Literature on the XX Century

The dawning of a new century marked a distinct change in the style and subjects of literature. Rural, agrarian lifestyles were fast becoming a thing of the past as industrialization made factory work the norm, and many people began to feel isolated despite living in big cities. Writers who identified as “modernists” reflected this new sense of isolation and displacement in their works. The entire Western world was also deeply affected by the devastation of World Wars I and II, and writers responded by evaluating humanity's seemingly boundless inhumanity. Women and minority voices became more prominent in the 1930s and beyond, further expanding the canon. The Beat Generation began in the late 1940s and writers reflected the growing trend of anti-conformist thought. By centuries end, Generation X writers were inspired by the fall of the Berlin Wall and the decline of imperialism but were often seen as cynical and self-serving.

Facts:

1. Many critics consider F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby (1923) the best novel of the twentieth century. There are an equal number of critics, however, who insist that James Joyce’s Ulysses (1921) is the best novel.
2. Modernism lasted about forty years and includes authors such as Vladmir Nabakov (Russia), James Joyce (Ireland), Virginia Woolf (England), and Ernest Hemingway (American).
3. The Holocaust of World War II inspired many works by actual survivors, including Night by Elie Wiesel and The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kozinski.
4. The moniker “The Beat Generation” was coined by author Jack Kerouac, author of On the Road. The movement also includes poets such as Allen Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlingetti.
5. Hemingway’s observation that “a man can be destroyed but not defeated” might be the identifying characteristic of literature in the twentieth-century, a time of radical shifts as well as enduring artistic spirit.

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