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Introduction


Virginia Woolf

Jack Kerouac
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.

Essential 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.
 

Recommended Resources

  1. English and American Poetry in the Twentieth Century
  2. J. D. Salinger - Dictionary of World Biography: The 20th Century
  3. The Crucible Study Guide (eNotes) - Arthur Miller
  4. The Great Gatsby Study Guide (eNotes) - F. Scott Fitzgerald
  5. Women in Modern Literature

All Resources

Display as: Categories, List
  1. 1984 Study Guide (eNotes) - George Orwell
  2. Albert Camus
  3. Aldous Huxley
  4. Alice Walker
  5. Amy Tan
  6. Arthur Miller
  7. Censorship in Twentieth-Century Literature
  8. Chinua Achebe
  9. Christianity in Twentieth-Century Literature
  10. Death of a Salesman Study Guide (eNotes) - Arthur Miller
  11. Drugs and Literature
  12. E. M. Forster
  13. Edith Wharton
  14. English and American Poetry in the Twentieth Century
  15. Ernest Hemingway
  16. Eudora Welty
  17. Eugene O'Neill
  18. F. Scott Fitzgerald
  19. Fear in Literature
  20. Flannery O'Connor - Dictionary of World Biography: The 20th Century
  21. For Whom the Bell Tolls Study Guide (eNotes) - Ernest Hemingway
  22. Franz Kafka
  23. Gabriel Garcia Marquez
  24. George Orwell
  25. Gertrude Stein
  26. Harper Lee
  27. J. D. Salinger
  28. J. D. Salinger - Dictionary of World Biography: The 20th Century
  29. Jack Kerouac
  30. James Baldwin
  31. James Joyce
  32. John Steinbeck
  33. Kurt Vonnegut
  34. Louise Erdrich
  35. Margaret Atwood
  36. Milan Kundera
  37. One Hundred Years of Solitude Study Guide (eNotes) - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
  38. Pablo Neruda
  39. Ralph Ellison
  40. Robert Frost
  41. Samuel Beckett
  42. Suffrage in the 20th Century
  43. T. S. Eliot
  44. Tennessee Williams
  45. The Color Purple Study Guide (eNotes) - Alice Walker
  46. The Crucible Study Guide (eNotes) - Arthur Miller
  47. The Feminist Movement in the 20th Century
  48. The Great Gatsby Study Guide (eNotes) - F. Scott Fitzgerald
  49. The Metamorphosis Study Guide (eNotes) - Franz Kafka
  50. The Stranger Study Guide (eNotes) - Albert Camus
  51. Things Fall Apart Study Guide (eNotes) - Chinua Achebe
  52. Twentieth Century America
  53. Twentieth-Century Danish Literature
  54. Ulysses Study Guide (eNotes) - James Joyce
  55. Virginia Woolf
  56. Vladimir Nabokov
  57. William Faulkner
  58. Women in Modern Literature