Илмий раҳбар томонидан берилган

THE TOPICALITY VIRGINIA WOOLF
The aim of my course paper is to reveal content of his works and his added contribution to literature
To reach the aim I put forward the following tasks:

• 
  to study a literary genre
  
• 
  to investigate Virginia Woolf,contribution to literature
  
• 
  to analyse his works
  

The subject of my course paper is content of his works and his added contribution to art. The object of my course paper is Virginia Woolf’s life and his works
The theoretical value of the course paper is of this research lies in its usage for future scientific writings on the given topic: articles, thesis, essays, etc.;
The course paper includes introduction, 1 chapter , conclusion and list of references.
II.MAIN PART
1.English Literature at the turn of the 19^th and 20^th century
English literature is the literature which is written in the English language, as opposed to other languages. English literature includes literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England, but all are considered important writers in the history of English literature (for example, Robert Burns was Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Joseph Conrad was Polish, Dylan Thomas was Welsh, Thomas Pynchon is American, V.S. Naipaul was born in Trinidad). In other words, English literature is as diverse as the varieties and dialects of English spoken around the world. Until the early 19th century literature from Britain will mainly be discussed; then America starts to produce major writers and works in literature. In the 20th century America and Ireland produced many of the most significant
works of literature in English, and after World War II writers from the former British Empire also began to challenge writers from Britain.
There are several reasons of the growth of the Romantic Movement in English literature in the early 19th century:
 influence of the Gothic novel, novel of sensibility and graveyard poets of the 18th-century, whose works are characterized by their gloomy meditations on mortality, "skulls and coffins, epitaphs and worms" in the context of the graveyard.
 revival of interest in ancient English poetic forms and folk poetry.
 a new emphasis on the beauty and value of nature brought about by a reaction against urbanism and industrialization.
 the changing landscape and the pollution of the environment, brought about by the industrial and agricultural revolutions, with the expansion of the city.
 social changes, such as depopulation of the countryside and the rapid development of overcrowded industrial cities that took place in the period between 1750 and 1850.
 a revolt against the scientific rationalization of nature of the Age of Enlightenment.
It was in the Victorian era (1837–1901) that the novel became the leading literary genre in English. Women played an important part in this rising popularity both as authors and as readers. Circulating libraries, that allowed books to be borrowed for an annual subscription, were a further factor in the rising popularity of the novel.
The 1830s and 1840s saw the rise of social novel. This was in many ways a reaction to rapid industrialization, and the social, political and economic issues associated with it, and was a means of commenting on abuses of government and industry and the suffering of the poor, who were not profiting from England's economic prosperity. Stories of the working class poor were directed toward middle class to help create sympathy and promote change. The greatness of the novelists of this period lies not only in their truthful description of contemporary life, but also in their profound humanism. They believed in the good qualities of the human heart and expressed their hopes for a better future. The poorest, the most unprivileged sections of the population were described by Charles Dickens. He looked into the darkest corners of the large cities.
The 19th century saw the rise of the following genres: fantasy, detective, science fiction, horror and ghost stories, gothic and vampire literature, the lost world genre and literature for children. The history of the modern fantasy genre begins with George MacDonald, the influential author of The Princess and the Goblin and Phantastes (1858). Wilkie Collins' novel The Moonstone (1868), is generally considered the first detective novel in the English language, while The Woman in White is regarded as one of the finest sensation novels. H. G. Wells's (1866–1946) writing career began in the 1890s with science fiction novels like The Time Machine (1895), and The War of the Worlds (1898) which describes an invasion of late Victorian England by Martians, and Wells is seen, along with Frenchman Jules Verne (1828–1905), as a major figure in the development of the science fiction genre. The premier ghost story writer of the 19th century was Sheridan Le Fanu. His works include the macabre mystery novel Uncle Silas (1865), and his Gothic
novella Carmilla (1872), tells the story of a young woman's susceptibility to the attentions of a female vampire. Bram Stoker's horror story Dracula (1897), belongs to a number of literary genres, including vampire literature, horror fiction, gothic novel and invasion literature. The Lost World literary genre was inspired by real stories of archaeological discoveries by imperial adventurers. H. Rider Haggard wrote one of the earliest examples, King Solomon's Mines, in 1885.
George Bernard Shaw turned the theatre into an arena for debate about important political and social issues, like marriage, class, "the morality of armaments and war" and the rights of women.
Modernism represents a “a deliberate and radical break with the traditional bases both of Western culture and of Western art” (Virginia Woolf ) There are controversities concerning the beginning of modernism. Still Virginia Woolf states that modernism began in 1910, the date of the first postImpressionist exhibition in London. There are established features that define modernism thematically and historically.
From a literary perspective, the main characteristics of modernism include:
1) the need to escape from the certainties of the nineteenth century;
2) a challenge to realism, search for alternative ways of representing reality; not focusing on the external reality, moving the idea of reality to the inner world.
3) an emphasis on impressionism and subjectivity in writing; an emphasis on HOW seeing or perception takes place, rather than on WHAT is perceived;

4) new kinds of tools, such as the stream of consciousness, interior monologue

5) representing consciousness, perception, emotion, the relation of the individual with the society;
6) a rejection of the objectivity, fixed points of view, and clear-cut moral positions;
7) narrations from different points of view and perspectives;
8) spontaneity and discovery in creation.

At the beginning of the 20th century modernism became an important literary movement.

Although in the beginning and in the course of the 20th century books lost some of their influence due to new forms of mass media like the radio, the television and recently the internet, American literature became more and more influential on an internationale level.
By the turn of the century writers of prose as well as poets and playwrights were keen on experimenting with new techniques and topics. The rather idealistic point of view authors had taken in the 19th century was no longer up - to - date and especially after the 1st World War another style of writing got popular. Perhaps it would be the best description to say that realism got even more realistic. Ernest Hemingway e.g. had a very realistic, straightforward style without the romantic ornaments that had been used before. He got first famous with his two anti - war
novels «The Sun Also Rises» and «A Farewell to Arms» published in 1926 and 1929.
American authors in general began to reject the emotional aspects of literature more and more. Instead they became fascinated with describing and analyzing the psychologic depths of their characters.
The 1920s, also known as «The Roaring Twenties» brought change again. Society and thus also the society of writers, started to reject the Puritan and Victorian values and ideals that had been established. Writers felt that now they had much more freedom in choosing their topics - and also in choosing their way of life. In 1930 Sinclair Lewis was the first American to get the Nobel Prize for Literature for his novel «Dodsworth».
But the most important persons of the American literature scene at that time were surely a group of people called the Lost generation. Gertrude Stein, American writer living in Paris gathered some writers around her, for whom she became both mentor and idol. Members of this group were e.g. Thornton Wilder, a famous novelist and playwright and Scott Fitzgerald as well. They were mainly influenced by the consequences of the 1st World War, which were personal disillusionment and the loss of old values. The most important author of the Lostgeneration who was even called the most important American author of the 20th century was certainly Ernest Hemingway. Another very important person especially for the Lostgeneration but also for every other writer was the Irishman James Joyce. With
his stream of consciousness- technique, the use of many symbols and his prose style that was rather lyric, he set new standards not only for Europeans, but also for Americans.
At the beginning of the new decade, the 1930s the Black Friday at the New York Stock Exchange and the following world- wide recession shocked all Americans. Many writers suddenly left their old topics to write in a very realistic way about social problems. One of the authors to do so was John Steinbeck, who expressed all his despair in «Of Mice and Men» in 1937. In 1939 he published his novel «The Grapes of Wrath». In this book he describes the life of poor farmhands in California and their will to live, but he also criticizes American capitalism. In 1940 John Ford made a very successful film out of this story. Steinbeck achieved the Nobel Prize in 1962.
Another very popular subject at that time was the so called Southern Gothic, which means the American South and its problems. William Faulkner e.g. created in his novel «The Hamlet» in 1940 as well as with other books a very humorous picture of the South for which he was awarded with the Nobel Prize in 1949.
Drama.Concerning drama the beginning of the 20th century brought the most radical changes one can think of. In the 19th century American drama consisted merely of immitations of European plays and stage adaptations of novels such as «Uncle Tom?s Cabin».There was no real copyright law to protect dramatists and Americans were more focused on seeing famous actors than on attending
American plays. But suddenly things started to change and the American drama scene flourished. Along with various other reasons this was due to Eugene O?Neill, probably the most important American playwright.
His plays are, generally speaking about the working class and poor people, obsessions and sex, for O?Neil was influenced by his contemporary Sigmund Freud very much and about the relationships between people. Two of his most famous plays are «Strange Interlude», published in 1928 and «Mourning Becomes Electra» published in 1931.
At the same time, Maxwell Anderson published his plays, which were mostly historical ones. He wrote e.g. «Elizabeth the Queen» (1930), «Mary of Scotland»(1933), and «Anne of the Thousand Days» (1948) about King Henry VIII?s second wife Anne Boleyn.
Poetry.It was the same with poetry as with drama - American poetry and poetry in general was not very influential in the first years of the 20th century. This changed when Harriet Monroe, a poet herself, decided to publish the magazine «Poetry: A Magazine of Verse» in 1912. One of the most famous American poets of the 20th century, Ezra Pound, contributed a lot to this literary magazine, although he was living in London by the time it appeared first. Pound was the leader of a new movement in poetry, called Imagism, which featured a clear, plain presentation of poems. His life work was certainly «The Cantos» a series of poems appearing between 1925 and 1960, but which he tried to improve and complete until his death
in 1972. The Cantos contains many allusions to literature and art as well as to many different eras and cultures and thus it is very difficult to understand. The second big American poet of the 20th century is Thomas Sterns Eliot, Pound?s contemporary. Getting a very good education and being a very intelligent man, Eliot?s poetry is on a very high intellectual level. What he writes seems sometimes illogical and too abstract to understand, but exactly because of this innovative style his lyric was a turning point or revolution for American poetry. In his poems e.g. in «The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock» Eliot wrote about disillusionment and the loss of old traditions and values. Later on the so called lost generation will be of interest to us and thus one of the poets belonging to this movement is to be presented here: Edward estlin Cummings. He was one of the first poets to realize that poetry had become a visual more than an oral art. Thus he didn?t just write, he designed his poems, by unusual punctuation, spacing, indentation and by dropping the use of capital letters. Furthermore he used colloquial language and a lot of words from popular culture. One of his ideas was e.g. to write a poem with gaps that had to be filled in by the reader.
The XX century had been marked by Great Britain's unparalleled colonial and industrial expansion. Colonial expansion transformed the economic structure of British capitalism. Instead of the old and vanishing industrial monopoly, there was a more complex large-scale colonial and financial monopoly, an extension of British state power over vast distant regions of the earth.
Fundamental political, social and economic changes on the British scene deeply
affected the creative writing of the new century. Men-of-letters of different generations and aesthetic views were critical of the new era; they were spiritual explorers voicing their discontent with life. For a number of these writers an understanding of the artist's duty towards society, an earnest desire to give expression to the feelings and thoughts of the British people was at the basis of their approach to literature; their work therefore became a new investment in the heritage of English realism and stimulated its further development. H. G. Wells and Bernard Shaw held the public attention for more than half a century. While Shaw essentially expounded the intellectual, social and moral problems of his time, Wells laid heavier stress on the consciousness of his changing compatriots and analysed the feelings and ambitions of the present in the light of the nation's future. Wells believed that the very existence of civilization was in jeopardy unless men of the highest intelligence seized the initiative, or communicated their wisdom to the masses until they reached the point where they would be capable of governing themselves. Being a scientist he turned his knowledge into science fiction in which he emphasized the social implications of the problems of space, time and technical revolution. When presenting his imaginary picture of the future he is really concerned with the present. Wells depicts the old order seeking in vain to perpetuate itself in a changing world and the new one rising assertively, chaotically in cities which grow and throw out their suburban tentacles far into the country-side.
The beginning of the century was an epoch of incessant debates, of criticizing, evaluating and rejecting old conceptions of life. Bernard Shaw was increasingly
involved in these activities, castigating social defects in his plays, essays, lectures and letters to the papers. His surgical frankness in uttering plain truths to the nation was all , the more impressive as they reached the public through the medium of the theatre. In Mrs. Warren's Profession he demonstrated that it was society which was to blame for the evils of prostitution rather than the procuress; in Widower's Houses again it was society rather than the individual landlord, who created abuses of the right to property that proved disastrous to the lower classes. Shaw's contemporaries never failed to take in his message because apart from being an expert in stagecraft, he was a master of forceful simple English and an irresistible wit. His plays may be said to have won the day for realism in the theatre.
At the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century English literature was also greatly influenced by writers and poets who made persistent attempts to break away from established literary conventions. The new century heralding changes in every sphere of life and human knowledge and foreshadowing the inevitability of more profound upheavals -- all this, the writers felt, called for a different, a new approach to literary representation. These trends gained an especially strong impetus after the holocaust of World War I. And many of those who wanted to express their disillusionment and hopelessness, their loathing of the revolting realities of bourgeois society, felt it their duty to reject traditional literary forms. Unable to form a clear conception of how to change things, they limited their protest to extravagance of form, relegating the rational meaning to the background.
The writers experimenting with poetic form have received the much debated and still not clearly defined title of "modernists", as distinct from traditionalists. This term cannot be accepted without certain reservations. To begin with, we must distinguish between the earlier modernists (those belonging to the first decades of the present century), who were certainly critics both of social and literary conventions, and the later ones in whose art experimentation with form became a convenient device to impart an aura of novelty to unclear or even reactionary ideas. It should also be emphasized that modernism cannot be used as a universally disparaging designation of all that was negative in literature. Some of the innovations introduced by modernists exercised a certain influence upon the realistic trends of twentieth-century art and were accepted by progressively minded artists.
Virginia Stephen determined in 1908 to “re-form” the novel by creating a holistic form embracing aspects of life that were “fugitive” from the Victorian novel. While writing anonymous reviews for the Times Literary Supplement and other journals, she experimented with such a novel, which she called Melymbrosia. In November 1910, Roger Fry, a new friend of the Bells, launched the exhibit “Manet and the Post-Impressionists,” which introduced radical European art to the London bourgeoisie. Virginia was at once outraged over the attention that painting garnered and intrigued by the possibility of borrowing from the likes of artists Paul Cézanne and Pablo Picasso. As Clive Bell was unfaithful, Vanessa began an affair with Fry, and Fry began a lifelong debate with Virginia about the visual and verbal arts. In the summer of 1911, Leonard Woolf returned from the East. After he
resigned from the colonial service, Leonard and Virginia married in August 1912. She continued to work on her first novel; he wrote the anticolonialist novel The Village in the Jungle (1913) and The Wise Virgins (1914), a Bloomsbury exposé. Then he became a political writer and an advocate for peace and justice.