[Music] hi everyone glad to see you again so in our last videos we talked about romanticism and the most important authors of the period and then the Victorian age or Victorian era and the most representative authors of the of this period again today we are going to start talking about a new movement a new period occur this period is called modernism modernism is a movement that develops in in England in the first half of the of the 20th century especially it lasts from 1901 which is the year of Queen Victoria's death to 1945 so the
end of the Second World War the name modernism the name of this period belongs especially to to the British tradition ok but the same period same some of the aspects of this period are common to many different countries in Europe with different names obviously in Italy we call it decadent yzma in Germany we call it decadence which means decay and the decay is actually one of the aspects that this movement has in common okay in throughout all Europe you can see anyway in different countries so in order to understand okay the cultural and also the
literary elements of this period we also have to understand the historical and social background as I always say literature art philosophy science there are all answers to social historical needs or situations okay so we have always to start from the background in order to understand then what social or historical need was moving also art or literature or anything else so let's start talking about Edward the seventh he was a victorious son and during his reign England lived a period of peace it was a very idyllic period decay of quiet quiet and and and peace but
unfortunately during the reign of george v okay Britain had to face strong turmoil and strong and unrest and let's see why okay many things were happening now and Europe was preparing for a period of terrible changes because we are going towards the two world wars now something good happens anyway and I'm talking about the suffragist movement ok suffragette movement is found in 1903 by mrs. Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughter okay Cristobal and they are able to do to gain a quell vote the right to vote for women in 1918 so after the the end of
the first world war which is a very positive result actually at the time Britain was facing okay the question the problem of the home rule for Ireland home rule for Ireland concern basically independence of Ireland this is especially important why talking about lepra sure because we know that actually many important authors are came from Ireland actually were Irish man we talked about Oscar Wilde and now we're going to talk about James Joyce he was Irish he fought for the home rule for Ireland he was imprisoned because of that and during his period in prison in
jail he developed his new idea his new concept of the antihero okay he believed or he started to believe actually that man wasn't meant to fight for any ideas okay he was probably a hunty hero in life and so this is the character he wanted to talk about in his literature in his works okay so he is one of the most representative authors okay of modernism in in in England so no obviously all this unrest in in Ireland were creating a period of great turmoil okay also in inin all Britain and then unfortunately the First
World War were word one begins and it is a period of great disillusionment so England came from a period of anyway of peace and war had a sort of sort of an idealistic [Music] perception okay and there was this idea that fighting for their country okay was something epic and absolutely an almost fascinating then they had to face the real results of war the real horrors of war death suffering pain losses and also poverty and that was a great shock it was a national shock we can say so and at the end of the world
was the Treaty of Versailles which was a something they were very very unsatisfied of and under a creative disappointment and disillusionment in the same period colonies colonies were claiming for independence and they and in this period the British come with of Nations what was created and so Britain had a completely different relationship towards colonies not only as far as economics are concerned or trade or anything but also the mentality change changed because they they somehow believed that they had sort of a superiority okay towards colonies cultural superiority religious superiority and the sort of a task
of bringing up Tate civilization and religious religion to these countries and now something different happens okay and there are all these movements or specific movements like for example Gandhi okay and they had to face this new identity over of colonies and they had to rearrange to reconsider also their position towards them then another important and the rise of totalitarianism so fascism and communism they were developing in this period in this period sorry and we are now going toward the Second World War and England is now completely disillusioned region is completely disillusioned towards as far as
war is concerned anyway they feel now that they have to fight in order to stop totalitarianism so this is a completely different perspective from the perspective they had when the first world war started because now they are completely aware of what is happening of the horrors of the war but anyway they feel this duty okay to - anyway fight for what they believed in so all this periodic a First World War Second World War it was also period of great depression as far as economics were concerned it was a period of unemployment it's a great
difficulty for people though there was also a positive aspect which was emancipation of women but it started from a sad aspect actually because obviously many many men were fighting okay especially when she during the the First World War and many of them died so industry was now dying along with them and so women had to start working had to start we can say they had to take the place of their men somehow in order to allow the country the industry to stay alive so they were absolutely important incredibly important for the country and the country
now was able to recognize their importance which is actually positive but for a negative reason obviously then again the the social system was extremely rigid now we are talking about the rigid class system we mentioned we had mentioned the system again we're talking about the Victorian era the Victorian age if you prefer we talked about this strict social pattern this patriarchal family with a strict moral code and the middle class it was someone with this incredible gap okay that divided it from the class of workers now this gap okay between middle class and workers is
becoming wider and wider okay the middle class is stronger okay it's stronger and stronger and workers we will call them proletarians now okay they are always there living in poor conditions and they are really really living experiences experiencing a very very difficult period difficult time also the communication system changes okay in this period radio and and propaganda for example they use new techniques new techniques that come from the so called roaring to an tears okay when sensationalism was used okay and new sensationalist way of communicating was used to convey information in order to to grant
some some propaganda okay which is also very important especially between the two wars okay between two world wars we have also to remember that the mechanisms that were used in order to develop totalitarianism were studied and literature talked about them especially after the Second World War we can remember all for example in his dystopian his topic novels and science fiction so 1984 and Animal Farm and so on we're going to talk about him okay he uses art literature in order to explain these elements this mechanisms society of of history that could allow totalitarianism certain isms
to become so powerful so important and to destroy nations this is very interesting and we're going to talk about that much later actually so after the Second World War after modernism sound somehow so all this aspect obviously have an incredible strong impact on culture on science on literature on on on anything or any aspect okay of culture because as I said before culture is always an answer to a real real situation real life so first of all we talked about the horror was provoked by Wars okay as a consequence we have some pacifist movements okay
in order to prevent this from happening again or to to fight against war in general okay there is also a sort of now okay we can say that beliefs in general were questioned okay and most of the traditional values or religious beliefs were now put into question and most of the time they were shattered and even eliminated for example we can mention mention here the German philosopher Nietzsche okay and one hobbies' most important statements was that God was dead okay goddess that is symbolic obviously means that the man now is living in a sort of
a mechanism okay there is no final aim there is no final spiritual him to gain okay and the so called dementia has to accept ok the cyclic mechanism in which he is living so again something else about philosophy but also science and medicine in this period Friday Sigmund Freud and Jung they start studying the individual ok they start studying psychology they start talking about psychoanalysis they start believing and saying that individual has got something inside which is the unconscious side ok and consciousness which is very strong and it is absolutely true it is real ok
and the movement inside the unconscious part of the individual is or can create eventually also some some illnesses and pathologies some disorders ok and there are eventually way to cure or to treat them anyway this is very very interesting we have talked about the this some glimpses ideas that were concerning the individual psychological side of the individual when we talked about Stevenson for example dr. Jekyll and mr. right if you remember we even found out some we can say some aspect that he could anticipate some aspects of Freud's psychoanalysis we also talked about balance and
this balance a kind of in the individual one we talked about Shakespeare okay even so now we are really talking and Allah the individual from a very scientific point of view this is extremely important because now the I can say that the subjectivity now ok becomes a real element to explore a real world to explore okay and literature will try to do it in a very strong and detailed way then again I have mentioned here three incredible persons Einstein okay Picasso and Stravinsky why obviously maybe they belong to completely different fields and the completely different
has with science and art music's completely different aspects why well they have something in common and that's something okay is relativity okay so they all believed that there wasn't just one perspective just one truth okay but different truths and all these truths were equally right okay we're equally true okay especially I Stein okay with his theory okay we know relativity and for the first time told us that even science which is objectivity okay pure objectivity can have some relativity inside okay and then relativity also about art and whatever okay Harmony's and many other aspects this
is a very very very interesting and important side of culture in this period because this relativity means subjectivity and subjectivity means that there reason just one truth but many different kinds of truth okay so when we talk about literature we can say that they analyze this relativity starting from the individual okay the individual that he's living all these aspects are his experiences is experiencing sorry all these aspects and for this reason he is obviously he is he lives that I hand he has got a sort of a disorientation okay a disintegration of his identity okay
because the fact that there isn't just one truth but there are many truth so there is no truth at all probably about the world about values about what they have always believed and about themselves okay then so this this integration of identity or the integration of the ego is it is also a code like that and alienation obviously because when you lose your points of reference and you lose yourself you feel obviously alienated and subjectivity is obviously the most important element the most important point here obviously in order to talk about this these elements literature
fiction has to change completely as far as the content is concerned and also as far as the style and the language is concerned okay first of all let's talk about the content there is a shift okay from an external block to an internal plot so what do we mean with this okay we're not talking about actions anymore we talked about the individual okay the focus isn't on the action isn't on what happens outside but it is on what happens inside okay it is an interior plot so obviously there is a completely different accent okay the
accent is now on the individual and the the author here is trying to care to take a picture okay oh what happens inside the individual okay well obviously in order to achieve this in order to shift completely the point of view which is now an interior point of you okay and life is outside Ansari he's perceived depending on the the mind and the emotional movements of the in the individual so logic collage achill time isn't important anymore okay places aren't important anymore it isn't important to have an action that continues okay it isn't important to
have any kind of continuity some time somehow okay clarity or anything it doesn't matter anymore because obviously now literature or anyway okay fiction is now just a picking okay up all the the aspects of the human soul the human mind human thoughts human emotions okay and the put them together okay they don't even try to give a structure to use doesn't matter anymore okay what matters is that it is a real display of what human beings inside so obviously it is extremely related to Freud actually Freud and use of the obviously activity okay so the
focus on the interior side of the human being of this human being who is extremely now he's lost somehow okay he's looking for himself okay and for a position in the world aside so in order to talk about these elements obviously you have to use specific techniques okay which allows such allows are you to talk about these new topics these techniques are especially the free association and free association was alternately also technique that Freud used in psychoanalysis okay because he said that it was important to let okay the free association describe say something about our
unconscious side he asked his patients to eliminate censorship okay and just to let those flow okay with no censorship or anything because this was the only way to let the unconscious side come to the surface and in this case also eventually cure or treat these balances or problems okay of the individual so free association which is also a medical we can say so sort of a medical technique then interior monologue obviously now the reason to dialogue it isn't important that the individual is having a relationship with the outside world it's not important anymore it has
to talk to himself okay and the interior monologue is the best way to represent to care his own thoughts and his own emotions then again and this is probably the most important the key word here which is stream of consciousness stream of consciousness is a very important technique of this period very very important technique the more modernism it is it exists also in other literature's okay also Italian literature or German literature for example in Italy we're talking about Pirandello or svevo in with for example Pirandello with his words una Ness to Magento Mila infirmity a
Pascal or of vivo with his work Sunita or maybe Germany in Germany we have for example Musil okay with this worth the money I give sharpened and in England all right in England James Joyce for sure you mentioned before okay and Virginia Woolf again any others okay but these are probably the most representative authors when we talk about James Joyce we talk especially about the DA winners and the unisys you masterpiece is the most experimental work and talking about Virginia Woolf we can remember mrs. Dalloway or to the lighthouse also jakub's room jacket room isn't
even mentioned so often but it is very important because it was one of the first works in which a stream of consciousness was used in order to represent the word outside individual there is this mother that is inside room the bedroom of her son whose dad in war and watch in different elements inside of the room she remembers things she thinks about something and we start to understand what is happening outside and what happened before through her eyes through her Kasia unconscious side through her emotions okay so it was one of the first ways to
use the stream of consciousness which is absolutely very very important to remember when we talk about modernism now obviously free association interior monologue stream of consciousness they obviously require an entirely different language okay language can be the same language we used in in during the Victorian era ordering order a romanticism it can be a very artificial or very elegant language because we don't think that way okay when we think our our thoughts or emotions are broken sometimes simple the shift from one point to another past present future may be all together so they had new
syntax has to be very dynamic and that you represent this way of thinking and this is why this is there is also a disintegration of the sing of the syntax and this new syntax is called broker is it said to be a broken syntax for the reason I've just told now even language okay the the vocabulary has to be have to be has to be very very simple okay for the same reason obviously when we think we don't think using certain of the world we using very common vocabulary again when we talk for example about
joyous and we talked about Dubliners for example this is very ok the language is extremely close to the language of people who lived in Dublin ok he was double was his his hometown okay and this is also sort of a witness of of life okay in his sitting and talking about the disintegration of syntax joyous in the Ulysses we can say we I said before that the Ulysses was the most experimental work he wrote he even tried to eliminate punctuation okay he used other ways to give a specific rhythm to what he was writing for
example given a specific shape to words okay specific shape to to do the words okay printed words on the page like a spiral for example or other shapes in order to let us receive the emotion and and the rhythm he wanted to give without using traditional punctuation so it was something extremely new absolutely new we're going to talk about him about Virginia Woolf about earlier term okay he maybe he represented another aspect of modernism and we're going to talk about all of them in details it's all for now I hope if this is interesting and
clear for you if you have any question just ask me or will leave a comment below and please please again please subscribe my channel and if you find my videos interesting please share okay and as I always say the more we are the better we can work together thank you very very much and see you soon with the English literature good bye [Music]
