The development of the novel in the 20th century
4. The novel from 1881 to 1914
Over the eighteen eighties there was a split in fiction. The first indication towards it was Henry James' essay "The Art of Fiction" (1884), which referred to the novelist's calling as a "Sacred office". Besides, there appeared a stratification of fiction due to primary education for all. Parallel to this, novelists saw themselves apart from the public, as dedicated men. This new modern conception involved dignity and a sense of glory. Another change was from the three-volume novel to the one volume one. Together with the demands of the new publics, this shortening divided the Victorian novel into the categories of fiction we know today. The key name in the eighties is Henry James, who strove to give the novel the aesthetic intensity of poetry or painting. The two dominant themes in his work are the "international subject" and that of the innocent. After the eighties the novel became the dominant prose form.
4.1. The Turn of the Century: the Modern British Novel
The turn of the century meant the end of the Victorian Era with the Queen's death in 1901. The legacy of Darwin, the Victorian loss of Christian Faith, Socialism and the awareness of threat against England's wealth increased the existing social discomfort. Apart from this, new discoveries such as Einstein's Special theory of Relativity (1905) and Freud's works Interpretation of Dreams (1900) and The Psychopathology of Everyday life (1901) were also important. As concerns Visual Arts, after the Post-Impressionist movement a great crisis of the subject followed. This crisis led to Cubism and Dadaism. Arts were then called to recognition of modern technology, which was expressed in poetry through the introduction of free verse and broken syntax. Therefore, the Modern shows its discontinuity with the past, though not completely.
4.2. Modernism and Its Alternatives
Modernism implies a sense of historical discontinuity, either liberation from inherited patterns or deprivation.
Over the eighteen eighties there was a split in fiction. The first indication towards it was Henry James' essay "The Art of Fiction" (1884), which referred to the novelist's calling as a "Sacred office". Besides, there appeared a stratification of fiction due to primary education for all. Parallel to this, novelists saw themselves apart from the public, as dedicated men. This new modern conception involved dignity and a sense of glory. Another change was from the three-volume novel to the one volume one. Together with the demands of the new publics, this shortening divided the Victorian novel into the categories of fiction we know today. The key name in the eighties is Henry James, who strove to give the novel the aesthetic intensity of poetry or painting. The two dominant themes in his work are the "international subject" and that of the innocent. After the eighties the novel became the dominant prose form.
4.1. The Turn of the Century: the Modern British Novel
The turn of the century meant the end of the Victorian Era with the Queen's death in 1901. The legacy of Darwin, the Victorian loss of Christian Faith, Socialism and the awareness of threat against England's wealth increased the existing social discomfort. Apart from this, new discoveries such as Einstein's Special theory of Relativity (1905) and Freud's works Interpretation of Dreams (1900) and The Psychopathology of Everyday life (1901) were also important. As concerns Visual Arts, after the Post-Impressionist movement a great crisis of the subject followed. This crisis led to Cubism and Dadaism. Arts were then called to recognition of modern technology, which was expressed in poetry through the introduction of free verse and broken syntax. Therefore, the Modern shows its discontinuity with the past, though not completely.
4.2. Modernism and Its Alternatives
Modernism implies a sense of historical discontinuity, either liberation from inherited patterns or deprivation.