20th Century Literature: Modernism and the Lost Generation
Konstantin Cavafy (1863-1933)
A perfect representative of Hellenism, Cavafy was a son of Greek culture despite being born in Alexandria. After spending several years of his childhood in Liverpool, he returned to Istanbul and then to Alexandria, where he died. Although he did not live in Greece, he never lost contact with Greek culture and participated in the intellectual debate regarding the use of the spoken language in writing versus maintaining a formal language distinct from the popular one.
His poetry, brief in both volume and length, was not fully recognized until after his death. Its most characteristic feature is the projection of his personality, marked by willpower and distress. The first prominent theme is privacy. Cavafy expresses the anguish of those who feel lonely and marginalized by a society that doesn’t understand or share their vision of life. The clash between the self and the other stems from various reasons, including the author’s pursuit of beauty and, above all, the pleasure of love—one of the few sensations that give meaning to life and offer respite from the threat of time’s destructive power over beauty.
Other poems focus on classical antiquity, where Cavafy projects his intimate dramas onto characters from Greco-Roman mythology, literature, and history. The poet often embodies the defeated and victimized characters, mirroring his own position in a society that scorns those who dare to be different and face the consequences of their choices, even if it leads to destruction or neglect.
Virginia Woolf
Woolf’s writing is deeply concerned with time, a theme explored in her five major novels: “Mrs. Dalloway,” “To the Lighthouse,” “The Waves,” “The Years,” and “Between the Acts.” Key features of her work include:
- Minimal plot: The storyline becomes a thin thread that maintains the work’s cohesion.
- Breaking with traditional character development: There is no in-depth psychological analysis.
- Temporal concentration and counterpoint: Woolf presents seemingly unconnected actions occurring simultaneously.
- Stream of consciousness: She transcribes the characters’ inner thoughts through the use of interior monologue.
- Disappearance of the narrator: The narrator becomes a mere observer of the action, dialogues, and monologues.
The Lost Generation
Contemporaneous with Faulkner’s work, the American novelists of the Lost Generation—including Fitzgerald, Dos Passos, Hemingway, and Steinbeck—emerged. They share these traits:
- Multiple perspectives: They present a multifaceted view of contemporary reality using techniques such as counterpoint, perspectivism, fragmented narratives, the disappearance of the omniscient narrator, and the inclusion of non-narrative materials.
- Critical view of society: Their works offer a highly critical perspective on World War I, America’s post-war wealth, and the traditional values of bourgeois society.
- Rebellious attitudes: This rebelliousness manifests in some authors as a constant pursuit of pleasure and living in the moment. In others, it leads to left-wing political radicalism, as seen in Dos Passos and Steinbeck. Hemingway, on the other hand, favors the pursuit of meaning through dangerous action as a way to achieve personal dignity.
- Search for a new form of expression: They sought a literary style that adequately reflected the spirit of the times.
Francis Scott Fitzgerald
In “This Side of Paradise,” Fitzgerald depicts a young college student’s disillusioning encounter with life, filled with failure and disappointment. His most influential work, “The Great Gatsby,” portrays the excesses of the wealthy classes in the 1920s, culminating in the tragic downfall of this world of glamour and vanity.
John Dos Passos
“Three Soldiers” showcases Dos Passos’s willingness to break with tradition by abandoning a single plot in favor of alternating between the actions of three protagonists. “Manhattan Transfer” and the U.S.A. trilogy, comprising “The 42nd Parallel,” “1919,” and “The Big Money,” further demonstrate this approach. From a technical standpoint, the trilogy interweaves various storylines without any commentary from the narrator.
John Steinbeck
Steinbeck’s writing adheres more closely to traditional realism than Dos Passos’s. He focuses on exposing the hardships faced by people in rural California and Mexico, a theme explored in novels such as “Of Mice and Men,” “The Pearl,” and “The Grapes of Wrath.”
Ernest Hemingway
Hemingway’s style is characterized by linguistic economy, an objective depiction of the characters’ external actions, and the use of dialogue as a primary means of character development without narrator intervention. His works are often marked by pessimism. Ideologically, he departs from the social concerns of Dos Passos and Steinbeck, seeking escape from immediate reality through the pursuit of raw emotions in danger, violence, sex, and hunting. His notable works include “The Sun Also Rises,” “A Farewell to Arms,” “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” and “The Old Man and the Sea.”