Cataclysmic Conditions: Prompt 1

British literary movements are rooted in societal views, events, and conditions. As these conditions evolve, from industrialization to colonization, and war for example, different literary styles emerge. This is clearly depicted over the last two centuries of literature ranging form the Romantic era of the late 1700s to the Postmodern movement of the late 1900s and early 2000s. This is easily deductive when comparing the historical events that altered the conditions of the authors and poets that led to the varying literary genres and eras.

             The historical events that the authors lived through had an extreme impression on the meanings and motivations of the poetry and stories written. This is clearly depicted in the Romantic era poetry. Poets such as William Wordsworth and Samuel Coleridge kicked off the movement with the Lyrical Ballads in 1798. Viewing poetry as “spontaneous overflow[s] of powerful emotions”, the poetry written by the first generation romantics captured supernatural elements, common language, daily occurrences, as well as, coining the literary term suspense of disbelief (149). Romanticism is rooted in nature and the natural world, but also contains liberal political undercurrents such as civil liberties including freedom. However, the French Revolution stifled the political context of first generation Romantics. The “fervor for freedom” that the French Revolution idolized slowly transformed into a stark reality of war atrocities and massacres that caused the first generation poets to transform political ideologies.

            Furthermore, the Victorian Era of literature that began in approximately around 1832 still contained traces of the aftermath of the Industrial and French Revolution. Major movements such as realism, anti-realism, and gothic literature, as well as,  the extreme poverty of Britain and imperialism altered the literary structure and style of the 1800s. Realism is “a mode of amplifying experience and extending our fellow men beyond the bounds of personal lot” (530). Structurally, this means extremely detailed descriptions of geographical landscapes as well as an emphasis on the complexity of individuals’ motivations. This developed out of conditions including inadequate housing, disease, and low wages. Authors utilized literature as a method to discuss the extreme poverty, which led to the utilitarian movement. Charles Dickens “A Walk in the Workhouse” demonstrates the literary awareness of the poverty ridden Britain. Poetry such as Tennyson’s Charge of the Light Brigade was quintessential to the Victorian movement and actually led to military reform. Continually, the era was transformed by the growing colonization that led to the British Empire.

            The British imperialism spans the end of the Victorian era and the beginning of Modernism movement. Charles Dickens “The Noble Savage” illuminates the imperialistic mindset of Britain by exposing the superiority complex and deeply rooted nationalism that led to the exploitation of the other nations by Britain. Dickens believed, as did much of Britain, that they "could not get rid of it [indigenous people] too soon” (1023). Frankly, that the indigenous people should be eradicated. This attitude is mimicked in Mayhew’s “Hindu Beggars” as well, stating that the impoverished Hindu were deservedly poor.

            By the early 20^th century, EM Forster published A Passage to India. This novel highlighted the horrific attitudes of the Anglo-Indians of the British Empire that resided in indigenous India. While his writing is seemingly traditional for the Modernist era, he was a member of the Modernist Bloomsbury Group led by Modernist novelist Virginia Woolf. The British Empire eventually fell due to World War I. 

             This catastrophic and cataclysmic event altered humanity internationally. As the Great War emerged, poets such as McCrae, Hardy, Gurney, and Owen began constructing poetry revolving around the war. John McCrae’s “In Flanders’s Field” idolized the war and thus is often seen as the most recited poem from World War I. The poetry reinforced the idea to volunteer for service to keep the spirit and fight of those who died in the trenches alive. However, the other poets wrote of the biologically chemical warfare and the atrocities witnessed. Wilfred Owen’s “Dulce et Decorum Est” depicts the realities of war and urges the end of the ultimate “lie”, that dying for your country is courageous.

            These historical events altered the literary movements, structures, and beliefs that encompass the latter of the British literature.