the modern and Postmoern periods English

The Modern and

Postmodern Periods (1901-

Present)
1. "Yesterday, we split the

atom...And because of this,

the great dream and the

great nightmare of

centuries of human

thought have taken flesh

and walk beside us all,

day and night".
- Doris Lessing, from "The

Small, Personal Voice"
2. World War II and the

Loss of the Empire: The

aggression of germany

and Japan led inevitably to

World War II. When

Hilter's armies overran

Europe, the English stood

defiantly alone, shielded

by the English Channel

and the Royal Air Force. It

was, Winston Churchill

said, "their finest hour".
*In 1942, Russia

blunted the German

advance, America was in

the war and the tide

turned against the

aggressors. After nearly

six years of struggle,

England emerged form the

war victorious, battered,

and impoverished.
* England's former

colonies became

independent colonies. the

Indian subcontinent,

where Gandhi had led an

independence movement,

was divided into the

nations of India and

Pakistan in 1947.
* The imperial British

lion gave a dying gasp in

1956 when Britain, France,

and Israel invaded Egypt

to keep the control of the

Suez Canal. However, the

United States intervened,

the Egyptians kept the

Canal, and British troops

came home to a country

ashamed of its

government's actions.
* Suez was forgotten in

the cultural upheaval in

1960s, when British

fashion and British rock

musicians carried the flag

around the world in a

kind of cultural conquest.

Also, writers from

England's former colonies

were engaged in their own

re-conquest, enriching

English literature.
* As the century closed,

the violence in Northern

Ireland seemed to be

ending. Also, England

pondered its involvement

with Europe, not accepting

the common currency, the

Euro, but cooperating in a

drilling a tunnel under the

English Channel, which

joined England to the

Continent.
Do Sir Edward Grey's

words still have a

prophetic ring? Many

thought the lamps came

on again when the Berlin

Wall fell. However,

countries cobbled together

in the aftermath of World

War I- Yugoslavia and

Iraq- have been the sites of

bitter conflict.

4. Vocabulary:
*generation- noun. all of

the people born and living

at the same time
*materialism- noun. belief

in comfort, pleasure, and

wealth as the highest

values
*colonial- adj. of or

relating to the colony or

colonies of a mother

country
___
*propriety- noun. display

of proper manners or

behavior
*aristocracy- noun. ruling

class; nobility
*facism- noun. type of

government ruled by one

party, which puts down

all opposition
___
*inclusive- adj. tending to

include; taking everything

into account
*evocative- adj. calling up

a particular image or

reaction
*allusions- noun. indirect

references

4. Women and Writers:

The work of Virginia

Woolf revealed a new

freedom that women were

finding in literature as

well. Woolf's experimental

fiction broke new ground,

and her nonfiction

explored the social

conditions that wpuld

help women succeed in

the arts.
* The bicycle as product

and the right to vote as

principle were part of the

century-long process of

loosening the rigid rules of

class, propriety, and

morality that bound the

Victorians. this process

applied to such areas as

access to higher education,

health care, marriage laws

and customs for ordinary

people and monarchy,

home ownerships,

pensions, and working

conditions.

5. Things were at their

brightest in the next

decade: the Swinging

Sixties. Plato said: "When

the modes of music

change, the walls of the

city are shaken". The walls

were rocked by The

Beatles and the Rolling

Stones. Although not as

famous as these

songwriters and singers,

poets like Ted Hughes and

peter Redgrove

nevertheless opened their

minds and their styles to a

wide range of new

influences.
*The pendulum slowed

in the eighties. Margaret

Thatcher, the first and

only female prime

minister of Britain,

reversed many of the

economic changes of the

previous twenty-five

years. However, there

could be no reversing the

social changes. Early in

her administration, the

army and navy crushed

Argentina's attempt to

seize the Falkland islands

in the South Atlantic. This

was the final flick of the

imperial lion's tail.

6. george Orwell: More Relevant than Ever!-
Big Brother, Newspeak, doublethink(all italic) are words that probably sound familiar because you hear them frequently. They were all coined in the 1940s by British author george Orwell for his novel 1984(italic) (published in 1949). After World War II, Orwell was alarmed by a trend toward repressive totalitarian rule. Believing that language is the first weapon dictators use to seize power, he employed his own words as a warning. In the futuristic tyranny portrayed in his novel, words ar eused to obscure and destroy meaning:
- The official language, Newspeak (italic), has been stripped of meaning
-The tyrannical ruler is deceptively named Big Brother (italic)
- Dissenters face torture in the innocently named Room 101
- Citizens are adapt at doublethink (italic) the ability to accept blatant contradictions, as in the government declaration "War is Peace".
* Sixty years later, these terms and others coined by Orwell still ring true. In fact, Orwell's own name is used as an adjective, Orwellian (italic), to describe this kind of abuse of language. Pundits, reporters, citizens, and bloggers alike use Orwell's words to criticize Orwellian(italic) practices.. the year 1984 has come and gone, but Orwell's words live on. .