Modern Period

This blog is the thinking activity given to us on the setting of the 20th century in reference to the text by A. C. Ward Dr. Dilip Barad sir. In this blog I am going to talk briefly about 'the highlights of the setting' of the 20th century along with the scientific fiction literature written in this period.

 The Setting

“In the first fifty years of the twentieth century the human race moved through a remarkable series of upheavals than during perhaps fifty generations in the past.”

-A.C. Ward

The 20th century is considered to be the Anti- Victorianism, the century immediately after the Victorian century. The youngster realized that the Decorum, Civilization, culture, manners of Victorian Society is a hypocrisy and the religion they followed was sham. idealism showed a clear hypocrisy and the youngsters started standing against all this Victorian manners or way of living which were fake and not to the mark. Also the time of 1890- 1990 was considered to be naughty Nineties as the youngsters started a revolution or a kind of rebellion against the way of living which was for the longest period, Victorian period in the English literature. We can define modern age as the reaction against the Victorian age both at social and literary level.

We would see what Victorianism was and how a modern mindset emerged through Anti- Victorianism.

Victorians used to believe that it is the best order of society, it is the perfect as God has designed. They believed in the idea of permanence. Felt that the institutions, Institution of The home, the constitution, the Empire, the Christian religion given by Victorians were the final revelation. They felt that their houses were of the unshakable foundation; they didn't believe in the idea of change. While Early twentieth century writers believed in universal mutability. H G Wells spoke of 'the flow of things'. Youth hated furnishing of Victorian households but even more of Victorian minds.

There was a widespread submission to the expert and the voice of authority by the Victorians. It was the natural tendency, natural attitude of the Victorians to accept whatever is stated by the authority without questioning. But it was not accepted by the youth, by the modern society they believed in the idea of the interrogative habit of mind. The idea of G.B. Shaw Question! Examine! Test! Was more powerful in youth. They believed in the voice of Darwin in ‘The Descent of Man’ rather than of Victorian authorities or the voice of God in the Bible.

1901 to 1925 literature was written with mental attitudes, moral ideas and spiritual values which were completely opposite to Victorian literature in the Modern Times. All the certainties were certainties no longer everything was held open to question. The youth of the early 20th century looked back upon the Victorian age as dull and hypocritical. Victorian ideals appeared mean and superficial and stupid.

“Man's growing mastery of the physical world and its material resources is a story of ever-accelerating progress accompanied in its later phases by an unprecedented moral and spiritual relapse.”

-A.C. Ward

As mentioned by the A.C. Ward, The 20th century moved backward and forward faster than any other century and it was because of the scientific Revolution, advancement of Science and technology. If we compare the 20th century with the 21st century, we can interpret that the 21st century might be faster; it must be having more upheavals than the 20th century. Today the world is changing every 5 years. Who thought about the Corona pandemic? It changed the image of the world completely in 2 years.

Progress and Regress are the fruit of the Scientific revolution. It made lives of people easy but on the other hand it brought wars. If we take an example of an airplane it made the lives of the people easy, made life faster for traveling but played a major role in World wars.

With progress of science Mass production increased Which caused the threat of the death of craftsmanship. More and more people started moving towards readymade clothes and branded clothes. The example of the threat of the death of craftsmanship can be seen in a literary work of John Galsworthy's ‘Quality’ (1912) which talks about a cobbler, who used to make shoes for years and suddenly had to face breakdown. Art gave place to Anti- art

The writers of the century were divided into two groups: Bloomsbury Group and Fabian Society.

Bloomsbury group was an informal network of an influential group of artists, art critics, writers and an economist, many of whom lived in the West Central 1 district of London known as Bloomsbury. ‘At the turn of the new century came a succession of writers with powerfully skeptical minds untouched by reverence for custom or the established order.’ Bloomsbury Group had the principle of ‘Art for the Arts sake’. It was the group who used to go against Victorian ethics and customs, it believed in informal meetings and lifestyle. This group consists of men and women who used to informally meet and sit in gardens which was completely against Victorian mannerism. Writers of this group were majorly from the Porsche region.

Fabian society was completely opposite to the Bloomsbury group. This group talked about the poor, it consisted of writers like G.B. Shaw, H.G. Wells, Galsworthy. This society reflected Victorian ideals because instead of fighting to get what they wanted, The Fabians used respect and manners. Nearest general action was of spreading knowledge as to the relation between the individual and Society. They had the principle of ‘Art for life's sake’ and gave the concept of ‘Welfare state’.

In the two world wars we found a lot of dictatorship by dictators like Mussolini and Hitler society public mass was very much influenced by all these dictators. Political condition of the 20th century was dictatorship, Mussolini, Hitler all these dictators were of cult personalities, they were very much popular among the masses, people were their blind followers. As we know literature and life goes hand in hand the writers of that era were able to see that this dictatorship is a threat for the nation ruining the people and Society but if the literary writers would have written anything against them the society would not have accepted them and would have contempt for them. So in 1922 a new form of writing emerged through the publishing of Ulysses and the Wasteland. They wrote literature of Esoteric fastness. complex intellectualized language outside the mental range and unstirring to the emotion of most of the proletariat (working class people).

E.M. Foster states that this use of highly intellectual language seems to be an escapism. He states that write a writing in a highly intellectualized language so that Ivory Towers, in the mind the position what they have gained does not break down due to the reaction of the mob towards their writing and other reason was the dictatorial intellectualism the writers were completely under the influence of the dictator and if they were shown the truth of that time they were not in a mental state to accept the truth. so They decided to write in a language which is not at all understood by the common man with an idea that the people of the future would be able to understand them.

As it was a time of War the anti war literature also began in this period. The war poems were written and it talked about the anti-war and Humanism. War is useless and leads to massacre of human beings. Nothing comes out of the war. writers are human centric so whenever the activity happens which is anti-humanistic. They have to write a literature which talks about the Anti- humanistic activity here which is war.

Later after the world war many questions of social security started. There was an increase of a group which was completely poor and on the other side there was a group of rich people and affluent society who had a life of fun and came a wealth wastage. while there were other side there was a people who are unemployed who needed more security the and it resulted into the increase increment of crime and prostitution. No spirituality and abundance of sexuality. and as in this period the spirituality was destroyed a new group of people, a 'Beatnik group' emerged which were considered to be the spiritual tramps, the Dharma Bums to increase the spirituality in the nation which was lost, humanity which was lost in this war period.

With scientific advancement the world became materialistic. Mass production happened, the death of craftsmanship, production was done in the Assembly line, more and more production was done, it was necessary to increase the sales of the production and so the genre of advertisement came into existence . Advertising was working with depth psychology. It made two people hungry for the branded things, to buy the things so the people of the wealthy class bought more and more things. At this time the literature also started getting advertised where the old mindset was that good literature is sold mouth to mouth. The influence of advertisement increased a lot.

The literature of a satirical tone increased in this period majorly the tragicomedy gained popularity because when the people were shown that a harsh reality of of the period they were not able to accept it and going against the political party, a ruling party would harm to the literary writers so they adapted the genre of tragicomedy which seemed humorous but it showed a very harsh reality of the society.

In the conclusion paragraph A.C.Ward says that as Victorian time is gone we can judge them in a better way, they had a civilized manners, customs, virtues and restraints which were not naturally grown but were arbitrarily imposed and forced. There was a personality Cult among them, Passion for exhibition increased in the people. Comparing it with the contemporary time today we feel that the 21st century is about digitalization. It is a digital era but we don't know how The future is going to see this period. A.C Ward what is saying the 20th century had passion for exhibition then if we see the present time today every person has your personal camera and they keep on exhibit in themselves on the social media through their photos, their work, activities, achievements done by them. personality cult and passion for exhibition we can say by reading the A.C Wards statement that it has increased in the 21st century in comparison to the 20th century.

I have written blog on science fiction in recommendation to 20th century to visit it CLICK HERE.

I hope you were able to get a basic idea about the setting of the 20th century. I have tried to cover necessary points of the setting in reference to A.C. Ward’s text and have shared my ideas about scientific fiction. Thank you for visiting, please comment for queries

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