Key Figures of 19th and 20th Century British and American Literature

British Literature: Traditional Styles and Norms

Joseph Conrad (19th/20th Century)

• Background: Polish origin, served as a sailor for 24 years in the British Merchant Navy.
• Themes: Works inspired by his journeys, featuring exotic and romantic landscapes.
• Style: Analyzed individuals in exceptional and extreme circumstances; condemned the cruelty of colonialism.
• Technique: Some stories are told from different points of view.

Rudyard Kipling (19th/20th Century)

• Background: Lived in India until age 5, then sent to Britain for education.
• Career: Worked as a combatant by age 16 and lived until 23.
• Reception: Idealized by nationalists and criticized by imperialists.
• Notable Work: The Jungle Book.

Virginia Woolf

• Background: Born in London, educated at home in her father's library. After his death, she moved to Bloomsbury.
• Bloomsbury Group: A collective of intellectuals who sought to change the world and dismantle the constraints and taboos of Victorian times.
• Modernism: A key figure in the modernist movement; suffered from lifelong illness and died by suicide.
• Technique: Master of the interior monologue (stream of consciousness), focusing on the feelings and impressions of characters rather than the plot.
• Notable Works: Mrs. Dalloway (a web of thoughts of various people during a single day) and To the Lighthouse (highlighting differences between males and females).

James Joyce

• Background: Born in Dublin to a middle-class Catholic family.
• Themes: Critical of Irish culture and the Church, yet maintained a deep love for Ireland. Explored Irish religion, provincialism, and interior monologues.
• Notable Works: Dubliners, Ulysses.

Aldous Huxley

• Genre: Dystopian fiction.
• Notable Work: Brave New World, depicting humans who are genetically engineered and programmed.

George Orwell

• Focus: Highlighted social and political issues.
• Notable Works: Animal Farm (animals rebel against the farmer) and 1984 (a future where people cannot think for themselves in a totalitarian world).

USA: Realism

Mark Twain

• Themes: Wrote about cowboys and criminals in the West; distrusted respectable society.
• Style: Used humor to criticize slavery and hypocrisy; featured many uneducated characters.
• Notable Works: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Henry James

• Background: Born in the USA; writer and critic.
• Style: Complex prose focusing on character analysis and the complexity of human consciousness.
• Evolution: Transitioned from an omniscient narrator to a focus on character perspectives.
• Notable Works: The Turn of the Screw, The Portrait of a Lady.
• Themes: Explored the contrast between Puritan ideals and American views.