20thB-Literature+Outside+of+Great+Britain+(if+5+members)

20th Century literature outside of Great Britain Jordan Wadsack-Stewart

The Twentieth Century saw the greatest expansion of [|globalization], more than any other century before it. The increased amount of cultural connection and communication allowed for those literary movements that developed accross Britain to also develop throughout the world. Such a localization of literature in Britain was no more, especially so with the increasing amount of American work, which eventually became to match Britain's literature in substantiality. Because of this, any such theme or movement, to be completly analyzed, would be empty without the world literature:

War Literature, and the "Lost Generation" The global struggles of World War I and World War II shook the world, and thus had one of the most prominent cultural impacts on writers. Much of the literature was written on World War I, with those who fought in the war called the "[|Lost Generation]," because of the significant estrangement that occured to the individuals, especially Americans, who fough in the war. However, literature pertaining to the second world war also draws from the same themes, and so is thus a continuity of First War literature. Perhaps the most famous of such writers was the American author Ernest Hemmingway, who himself fought in WWI, and is known for popularizing the term "Lost Generation." His most prominent novel in such genre, //The Sun Also Rises//, first used the term, which was inspired by the growing amount of war authors, and itself inspired many more authors. One of his American contemporaries, F. Scout Fitzgerald, used such themes in his novels as well, albeit not the major thems of such works, as his novels, such as //The Great Gatsby//, dealt more with America. The Anglo-American poet W. H. Auden was also worte subtantial amounts of war poetry, which communicated the impact of WWI on himself. The german author, Erich Maria Remarque, wrote about the different perspective that his country saw during the war in his novel //All Quiet On The Western Front//, which still centered around the theme of the impact of the War on soviety, especially so with the widespread death and sadness that it brought.

Modernism A significant evolution of literature was that of modern thinking, or Modernism. It may have first been influenced by [|Sigmund Freud's] idea of the sub-sconciousness, which dealt with a rethinking of what predicates human thought, whith the movement centruing around a restructuring of pre-existing philosophies. It is really a rejection of the previous Enlightenment thinking of the 18th and 19th centuries, which was characterized by the many German philosophers such as [|Kant] and [|Hegel]. Some of the most prominent authors were the French author Marcel Proust, who wrote perhaps the most famous literary collection of the 20th Century, //In Search of Lost time//, T. S. Eliot, whose poetry charcterized the change in thought and writing stlye of the movement, such as in his most famous work "The Wasteland," and American author William Faulkner, who wrote on many pre-existing themes in literature with his re-structuring of their ideas, such as in his novel //The Sound and The Fury//.

Many other movements really stem out of Modernism, one such being [|Absurdism]. The idea of writing about something unrealistic, such that the actual process of reading the work, and not the actual plot, was definately a new style. One of the most famous of such authors was Czech author Franz Kafka, with his work //The Metamorphosis// inspiring perhaps the movement itself. One significant development of the style was French author Albert Camus's essay "[|The Myth of Sisyphus]," which explained the movement, and thus was the first mainstream analysis of such principles. Camus's own works, such as //The Stranger//, also exhibit the absurdist thought. American

1950's-1970's and growing movements of Modernism

As said earlier, most literature of the 20th century stems from the new modernist thinking, with there being several subsets and continuations of the literature. Although the new literature becomes more than just that of modernism, becomming post-modernism, the ideas really are very similar, and it is an evolution of such, and not a revolution. Thus, instead of such seperation of the movements, the 2nd half of the 20th century had a quasi-respnse to modernism, which was post-modernism, that mirrors modernism in the new thought processes. One major American cultural movement that represented the continuation of cultural evolution, which endend up affecting the entire world, was the [|Beat movement]. The idea of the individuality of man, the rejection of mainstram values, and thus the growing move to their own values, such as sexual promiscuity. characterized the movement, started off by American author Jack Kerouac with his novel //On The Road//. Other authors were Allen Ginsberg, //Howl,// and William S. Burroughs, //Naked Lunch.// Other modernist authors at the time were German Herman Hesse, with novels such as //Sidartha// and //Steppenwolf,// American poet John Updike, and American novelists Kurt Vonnegut and Ken Kesey, with novels //Slaughter-House Five// and //One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest// respectively. With also a growing amount of non-western literature, such African authors such as Chinua Achebe, most famous novel //Things Fall Apart and// countless critiques of non-modernist literature, such as of racism in Conrad's [|Heart of Darkness]. Dystopian novels, or one's that contemplated on some disasterous future, were also particularly popular, as they provided much of the discourse on social commentary, especially so with the Cold War and the development of nuclear weapns. Some famous American authors were Walter M. Miller, with his novel //A Canticle for Leibowitz//, criticizing the presence of nuclear weapns, and Ayn Rand, with most famous novel //Atlas Shrugged//, which criticized Communism.

1980's-2000

The 1980's and onwards saw a continuation of the post-modernist thinkng, as did the previous movements. One of the most astounding authors was African-American Toni Morrison, her most famous novel //Beloved.// She became the first African-American woman to win the [|Nobel Prize in Literature], which showed the growing amount of culture and cosmoplitanism in the literary community. Other novelists such as Americans Michael Chriton and Thomas Harris popularized the fictional thriller, in their representitive works //Jurrasic Park// and //Red Dragon// respectively. Their novels presented the use of specific scientific and psychological advances incorporated into a fictional story, driven by such themes. Feminist and social campaigner Canadian Margaret Atwood was very popular, winning countless awards such as the [|Arthur C. Clark Award]. Though nothing majoraly new occured in this time period, the evolution of the revolution of modernist authors is evident in the fact that so many more themes were accepted at this time period.

Works Cited //Encyclopedia - Britannica Online Encyclopedia//. Web. 16 Nov. 2009. .

"Joseph Conrad: from Heart of Darkness." //Washington State University - Pullman, Washington//. Web. 15 Nov. 2009. .

//Main Page - C.O.D. Library//. Web. 16 Nov. 2009. .

"The Myth of Sisyphus." //New York University//. Web. 16 Nov. 2009. [].