastating results. In Britain, A 1937 survey showed that an THE EVACUATION 228,000 people died, the highest average middle-class family ate OF DUNKIRK death rate since a cholera epi- 12% less bread and flour, 16% In late May 1940, a rapid demic in 1849. It has been esti- fewer potatoes, and half as much German advance trapped a large mated that 22 million people—or margarine as an average force of British and French troops more than twice the number of working-class family. An average at Dunkirk on the French coast. people killed in World War I—died middle-class family ate nearly Using a fleet of 41 large destroy- from influenza. 36% more meat, more than ers and 900 civilian boats, which twice as much fish and fresh ferried troops to the larger ves- BOMB DAMAGE milk, 68% more eggs, and 56% sels, the British rescued 338,000 more butter than an average At the end of World War II, in 1945, British and French troops. working-class family. 700,000 London-area houses damaged by German bombs and rockets still needed repair. There were also 42,000 houses too damaged to be habitable. 1032 UNIT 6 THE MODERN AGE 11028-1042028-1042 UOU6-845482.inddUOU6-845482.indd 10321032 66/27/06/27/06 1:15:251:15:25 PMPM A Bomb damage in central London, October 1941. Achille Beltrame. Engraving in Italian newspaper La BEING THERE Domenica del Corriere. During World War I, the principal area of combat for British troops was the Western Front, where parallel systems of trenches stretched from the North Sea to the border of Switzerland. B The Entrance Hall, Savoy Hotel, London, c. 20th century. English School. Coloured lithograph. Bibliothèque des Arts Décoratifs, Paris. NORTH SEA Birmingham UNITED KINGDOM NETHERLANDS A Bristol London B r Portsmouth ve o Brussels GERMANY f D Plymouth t o ai Str BELGIUM English Channel Battle of LUXEMBOURG C the Somme C English trenches along the Le Havre Western Front in WWI. W e ste rn Front, 1915 Paris Maps in Motion Visit FRANCE www.glencoe.com for an interactive map. Reading Check 2. Compared with workers in the 1920s, how many additional British workers received paid vacations in Analyzing Graphic Information 1939 as a result of the Holidays with Pay Act? 1. What was the total number of British forces engaged in World War I who died of wounds, 3. In what country was most of the Western disease, or other causes? Front located? INTRODUCTION 1033 (tl)The Art Archive/Domenica del Corriere/Dagli Orti, (tr)Bibliothèque des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, France, Archives Charmet/Bridgeman Art Library, (b)Snark/Art Resource, NY 11028-1042028-1042 UOU6-845482.inddUOU6-845482.indd 10331033 66/27/06/27/06 1:15:471:15:47 PMPM THE MODERN AGE 1901–1950 Historical, Social, and Cultural Forces The British Empire The 1920s and the At its peak in the early twentieth century, the British Great Depression Empire ruled about one-quarter of the world’s people.