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T 57 THE UNITED KIGDOM DURING THE INTER-WAR PERIOD AND IN THE WWII.…
T 57 THE UNITED KIGDOM DURING THE INTER-WAR PERIOD AND IN THE WWII. REPRESENTATIVE LITERARY AUTHORS.
WW1 = period of extremism (Basic religious and political beliefs were questioned) that changed the world for many: Millions were killed and it left people purposeless. As a consequence:
- England was economically hurt, moving from creditor to debtor. Its industries were weakened.
- The Conservative Party took over, facing unemployment, industrial stagnation, foreign debts and continuing demand for economy in government.
- The government experimented with economic enterprise, insurance, management of railroads/coal mines and in huge ministry of munitions.
- There were social upheavals and cultural changes with gender imbalance
trends
sufragettes were members of early women's movements who pressed for equal voting rights for women and men. They were prepared to damage property and to die for their beliefs.
- Eventually the Parliament gave women complete political equality with men. (1929)
the emancipation of women to set them free from legal and sociopolitical restrictions was becoming a reality thanks to their participation on the home front and their work in factories. Then, they began to be able to go to pubs, wear trousers, smoke in public, play football, 
some artists felt that they had to express their ideas differently in new forms, where as others felt a duty to communicate simply in popular forms to a wider and better educated audience.
industrialised cities showed the strengthening of the middle class. Workers became more interested in socialism and joined trade unions, thus giving rise to the British Labour Party (1900)
The Problem of Ulster led to the Easter Uprising which reflected the level of discontent and the repression that followed had the result of increasing the number of people supporting the Republican cause.
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Great Depression: post-war world of radicalism, racism and violence for which Britain was badly equipped: It needed to borrow gold, but foreign bankers had the condition that domestic expenditures would be cut, which meant reducing unemployment insurance payments (something the Labour Party could not accept).
- The Labour Party resigned and the new government was conservative but Macdonald (from the Labour Party) remained PM, thus seen as a traitor.
- Chamberlain became Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1931. With him, the coalition government pursued a policy of Strict economy based on protectionism.
- In 1932, a partial system of free trade within the Commonwealth was agreed.
*Finally, the economy improved and unemployment rates were reduced
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D) FOREIGN POLICY AND APPEASEMENT = Britain's policy in the 1930s of allowing Hitler to expand German territory unchecked.
- At Munich Conference, Chamberlain averted war by agreeing that Germany could occupy Sudetenland (= Munich Agreement). This agreement was well-received in Britain.
- Appeasement was popular because Chamberlain was desperate to avoid another world war and Britain could not afford another rearmament. France was seriously weakened and the Commonwealth support was uncertain.
- Despite Hitler's promise of no more territorial demands in Europe, Hitler was undeterred by appeasement since he violated the Munich Agreement by occupying Czechoslovakia and Poland so Britain and France declared war (september 1939).
C) DOMINIONS: Changes in the inter-war period affected the newly created dominions, the government of India and the situation in Ireland.
- The Imperial Conference decided that self-governing Dominions in the Empire should be referred to as Dominions, not colonies.
- The Balfour Declaration and the Statue of Westminster would recognise these territories as autonomous communities within the British Empire, establishing these states as equals to Britain.
- They would become independent members of the British Commonwealth of Nations.
EXAMPLES: Canada, Australia, New Zealand
INDIA: after the demands for self-rule in India, many British politicians believed that India needed to be a Dominion.
- Therefore, British government gave the Joint Select Committee the task of enforce the Government of India Act. In addition, the Reserve Bank of India was established
IRELAND: after the Easter Rising, there was a period of military confrontations between republican radicals and the British forces. Finally, an agreement was signed to establish the Irish Free State in 1922, as a dominion within the British Commonwealth. However, Northern Ireland remained part of the UK
A) NOVEL
The great impact of sciences, along with all the conflicts of the time, created a pessimistic feeling in almost all writers, especially those writing during the 30s and after the WWI. These feeling made the authors feel estrangled from the society they lived in, and it had different consequences in their works, which can be classified into the following groups:
Works of authors who started their career much earlier and were so not much influenced by the pessimistic mood of younger generation. Some of the writers of the older generation that took interest in other aspects of their contemporary world were
D.H. Lawrence was a writer who felt it was his job to show how an individual's view of his own personality was affected by conventions of language, family, religion to prove people how relationships were always changing and moving. His opinions and artistic preferences earned him a controversial reputation: he endured contemporary persecution and public misrepresentation of his work throughout his life, much of which spent in a voluntary exile.
- His works are characterised by an estrangement of content and subject matter, and reflecting on modernity, social alineation and industrialisation, while championing sexuality/vitality/instinct.
- Some of his best writings are "Lady Chatterleys' Lover", "Women in Love", and "The Rainbow"
6.1. E.M. FORSTER (1879-1970) was an English author. He was a member of the elite Bloomsbury Group, which discussed about truth and beauty.
*He's known for his ironic and well-plotted novels examining class difference and hypocrisy in early 20th-century British society.
- He published 5 novels in his lifetime: A Room with a View, Howard's End, Maurice, The Machine Stops, and achieved his greatest success with "A Passage to India". His views as a secular humanist are at the heart of his work, which often depicts the pursuit of personal connections despite the restrictions of contemporary society.
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Modernist works, whose works were varied but which had the common feature of experimenting with the form.
Virginia Woolf was an English writer, considered one of the most important modernist 20th-century authors and a pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device. Her work is also characterised by an intensely poetic style.She uses rhythm and imagery to create a lyrical impressionism to capture her characters’ moods with great delicacy and detail. In her novels, space can equally be enclosed or infinite, often at the same time, in one character’s mind.
- During the inter-war period, Woolf was an important part of London's literary and artistic society. Her best-known works include the novels Mrs Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927) and Orlando (1928). She is also known for her essays, including A Room of One's Own (1929).
- Works pessimistic in their mood as a reflection of what WWI revealed about contemporary reality, and those influenced by the gloomy period of the Great Depression and an imminent new war.
Aldous Huxley was an English novelist and critic gifted with an acute and far-ranging intelligence whose works are notable for their wit and pessimistic satire. He remains best known for one novel, Brave New World (1932), a model for much dystopian science fiction that followed, that presents an imaginary future society full of negative traits. It's a satiric novel that expresses Huxley's distrust of 20th-c. trends in tech & politics. The novel presents a nightmarish vision of a society in which psychological conditioning forms the basis for a scientifically determined and immutable caste system that obliterates the individual and grants all control to the World state.
Graham Greene was a novelist, short-story writer, playwright, and journalist whose novels treat life’s moral ambiguities in the context of contemporary political settings. Greene acquired a reputation early in his lifetime as a major writer, both of serious Catholic novels, and of thrillers, often with notable philosophic edges. He wrote different types of stories, centred on action, political intrigues, and thriller-like plots.
- Themes: Catholic Religious, as in Brighton Rock, "The Power and Glory".
- Several Works, such as "The Human Factor, "The Confidential Agent", and his screenplay for "The Third Man" show Greene's avid interest in the intrigues of international politics and espionage.
WW2 was caused by the Polish Crisis, when BR&FR had the mission to negotiate for a treaty with URSS but Hitler stopped it by invading Poland.
- The Phoney War: 1940, Hitler overran Denmark and Norway and the Norwegian campaign destroyed Chamberlain government so Churchill was announced as PM. He decided to fight alone, whereas France decided to ask for a truce.
- The Heroic Phase, when the Battle of Britain took place: a terrific bombardment which Britain stood alone and began with the battle for survival in the air over the British Isles and upon Churchill's resolution. It ended with the successful Soviet defence of Moscow after Hitler's attack and the Japanese declaration of War on the US and the British Empire.
- The Phase of Grand Alliance of the USA, Britain, and the URSS. They cooperated for 4 years vs Germany and Japan. This alliance ultimately failed and broke down, leading to the Cold War. Nevertheless, during WW2 they realised that a democratic nation could be mobilised for a gigantic national effort. Likewise, during this time compulsory employment became universal.
German hostilities in the West ended in May 1945, same year that Churchill resigned.
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B) DRAMA
In 1920, the English theatre was in a deplorable condition. The War had to a great extent checked the development of the drama. The strains of the war, the black-out, the death of some of the older dramatists, the diversion of many dramatists to the services in the battle-field were the factors that brought the dramatic activity of the time to a low ebb. Only short humours, colourful and musical plays had a run.
SOMERSET MAUGHAM (1874-1965) was also remembered for his novels and short stories. His work is characterized by a clear unadorned style, cosmopolitan settings, and a shrewd understanding of human nature. His plays are largely treatments of middle-class attitudes to love and money, in which the main female character asserts her independence in a choice of partner.
- "The circle"
- "the constant wife"
- Mr know all: Max believes he's always right and he's better than everybody else.
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Sir Noel Coward (1899-1973) was an English playwright, actor, and composer best known for his highly polished comedies of manners. His comedies have a sense of wit, style, and underlying pain which guarantee them a place in the tradition of the English comedy
- Private lives (about a divorced couple who meet again on their honeymoons with new partners)
- Hay Fever (about a self-obsessed theatrical family)
- Design for Living: successful love triangle
- Blithe Spirit: in which an eccentric medium helps a first wife to return to torment her husband and his new life
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C) POETRY was divided into 2 groups:
- War poets who wrote after WWI basing on anger, bitterness, hopelessness and all these feelings going against the nice and dream quality found in previous poetry. Authors of the time were Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon or Edmund Blunden among others.
- Modernist poets combined tradition and experiment in their work
W.B. YEATS (1865-1839) was the most traditional one. When he began writing, he wrote "An Irish Airman Foresees His Death", showing an important concern of his romantic poetry to honour the nature and character of Ireland, by writing about the traditions and history of his nation.
- In his later work his themes became more universal; his main subject was the way in which the world and the people in it are divided, and how they can be made whole. At this mature stage, he gradually developed a powerfully honest, profound, and rich poetic idiom: The Tower and The Winding Stair.
T.S. ELIOT (1888-1965) was a British WWI poet, playwright, and literary critic who saw poetry and ceremony as forces that can give meaning to emptiness and confusion of the modern world. He reckons these make it possible for spiritual and physical life to continue.
- He experimented with diction, style, and versification which revitalised English poetry. It can be observed in his works and "The Hollow Men".
- He also wrote critical essays in which he shattered old orthodoxies and erected new ones.
W.H. AUDEN (1907-1973) shows a concern for the important political and social events, and a wish to become part of them. He saw changes in the forms and subjects of literature as a way of helping political and social change, and in some poems, he writes directly about political event and their effect on private lives, as in poems on the Spanish Civil War, and on the beginning of the WWII.
- His poems often communicate a strong sense of the realities of everyday life. His first works were
- In his shorter poems, his style became more open and accessible.
- The tone and content of his poems ranged from pop-song clichés to complex philosophical meditations.
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