20th CENTURY BRITISH LITERATURE

                       
  BREIF BACKGROUND
     Modern day literature is known as the modernist period which started at 1901 ie the beginning of the 20th century. Mordenist period is sometimes called 'the landscape of ruins' a period that everything the British lived for came to an end.TT was the battle of the Somme,many youths were killed and it made a lasting impact on the British.
Many intellectuals evolved during this period, people like Charles Darwin,SUgmund Freud,Carl Jung.
Also writers such as Thomas Hardy,W.B Yeats,T.S Elliot,Wilfred Owen,Joseph Conrad,Samuel Beckett,Bernard Shaw, Katherine Mansfield etc also evolved during this period


1. T.S Elliot:He was a noble price winner. He was a christian and he makes use of biblical allusion,that he uses from the perspective of the 'eye of faith'

           A. "The Hippopotamus"

 In the poem T.S Elliot presents a comparism between the hippopotamus(which represents carnality)and the true church(which represents spirituality.
The Hippo appears strong physically but he is only flesh and blood,this means the hippo has its weakness inspite of being huge
                    " The broad-backed hippopotamus
                      Rests on his belly in the mud
                     Although he seems so firm to us
                     He is only flesh and blood.
The hippo is frail and weak on the other hand the true church is based on a rock(Jesus). The hippo works and he the process of working he makes mistakes,the church doesn't work.
                   "The hippo's feeble steps may err
                    In compasinng material ends
                   While the true church need never stir
                    To gather in its dividend"

The hippo cannot reach the delicacy of life but the church enjoys the good things of life,these things are expensive but the church gets it.
             "But fruits of promegerante and peach
              Refresh the church from overseas"


Everything is difficult for the hippo but everything seems to have been made easy for the church
But alas,the hippo went up-raptured
        " I saw the 'potamus take wing''
The poet saw the hippopotamus raptured and angels singing around him. While the hippo was raptures,the true church stayed behind.Here the poet is trying to criticize the church,the hippo was not perfect but he was raptured while the church that does nothing stays behind. Elliot isn't critizing the church because he doesn't like the church,but because he believes the church isn't living up to expectations.

         situation
                "  And running away.........
                " And the night fries........

B." The Journey of the Magi"

 Here, Elliot pictures a tale told by one of the wise men on the trip to Bethlehem.The journey was made during winter. Line 1 "A cold coming we had of it"
The magis  were out on a journey, searching for something,in fact the camels were tired.
                " And the camels galled ,sore footed,refractory
                   Lying down in the melting snow"
The animals did not enjoy the journey. They regretted having left summer palaces on slop
                    " There were times we regretted.
                     The summer palaces on slopes,the terrace"
Apart from the animals and weather,the camel men were also problematic. The poet uses parralelism to emphasize the difficulty of the
                 "And the cities.......
                " And the villagers.....
But at the end of stanza 1,we discovered inspite of all the difficulty the men were determined to continue the journey and find answers.
In stanza 2 however,the situation is beginning to look more favorable
            "Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley
             With a running stream and a water mill"
Here the poet uses imagery "temperate valley" which suggest peace and "water mill which represents life. However in the midst of this peace there is an image that is contrary
     " And the three trees on the low sky"
These represent the threw cross at Golgotha. So in the images of life there are also images of death,the persona tries to show the proximity between life and death.
They later moved to a tavern which symbolizes hospitality or rest.

In stanza 3,he recalls the journey and he would be please to go on the journey again
       " I should be glad of another death"
This also symbolize death itself,that whenever death comes,he is ready to die


2.W.B Yeats.  " Easter 1916
  I have met them at close of day
Coming with vivid faces
From counter or desk among grey
Eighteenth-century houses.
I have passed with a nod of the head
Or polite meaningless words,
Or have lingered awhile and said
Polite meaningless words,
And thought before I had done
Of a mocking tale or a gibe
To please a companion
Around the fire at the club,
Being certain that they and I
But lived where motley is worn:
All changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born
That woman's days were spent
In ignorant good-will,
Her nights in argument
Until her voice grew shrill.
What voice more sweet than hers
When, young and beautiful,
She rode to harriers?
This man had kept a school
And rode our wingèd horse;
This other his helper and friend
Was coming into his force;
He might have won fame in the end,
So sensitive his nature seemed,
So daring and sweet his thought.
This other man I had dreamed
A drunken, vainglorious lout.
He had done most bitter wrong
To some who are near my heart,
Yet I number him in the song;
He, too, has resigned his part
In the casual comedy;
He, too, has been changed in his turn,
Transformed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

Hearts with one purpose alone
Through summer and winter seem
Enchanted to a stone
To trouble the living stream.
The horse that comes from the road,
The rider, the birds that range
From cloud to tumbling cloud,
Minute by minute they change;
A shadow of cloud on the stream
Changes minute by minute;
A horse-hoof slides on the brim,
And a horse plashes within it;
The long-legged moor-hens dive,
And hens to moor-cocks call;
Minute by minute they live:
The stone's in the midst of all.
Too long a sacrifice

Can make a stone of the heart.
O when may it suffice?
That is Heaven's part, our part
To murmur name upon name,
As a mother names her child
When sleep at last has come
On limbs that had run wild.
What is it but nightfall?
No, no, not night but death;
Was it needless death after all?
For England may keep faith
For all that is done and said.
We know their dream; enough
To know they dreamed and are dead;
And what if excess of love
Bewildered them till they died?
I write it out in a verse—
MacDonagh and MacBride
And Connolly and Pearse
Now and in time to be,
Wherever green is worn,
Are changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.


This is a poem describing the poet's emotion regarding a particular event in Irish Island.This was during the first world war,the Irish rebelled. The uprising was unsuccessful and most of the republican stakeholders in the rebellion were executed for treason