How did modern literature develop?

In modern western literature, modernism has gradually replaced critical realism and become the mainstream of western literature. Due to the changes of capitalist politics and economy, as well as the specific conditions of different countries, modernist literature presents a colorful situation. Various schools of modernism reflect the confusion and pain of modern westerners' minds, the crisis of western spiritual life and social reality in a tortuous way, but when exposing the contradictions in capitalist society, they spread negative thoughts such as nothingness and pessimism.

Around the October Revolution, Soviet socialist literature was born, and many excellent works reflecting the reality of Soviet proletarian revolution and socialist construction were created. With the change of the political situation in the Soviet Union, the ideological tendency of Soviet literary creation has also changed, leading to an active and chaotic situation in the Soviet literary world.

In modern times, Asian, African and Latin American literature rose with the upsurge of national liberation movement, and Asian, African and Latin American literature with the theme of expressing national history flourished.

In the modern period of western literature, although critical realism literature has been challenged by modernism, there are still a large number of famous realist writers who have achieved fruitful results in their creation. British playwright Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) in his masterpiece Apple Car, takes the British parliamentary system as the object of attack and the cabinet meeting as the main plot, exposing the hypocrisy of bourgeois democracy. The famous French writer romain rolland (1866- 194) wrote his masterpiece "John Christophe", describing a composer with a sense of justice's life of unremitting struggle for beautiful ideals and negative forces. It is a combination of idealism and realism, and is called the first great critical realism novel in the 20th century. His later works mainly focused on calling for peace and opposing war. American writer Dreiser (187L- 1945) described the process of a priest's son being executed by corruption and degenerating into a murderer. It reveals that the root of tragedy lies in the American system.

Due to the popularity of modernism, some realistic writers have adopted modernist methods in their creative methods. The outstanding representative in this field is the American writer Hemingway (1899— 196 1).

Hemingway's works pay attention to expressing the trauma of lonely individuals in the violent world to get rid of the war, leaving a deep footprint in the world literary world with "modern narrative art". His famous work The Sun Also Rises is the masterpiece of the "lost generation" in the United States after the war. The representative work The Old Man and the Sea contains the author's outlook on life, that is, life is a struggle, and we should dare to face failure and struggle.

Modernist literature, as a literary movement, rose in the late19th century and reached its peak in the 1920s and 1930s, replacing critical realism as the mainstream of western literature.

Modernism is the product of capitalist monopoly era. On the one hand, the commercialized society is highly developed, and people feel the oppression of deformed and developed material civilization. On the one hand, two world wars, economic panic, cold war and nuclear terror have caused serious mental trauma to people, making people doubt traditional values, ideals and morality, which is the social root of modernism. In this process, the wave of pessimism swept across Europe, and irrational thoughts had a broad market. Schopenhauer and Nietzsche's philosophy has become the spiritual pillar of western society, and Freud's psychoanalysis has occupied the mainstream of social psychology, which is the ideological root of modernism.

Modernism is different from romanticism and realism in describing loyalty to the objective world. Its main feature is to express the view of the world subjectively and express the psychological truth through imagination. In terms of artistic techniques, it opposes traditional techniques and devotes itself to exploring novel and unique forms, techniques and expression techniques.

Modernist literature is the general name of western irrational literature in the 20th century, including many schools. In the first half of the 20th century, symbolism, expressionism and stream-of-consciousness novels appeared in the later period.

Symbolism literature is the earliest and longest-lasting modern literature in the west. The most influential branch. It was first popular in France in the late19th century, and then spread to European and American countries. It prevailed in the 1920s and 1940s and was called late symbolism. The achievements of symbolism in the later period are mainly reflected in poetry, which advocates expressing hidden thoughts and feelings and abstract philosophy of life by means of symbol, suggestion and free association, and opposes direct expression. Eliot (1888— 1965), an English poet, was one of the most outstanding symbolist poets in his later period. His masterpiece The Waste Land is still regarded as a milestone of modern European and American poetry in the 20th century.

Expressionism literature prevailed in the 1920s and 1930s, centering on Germany, Austria and the United States. It is the product of some European writers trying to get rid of the contradiction between individual and society, peace and violence, reality and future after World War I. They believe that literature should express people's subjective feelings and complex spiritual world. Its outstanding representative is Austrian writer Kafka (1883— 1924). In the novel Metamorphosis, he shows the alienation of capitalist human nature through absurd and changeable artistic techniques.

Stream of consciousness novels are formed on the basis of modern psychology, especially Freud's psychoanalysis. In the 1920s, it first originated in Ireland, Britain and France, and then became popular in Europe and America. This school advocates going deep into people's consciousness, exploring the mystery of the subconscious, and showing the track of stream of consciousness in the way of inner loneliness and free association. This writing style devoted to expressing people's conscious process has opened a new era of modern novels. Ulysses, a novel by Irish writer Joyce (1882- 194 1), is regarded as a model of stream-of-consciousness novels.

After World War II, the rapid development of western economy and science and technology, and the turbulent social and political life, together with the war trauma, violently impacted the writers. Influenced by the philosophical force of existentialism that "man should create his own existence", new schools such as existentialism literature, absurd literature and "black humor" have appeared in modernist literature.

Existentialism, as a literary trend of thought, first arose in France in the late 1930s, and prevailed in European countries after the Second World War, with worldwide influence. The ideological characteristics of existentialist literature are as follows: literature is regarded as the display of philosophy and the call of thought, and literature is advocated to intervene or intervene in life; From the perspective of artistic characteristics, existentialism tries to explain existentialism philosophy everywhere, breaking traditional techniques, not highlighting character design, and developing characters in philosophical debates, with many naturalistic brushstrokes such as metaphor and implication. The founder of existentialist literature is Sartre, who has the dual identity of philosopher and writer. His leading writer is Camus (19 13- 1960), and his representative works are Nausea and The Outsider.

Absurd literature is a literary school that rose in France after World War II, and its main works are stage plays. The ideological characteristics of this school are directly related to existentialism, which holds that life is absurd and the real world is disgusting; Its artistic features are absurd or fragmented plots, absurd characters and incoherent language. The main representatives of absurd literature are French playwrights Younescu and Beckett. Younescu's masterpiece The Bald Girl is the first work of the absurd drama, while Beckett's masterpiece Waiting for Godot is the most influential work in the absurd literature.

Waiting for Godot is a profound philosophical drama, which highlights the disillusionment of westerners and the endless cycle of aimless and meaningless life from different levels. Two lonely tramps wait for Godot day after day, but who Godot is and why he is waiting for him is not explained in the play. The moral of the play can be said to be that nothing has been said and nothing has happened. But because the center of drama is waiting, people can understand the profound and positive thought behind it, that is, to have hope in despair.

"Black humor" is a literary school that appeared in the American literary world in the 1960s. "Black humor" is to confuse serious philosophy with morbid jokes to criticize social reality. This literary school originated in the United States and has its historical, ethnic and social reasons. When the first American immigrants struggled for survival, they often faced the harsh reality with a sense of humor to achieve psychological balance. In the 1960s, the United States experienced economic recovery and a terrible economic crisis. People feel that individuals are so helpless in the face of powerful reality, which eventually forms this morbid humor. Writers with "black humor" often use allegorical exaggeration and ha ha mirror description in artistic techniques. The most famous representative is American novelist joseph heller, whose masterpiece is Catch-22.

Catch-22 tells the dark inside story of the US Air Force squadron stationed on an island in the Mediterranean during World War II. Because of Catch-22, the hero Youssolin changed from an upright and brave soldier to a war-weary deserter. This pursuit is actually a wonderful trap to drive soldiers to work hard for the promotion of their officers. It's everywhere. In the west, "Catch-22" has become synonymous with "insurmountable obstacles" or "inevitable difficulties".

Soviet literature The mainstream of Soviet socialist literature is socialist realism literature. Gorky (1868- 1936) is the founder of Soviet socialist realism literature. In his masterpiece Mother, he created the image of a heroic mother, described how his son became a conscious revolutionary from ignorance, and pointed out the only way for the proletariat and the broad masses of working people to go to liberation.

After the victory of the October Revolution, a large number of outstanding writers went deep into life and created many excellent works reflecting the great changes in Soviet society. The trilogy "The Course of Suffering" written by A Tolstoy (1882- 1945) takes the historical evolution of the eve of the October Revolution, the revolutionary period and the civil war as the background, describing the process of a group of intellectuals going through twists and turns and finally embarking on the revolutionary road. Ostrovsky (1904-1936) wrote how steel was tempered according to his own experience, and described the process of Pavel Colta King, the son of an ordinary worker, growing into a hero. The famous writer sholokhov (1905- 1984)' s masterpiece "The Quiet Don River" describes the tortuous road that Cossacks on the Don River experienced at the complicated historical turning point during the period of 19 12- 1922, and depicts social changes from one side. This novel is regarded as a model of socialist realistic literature. On the basis of being loyal to reality, these works strive to give a historical and comprehensive description of real events, are full of enthusiasm for new things, and use the method of "lifting people above reality without being divorced from reality" to create a positive heroic image, fully demonstrating the elegance of socialist literature and setting up a new monument in the history of world literature.

During the Khrushchev period, the great changes in the political life of the Soviet Union had a great influence on literature. During this period, Soviet literary circles put forward slogans such as "writing the truth" and "actively intervening in life", and writer ehrenburg's novella "Thawing" was published in 1954 issue of Banner magazine. At first, it broke through the inherent mode of describing industrial and agricultural achievements and praising heroes, and took love and personal happiness as the theme, which caused great repercussions, gave birth to a number of literary works and formed a literary trend of thought. The literature of this period in the Soviet Union is called "unfreeze literature" in the west.

During this period, the Soviet literary world was both active and quite chaotic. On the one hand, some works that truly reflect the reality and history and show the daily life and destiny of ordinary people have won favorable comments, such as Ovchikin's collection of rural works "Daily Life in the Region" and sholokhov's short story "One's Experience" with the theme of the Great Patriotic War. On the other hand, there have been some works that reflect history and reality unilaterally, and even vilify history and reality, causing controversy or criticism, such as Pasternak's novel doctor zhivago. At first, the hero of this novel was an "aristocratic youth" who looked forward to the revolution, but after the October Revolution, he lamented that "the whole human way of life was destroyed and destroyed". The book was not published in China, but was published in Italy 1957. Western countries are competing to publish it and use it to attack the October Revolution and the socialist system. The author also obtained the Nobel Prize in Literature of 1958. The Soviet Union reacted strongly to this and the Writers Association fired Pasternak. Only after he made a review and refused to accept the prize did he resume his membership.

1After Brezhnev came to power in the autumn of 964, the Soviet Union strengthened its control over the writing direction of the literary and art circles, put forward the policy of "opposing two extremes" and "writing positive figures", and advocated the so-called "open system of socialist realism" in literary theory, whose influence was to make literary creation more serious and profound in content and more colorful in form and style.

From the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s, in the literary creation of the Soviet Union, there appeared a number of novels with the theme of the Great Patriotic War, works with the theme of exploring moral ideals, and works that exposed the shortcomings in real life and reflected various social problems. However, works that completely deny Stalin and expose the stagnant life during this period are not allowed to be published.

Since the second half of the 1980s, with the implementation of Gorbachev's "democratization", "openness" and "new thinking", the censorship system of literary and artistic works has been broken, and some works that were previously banned from publication have been published in large quantities. Exposed and critical literature became fashionable, which caused people's ideological confusion and contributed to the social unrest and disintegration of the Soviet Union.

In the modern period of literature in Asia, Africa and Latin America, the national democratic movement of the people in Asia, Africa and Latin America is unprecedented, and the literature in Asia, Africa and Latin America also rises. Many nationalist writers used realism to create many influential works with the theme of patriotism and opposition to colonial oppression.

Since the 20th century, with the upsurge of the national democratic movement, many outstanding nationalist writers and works have emerged in Asia. Indian writer Tagore (1861-1941) was the first oriental writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. He has rich creations in the fields of poetry, novels and drama. His works condemned the tyranny of colonial rule, attacked the cruelty of feudal lords, and were full of patriotism, which laid the foundation of modern Indian nationalist literature. His representative works include the novel Gora and the collection of poems Gitanjali. Pliem Chande is an outstanding representative of Indian modern nationalist literature, and his masterpiece Gordan is regarded as an epic in rural India.

The novel Tumen River by the famous Korean writer Li Jiyong outlines the historical picture of the Korean national liberation struggle and reflects the modern Korean history from the patriotic militia movement to the victory of War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression. Yue Jitian, a famous poet, wrote poems that exposed American aggression, such as My Highland and Korea in War.

The famous African realistic writers are Egyptian Mahafuda and South African woman writer gordimer. Mahaford's trilogy Between the Two Palaces focuses on the changes of a middle-class family in Cairo between 19 17- 1944, which reflects the changes of Egyptian society. This novel is a masterpiece of modern Arabic literature, with profound implications and exquisite structure. Gordimer's masterpiece is the novel A Stranger's World, which describes the social reality that people become strangers in the South African apartheid society.

The mainstream of Latin American literature is magical realism. "Magic Realism" appeared in the 1960s and belongs to a school of modernist literature. Most writers of this genre reflect reality in magical and magical ways, and insert magical, eccentric characters and plots and various supernatural phenomena into the narrative and description of reality. The most outstanding representative of "magic realism" is Garcí a Má rquez, the most famous contemporary Colombian writer. In his masterpiece One Hundred Years of Solitude, he followed the creative principle of "turning reality into fantasy without losing reality", absorbed the characteristics of predecessors in expressing human instinct and subconsciousness, and creatively used symbols, exaggeration, magic and innuendo to form a creative technique of combining reality with reality, which is of great significance in the history of Latin American literature.

It is no accident that magical realism literature appeared in Latin America. It is not only related to the influence of European expressionism, impressionism and other literary thoughts, but also closely related to the unique social and political background of Latin America. Many countries in Latin America are seriously short of freedom of speech, so writers have to express and reveal the essence of social reality with the help of fiction, metaphor and symbolic meaning, thus forming a kind of "magic realism" that "turns reality into fantasy without losing truth".