Page 195 - DENG402_HISTORY_OF_ENGLISH_LITERATURE

History of English Literature

Notes the present. Similarly Virginia Woolf in Mrs. Dalloway by relating the story of one day in the life
of a middle-aged woman, and following her ‘stream of consciousness’ up and down in the past and
the present, has not only given complete picture of Mrs. Dalloway’s character, but also she has
made the reader feel by the end of the book that he knows not only what Mrs. Dalloway is, and has
been, but what she might have been—he knows all the unfulfilled possibilities in her character.
Thus what the traditional method achieves by extension, the ‘stream of consciousness’ method
achieves by depth. It is a method by which a character can be presented outside time and place. It
first separates the presentation of consciousness from the chronological sequence of events, and
then investigates a given state of mind so completely, by pursuing to their end the remote mental
associations and suggestions, that there is no need to wait for time in order to make the potential
qualities in the character take the form of activity.
Besides being psychological and realistic, the novelist is also frank especially about sexual matters.
This was rather an inevitable result of the acceptance of the ‘stream of consciousness’ technique.
Some time a striking sexual frankness is used by writers like D. H. Lawrence to evade social and
moral problems.

Notes An elaborate technique for catching the flavour of every moment helps to avoid
coming into grips with acute problems facing the society.
Moreover, on account of the disintegration of society, and an absence of a common basis of values,
the modern novelist cannot believe that his impressions hold good for others. The result is that
whereas the earlier English novel generally dealt with the theme of relation between gentility and
morality, the modern novel deals with the relation between loneliness and love. So whereas Fielding,
Dickens, Thackeray wrote for the general public, the modern novelist considers it as an enemy, and
writes for a small group of people who share his individual sensibilities and are opposed to the
society at large. E. M. Forster calls it the ‘little society’ as opposed to the ‘great society’. D. H.
Lawrence was concerned with how individuals could fully realise themselves as individuals as a
preliminary to making true contact with the ‘otherness of other individuals’. He deals with social
problems as individual problems. Virginia Woolf, who was particularly sensitive to the disintegration
of the public background of belief, was concerned with rendering experience in terms of private
sensibility. Thus the novel in the hands of James Joyce, Virginia Woolf and D. H. Lawrence, Dorothy
Richardson or Katherine Mansfield, borrowed some of the technique of lyrical poetry on account of
emphasis on personal experience. There are such fine delicacies of description and narrative in
modern novels, that they remind us of the works of great English poets.

Task Write a short note on Modern Drama.

Self Assessment
Fill in the blanks:
1. .................... is often derided for abandoning the social world in favour of its narcissistic
interest in language and its processes.
2. Modernist formalism, however, was not without its .................... .
3. Little wonder, then, that it is probably the least read of the acknowledged .................... of
English literature.
4. The modern period in .................... is obviously not such a period when society is function-
ing on the basis of certain fundamental values.
5. Besides being psychological and realisti, the novelist is also Frank especially about .................... .

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