2. The Modern Novel
EZRA POUND had an
important role at the
beginning of 20 𝑡ℎ
century: he
was considerated a forerunner
of this movement. He was a
poet. An important facet of
Pound’s literary activity was
his tireless promotion of other
writers and artists, like T.S.
Eliot and J. Joyce.
2
Francesco Colangelo VD
3. The Modern Novel
Francesco Colangelo VD
3
The structure of English novel remained unalterated
till the second decade of the 20 𝑡ℎ century. The
novelists was expected to mediate between his
characters and the reader. , relating in a more or less
objective way significant events and incidents in a
cronological order.
4. The Modern Novel
Francesco Colangelo VD
4
The shift from the Victorian to
modern novel was caused by a
gradual but substantial
transformation of British
society. The novelists had a
new role, which consisted in
mediating between the solid
and unquestioned values of the
past and the confused present.
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Francesco Colangelo VD
5
The modern novelists rejected
omniscent narration; the
viewpoint shifted from the
external world to the
character’s mind. The analysis
of a character’s consciouness
was influenced by the theories
about the simultaneous
existence of different levels of
consciousness and sub-
consciousness.
T.S. Eliot
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Francesco Colangelo VD
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Their treatement of time was also
different. Time was subjective.
The story might unfold in the
course of a single day, as in James
Joyce’s Ulysses and in Virginia
Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway.
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Francesco Colangelo VD
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The narrative technique that
the modern novelists mainly
employed was the strem-of-
consciousness technique
or the interior
monologue. The stream-of-
consciousness is the
continuous flow of thoughts
and sensations that
characterise the human
mind.
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Francesco Colangelo VD
8
Joseph Conrad
«Heart of Darkness» (1902)
«Nostromo» (1904)
«The Secret Agent» (1907)
Conrad set his novels and short
stories at sea or in exotic latitude
He found chronological sequence
inadequate, and broke the normal
time-sequence
Conrad is concerned with the
conflict between personal feelings
and professional duties.
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Francesco Colangelo VD
9
Edward Morgan Forster
«A passage to India» (1924)
The novel is told by an omniscent
narrator, whose voice intrudes from
time to time to comment on the
situation, while the point of view
shifts from character to character.
The novel deals with the dissolution
of British dominion over India.
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Francesco Colangelo VD
10
James Joyce
«Dubliners» (1914)
« A portrait of the Artist as a
young man» (1916)
«Ulysses» (1922)
Language broke down into a
succession of word without
punctuation or grammatical
connections.
The use of epifany
The paralysis : physical and moral
Interior Monologue
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Francesco Colangelo VD
11
Virginia Woolf
«Mrs Dalloway» (1925)
«To the lighthouse» (1927)
« Orlando» (1928)
Woolf was interested in giving
voice to the complex inner world of
feeling and memory and conceived
the human personality as a
continuos shift of impressions and
emotions
Subjective reality came to be
identified with the technique called
stream-of-consciousness
