The Twentieth and Twenty-First
Centuries
Things to Consider:
- Modernism
- World Wars I and II
- Colonialism and
Post-colonialism
Discussion Questions:
1017:
- In what
ways, according to the editors, did modernity disrupt the
old order?
- Explain
the significance of Sigmund Freud.
1018:
- Explain the significance
of Friedrich Nietzsche.
1018-19:
- Describe
the ways in which the position of women changed during the
early Modern period.
1020:
- What is the British
Commonwealth?
1022:
- Explain:
"In winning a war, Great Britain lost an empire" (1022).
1028:
- Describe the imagist
movement.
1033:
- Explain: "Reality and its
truth had gone inward" (1033).
1034:
- What
does stream of consciousness involve?
1039:
- Describe the Theater of the
Absurd.
Other Discussion Questions:
1015:
- According to the editors, how did the aestheticism
movement alienate the modern artists from society?
1016:
- Explain the significance of the Education Act of
1870.
1017:
1018:
- Explain T. S. Eliot's argument in "Tradition and the
Individual Talent."
1019-20:
- What are the characteristics of the Edwardian and
Georgian periods?
1021:
- When did the Irish Free State achieve independence?
1022:
- What did "colonization in reverse" involve?
1026-27:
- Describe the role of the IRA in British politics.
1028-29:
- Explain T. S. Eliot's role in the "modernist
revolution."
1030:
- Describe the New Apocalypse.
- Describe "The Movement."
1031-32:
- Describe the writings of the post-colonial poets.
1032-33:
- Describe the three periods of the twentieth-century
novel.
1035:
- Explain: "Ulysses
and Finnegan's Wake
were influential but unrepeatable" (1035).
1036:
- Explain the "fear that the postmodern novelist was
condemned to a disabled career of parroting old stuff"
(1036).
1037:
- Explain the stance of post-colonial novelists.
1038:
- Where did the century's first major theatrical
movement originate?
1040:
- Describe the innovations of Pinter and Stoppard.
