The Gardener

I

W

I

Of the 20th Century

Of the Beginning

English Literature

IX

Two Lips

I kissed them in fancy as I came

Away in the morning glow:

I kissed them through the glass of

her picture-frame: She did not know.

I kissed them in love, in troth, in laughter, When she knew all; long so! That I should kiss them in a shroud thereafter She did not know.

Thomas Hardy is often.thought of as the last of the Victorians and the first of the Moderns. Like many Victorian writers, he suffered from a loss of religious faith. Hardy created a gloomy atmosphere of unhappi-ness and misfortune and showed the human beings in reduced circumstances, helpless in front of indifferent forces and social evils.

St Paul's Cathedral, a large Protestant church in London

St Paul's Cathedral, the final resting place of renowned soldiers, statesmen, painters and poets, was rebuilt by'Sir Christopher Wren between 1676 and 1710 (after the Great Fire of London in 1666).

The English novels of the 19th century were written at a time of great confidence in Britain. Different no­velists of different levels of society disclosed all the ■aspects of social life and explored different themes, but the sense of confidence passed through the basic struc­ture of their work.

The writers of the 20th century could not share this confidence; the changes in beliefs and political ideas were influenced by the events across the world that led to the collapse of the British Empire. Britain found itself! involved in a contradiction between its imperial ambi­tion and the liberal ideas it wished to advance in the colonies. The British Empire became the biggest in the world's history. In 1914 it comprised a quarter of the world's population living on a fifth of its land surface. The British state expanded most dramatically in Queen Victoria's later years, while the country was proud of the so-called Splendid Isolation from European affairs. But by the end of the century it had become clear that the United Kingdom was no longer as powerful as it had been. Britain found that France, Germany and the USA were increasingly competing with her, the international trade was growing and, as a result, the sense of political uncertainty also increased. English government dis­graced itself with' the War of 1899-1902 which was unleashed by the imperialistc circles, looking for the new markets. Britain was no longer able to persuade other countries how to behave. Instead, Great Britain had to reach agreement with them. But it failed.

The South African War (1899-1902) was the first step towards World War I and showed the antidemo­cratic character of English policy to all the world. The social contradictions home and abroad were greatly sharpened. Furthermore, almost a whole generation of young men was destroyed. The returning soldiers spread the truth about the horrors of the war. The First World War brought much suffering to people. The de­struction had been terrible, there was a great sorrow for the dead.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them.

{"For the Fallen" by L. Binyon)

Between 1919-1922 there appeared a series of verse under the title "Georgian Poetry" where the most powerful poems of the terrible experiences were pub­lished. King George V (1910-1936), Victoria's grand­son, won popularity for the work he did during World War I, he gave up all German titles as a sign of British

hostility to Germany.

Isaac Rosenberg (1890-1918) and Wilfred Owen (1893-1918) both contributed to that book of powerful war poetry. "Break of Day in the Trenches" by Isaac Rosenberg describes the feeling of horror during the war:

— What do you see in our eyes At the shrieking iron and flame Hurled through still heavens? What quaver — what heart aghast?

Wilfred Owen's attitude towards war is revealed through his dreadful description of the dead man in the poem "It is Sweet and Honourable to Die for Your Country":

— As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,

He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning...

"Never again" was the feeling of the nation when it was all over. As*soon as the war had ended, the English government started to build new houses and improve social conditions and education.

English literature was given a new life became World War I divided the "old" world from the "modem"

/

one. Some English writers openly declared reactiona principles of the imperialistic ideology. The years b tween 1890-1930 were the most fertile of the Briti novel. The novel in Britain established itself as t leading literary genre. John Galsworthy, Berna Shaw, Herbert Wells continued the traditions Charles Dickens. Moreover, their novels revealed t changing social conditions in England. The novelists the beginning of the 20th century differed from t novelists of the 19th century who had to follow t perfect descriptive style. The writers of the 20th centu­ry did away with the elaborate syntax of the 19th cen­tury prose. They started a new tradition of bringing the language of literature close to the spoken language, to the language of real life with much more expressive intonation and short, abrupt sentences. Humanity was now seen as part of the natural world and the actions of a person could be motivated from the psychological point of view, by the forces inside the human being One of the famous writers of the first decades of t 20th century was Rudyard Kipling — the bard imperialism.

Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)

Rudyard Kipling was born in India into an intellectual family of a designer and sculptor. When Rudyard Was six years old he was sent to Eng-l.md, and lived there till seventeen. He was educated in a private boarding school, the owner of which was a powerful and cruel woman who treated him severely, and the boy could have gone mad if his mother hadn't ome to England to take him back. Kipling returned to ndia to take up journalism.

He spent much of his adult life there, at a time when the power and influence of the British Empire were at their height. He was tremendously popular as a bard of the British Empire who firmly believed in the English rule in the conquered lands.

Kipling's political reputation was no less important than his literary significance. The peculiarity of his main literary principle was in his vision of "Things as They Are". The poems and short stories for which he is best known deal with India itself, its wild animals and the British army and navy. Kipling writes of courage, honour and patriotism, making wide use of illiterate language of soldiers and common people. His best-known volume of poems is "Barrack-Room Ballads" (1892). In "The Ballad of East and West" Kipling expresses the idea that all the people, in spite of their origin and nationality, have one common feature: they are People, and "The Law of Jungle" makes all the differences vanish:

The Ballad of East and West

Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never

the twain shall meet, Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's

great Judgment Seat; But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor

Breed, nor Birth, When two strong men stand face to face, though t

they come from the ends of the earth!

Kipling's famous poem "//..." sounds like a lesson in patience and self-confidence:

If...

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, I

But make allowance for their doubting too; •

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,

Or being hated, don't give way to hating,

And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise... j

If you can dream — and not make dreams your I

master;!

If you can think — and not make thoughts your 1

aim;!

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same; If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,-¹! And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breathe a word about your loss; If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with Kings — nor lose the common

touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, If all men count with you, but none too much; If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds' worth of distance run, Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, And — which is more — you'll be a Man, my son!

Kipling's poetry is best represented in the "Seven Seas" (1896) and "The Five Nations" (1903). His short stories: "The Jungle Book" (1894), "The Second Jungle Book" (1895) and "Just So Stories" (1902) are still popular.

"The Jungle Book" (1894) describes how the boy Mowgli is brought up in the jungle by wild animals who have human personalities. Kipling knew how to talk to children. His novel "Kim" (1901) is the story of a boy who lives in India and grows up to do service to the British Empire by capturing some important secret papers. Kipling travelled a lot, and after much travelling he settled in an ancient house in Sussex.

Sussex

...God. gives all men all earth to love,

But, since man's heart is small,

Ordains for each one spot shall prove

Beloved over all.

Each to his choice, and I rejoice

The lot has fallen to me

In a fair ground — in a fair ground —

Yea, Sussex by the sea!

In 1907 Kipling became the first writer to get the Nobel Prize. He became popular all over the world. He j influenced the works of many other writers, e. g. Ernest Hemingway, Jack London.

It's important to realize that his novels and poems are closely connected with each other.

Kipling's verses are frankly prosaic, while his prose is wonderfully lyrical. But he never expresses his own point of view. His stories are often a third person narration. His work reflects his preoccupation with moral principles, and his postwar stories possess a great moral force pointed to the fundamental changes that were taking place in consciousness.

Kipling's son was killed during World War I, and the sense of loss worried him greatly. His short story "The Gardener" deals with the events of World War I which involved a lot of young people, and brought suffering and grief to their relatives. Kipling describes the Hagen-zeele Third Military Cemetery which "counted twenty-one thousand dead already... All she (Helen) saw was a merciless sea of black crosses. She could distinguish no order or arrangement in their mass; nothing but a waist-high wilderness as of weeds stricken dead, rush­ing at her." 194

The plot of the story centres around Helen Turrell and her nephew Michael. From the very beginning we come to know that Helen, thirty-five and indepen-dent, brings up her brother's "unfortunate child". She is very fond of him and treats him like a son. Helen nurses him through the attacks of dysentery and measles, takes care of him during his studies and holidays:

"The terms at his public school and the wonderful Christmas, Easter and Summer holidays followed each other, variegated and glorious as jewels on a string; and as jewels Helen treasured them."

Later the War "takes" Michael, and Helen is shocked "at the idea of direct enlistment": "At the end of August he was on the edge of joining the first holocaust of public school boys who threw themselves into Line." In spite of his writing to Helen that there is no need to worry, a shell-splinter kills him. "By this time the village was old in experience of war." Helen's world stands still: "Now she was standing still and the world was going forward, but it did not concern her — in no way or relation did it touch her."

The language of the story helps the reader to penetrate into the inner world of Helen. There are a lot of "military" words in the story: war, line, holo­caust, commissions, battalion, enlist, kill, aftermath etc. We come across the word "Armistice". Armistice Day is 11 November, celebrated as the anniversary of the end of World War I in 1918.

Bitterly disappointed in his dreams of Britain's greatness, Kipling shut himself up in depressing and gloomy isolation. Still he never left off writing. In 1933 he wrote his poem "The Appeal", which is considered

to be his last will.

- 195

The Appeal

If I Have Given You Delight By Aught That I Have Done, Let Me Lie Quiet In That Night Which Shall Be Yours Anon:

And For The Little, Little Span The Dead Are Borne In Mind, Seek Not To Question Other Than The Books I Leave Behind.

Rudyard Kipling was buried in the Poet's Corner oil Westminster Abbey.

Herbert George Wells (1866-1946)

The contemporary of Rudyard Ki­pling, Herbert Wells, was born into a poor family in 1866. He had to work very hard to get an education. He was a biologist and worked as an assistant of a well-known English sci-! entist, a follower of Charles Darwin. At an early age Wells came to the Utopian conclusion that only scientists could solve the contradictions of the society. Wells understood that the world had to be changed, but not through revolution. He though that only evolution and certain reforms could change the existing order of things.

Herbert George Wells was born in Bromley, England. His father was the owner of a small shop. His mother was a housekeeper. The family was not rich. Thus Her­bert had to earn money for his education when he was 196

fourteen. After school he entered a scientific college in London where he managed to win a free place to study. He was a bright student. Afterwards he became a teach­er of science. Meanwhile, Herbert Wells was writing a lot. It was his hobby. When he was thirty, he became popular and rich. He had houses in London and in France. During his life Herbert Wells wrote 40 books of fiction, several stories and books for children. Besides he wrote articles and reviews on political and social themes.

Herbert Wells's early works established him as a amous writer of fiction, because everything written by the author between 1891 and 1901 is referred to pure science fiction. The plot unfolds against the scientific background. Besides, there is very strong social sound­ing in his works. Many of his personages are the rep­resentatives of the lower classes, but the writer always gives them a chance of happiness.

Among Wells's early scientific novels are:

"The Time Machine" (1895), about a machine that can travel through time instead of through space;

"The Invisible Man" (1897) — scientific progress can be dangerous in the wrong hands;

"The War of the Worlds" (1898) — a negative side of great technical achievements;

"The First Men in the Moon" (1901) — a travel by air to the Moon, about seventy years before this actu­ally happened.

THE WAR OF THE WORLDS

"The War of the Worlds' describes an attack on this world by the creatures from Mars who can conquer everything but man's diseases. Herbert Wells stresses the idea that intellect can be stronger than human­ism. In this case, such a situation leads to destruction.

First." He wants to rule by terror. "There is nothing} to be done but to start the Terror." He wants to give orders and kills everybody who disobeys or workrt against his will. The Invisible Man is cruel. His lexiM contains such words as "to rob", "to kill", "to hurt"J "terrify", "dominate". The actions of Griffin become] wilder and wilder and it is clear that his end will be violent. Violence leads to Violence. We come to know] about the destructive idea of the Invisible Man at the') very end of the book, when Griffin turns for help t<j Dr Kemp who knew him at College in London. It is Dr Kemp who learns the whole story of the Invisible Man. Griffin tells him that he has always been inter ested in light. He has been working in secret to fine out the way of becoming invisible. After three year of secrecy and hard work Griffin makes a discover His body becomes like glass and loses its substanc like smoke. He has become Invisible!

While listening to his story, Dr Kemp understands that Griffin has gone mad. Moreover, he is dangerous. His idea to rule by terror makes Dr Kemp sure that j nothing can stop Griffin but death.

That is why the writer "kills" the Invisible Man.

In the end Griffin is slain by the crowd, by struggling and kicking men. Immediately after his death he be­comes visible. Firstly, his bones and flesh are growing misty, then more solid. When all his bare and broken body appears on the ground, everyone sees a white-! haired man of thirty with fear and anger on his face. I

So the story about the Invisible Man, a scientist who has carried out an extraordinary experiment with his own body, reveals the idea that scientific progress can be dangerous in the wrong hands.

In the novels of his early cycle Herbert Wells de­scribes the destiny of the bourgeois civilization. This is his main social theme. The later cycle of novels was written after 1901 and up to World War I which shocked the writer.

He could no longer be sure of peaceful progress. Herbert Wells wrote "The World Set Free" and "The War in the Air" where he addressed the question to all the mankind: "What will happen to humanity if cold intellect triumphs over feelings and emotions?" This question is, at the same time, a call to the people to recognize their way of life. Moreover, it is a warning to humanity, because the author appeals to reason of the people of the world and asks them to avoid the destructive wars. "We have learned now that we can­not regard this planet as being fenced in and a secure abiding-place for Man; we can never anticipate the unseen good or evil that may come upon us suddenly out the space." ("The War of the Worlds").

Herbert Wells understood that his science fiction did not reflect the lives of real people. Thus he decided to write about the world of which he had personal expe­rience. He wrote about the lives of ordinary people, such as a shopkeeper ("The History of Mr Polly", 1910) and a teacher ("Love and Mr Lewisham", 1900); he wrote about greed and dishonesty ("Tono-Bungay", 1909); he described his impressions of his visit to Russia in 1920 ("Russia in the Shadows").

Herbert Wells travelled a lot. In 1946 he died in London.

But Herbert Wells is remembered as the fathei ol
science fiction. In all his books the writer shows I
markable imagination combined with the ability to Л
intelligent guesses about future scientific devd.i|......

John Galsworthy (1867-1933)

John Galsworthy was born Ж 1867 in London into a well-to-do bour­geois family of a lawyer. He was ed-. ucated at Oxford, but soon gave up his practice and started to write. Gals­worthy travelled a lot. He visited Can-'I ada, Russia and the islands of the Pa­cific Ocean.

He began to write in the last years of the 19th, century, but his first works were not popular. In 1904 he produced "The Island of Pharisees" and in 1906 "The Man of Property" was published. Those two novels made him famous.

Publishing "The Man of Property" John Galsworthy-started his book "The Forsyte Saga" (1906-1921).

As a writer he was one of the last representatives of] bourgeois realism in English literature. He was a con-j servative himself. Nevertheless, he gave a vivid picture of the society of the 20th century.

The idea of creating series of novels, portraying the
history of several generations of an English family, was
carried out in his mas­
terpiece "The Forsyte I
Saga". He depicted
the representatives of

an English upper- _t i л <l t

Oxford

middle class family of Ц Xmf\* the Forsytes. Gals­worthy presented the story of the Forsytes in two trilogies. It took him twenty-two

years to accomplish his monumental work. The starting point was "The Man of Property" (1906). In 1918 he began to write a continuation to the novel. This devel­oped into a great scene of English life, including more than fifty years:

"The Forsyte Saga",

"A Modern Comedy",

"The End of the Chapter".

THE FORSYTE SAGA

The Forsytes are ambitious. They possess property, which becomes the main object of their worship.

At the top of the Forsyte family tree there is a farmer, John Dorset, who made his fortune in house building in London. He is followed by his sons, Joly-on, Timothy and James. "They had all done so well for themselves, these Forsytes, that they were all what is -called of a 'certain position'. They had shares in all sorts of things... They collected pictures, too, and were supporters of such charitable institutions as might be beneficial to their sick domestics,... they... caused their wives and children to attend with some regular­ity the more fashionable churches of the Metropo­lis..." ("The Man of Property"). Their residences were placed round the Hyde Park.

"The Forsytes were resentful of something, not in­dividually, but as a family; this resentment expressed itself in an added perfection of raiment, an exuberance of family cordiality, an exaggeration of family impor­tance, and — the sniff' ("The Man of Property").

The most outstanding figure of the second gener­ation is James's son, Sesames Forsyte, a typical repre­sentative of the bourgeois propertied class. His sacred sense of property extends to the works of art, and even to his wife Irene, a woman who has never been

in love with him. Soames threats her as if she were his property, and refuses all consideration of her owra feelings and wishes. But Soames's devotion to hill daughter Fleur who is "always at the back of hill thoughts" proves that Soames, the man of property, ill also a man of deep and lasting feelings. More thani that, he adores his wife, "he was half-cracked abouti her. She refused him five times."

But Irene falls in love with a young architee Philip Bosinney, "a man without fortune". Irene breaklj off with Soames after Bosinney's tragic death. Both] Irene and Bosinney impersonate forces alien to For-] sytism and to very spirit of property. Their moral su-1 periority over extreme individualism, egoism and snob-l bery shows that there is something more in the world than money. Even inside the Forsyte family there are! forces that rebel against the law of ownership:

"Young Jolyon breaks off with the family, departs from the family nest". June, his daughter, is a "decided j character", "all hair and spirit", with "fearless blue eyes, a firm jaw, and a bright colour..." June is bold enough to be engaged to Philip Bosinney, a poor architect' "None of the Forsytes happened to be architects!"

It is their wealth that makes everything possible. A Forsyte is a man who is known for his grip on property, whether it be money, houses, wives or repu­tation. The author gives the description of Forsytism that is especially English type of bourgeois morality and social attitude. "Never had there been so full an assembly, for, mysteriously united in spite of all their differences, they had taken arms against a common peril. Like cattle when a dog comes into the field, they stood head to head and shoulder to shoulder, pre­pared to run upon and trample the invader to death."

The author uses satire against Forsyte's prejudices and snobbery. His weapon is irony. Galsworthy shows the decay of the bourgeois society as a whole.

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

George Bernard Shaw has intro­duced a new form of drama, the pub-licistic drama. His plays are suited [or reading as much as for acting. An important aim of most of his plays was to face his audience with completely new points of view and ways of look­ing at themselves and the society they lived in. His ideas are expressed in short, wise, witty sayings. He enjoyed the shock when his ideas were expressed with much wit. He turned to drama as the medium of expres­sion, as the means to criticize and educate society. Shaw delighted in saying and showing the opposite of what his audiences expected.

When writing on the social problems of the 20th century, he often uses striking paradoxes and apho­risms. These are some of them:

Time enough to think of the future when you

haven't any future to think of. The love of money is the root of all evil.

George Bernard Shaw was born in Ireland, but spent most of his long life in England. All his references to his childhood, the extreme coldness and inhuman iso­lation of that home are apparent in his memoirs: "We as children, had to find our way in a household — where there was neither hate nor love, fear nor reverence, but

but always personality... The fact that nobody carec for me particularly gave me a frightful self-sufficiency.1 Shaw tells how as a child once he went for a wait with his father who playfully pretended to throw hir into the canal — and nearly did. Returning home Ы ran to his mother to share his suspicion that "Pap* is drunk". Her bitter reply "When is he anything else?' was a violent destruction of His Universe. He says: "I have never since believed in anything and anybody.'

After four ineffective schools which did not ever teach Latin, Shaw at fifteen became a clerk in a lane agent's office by his father's more successful brothers His mother and sister left for London soon after his 15tli birthday, Shaw remained in Dublin for another five years. The five years of his office life were memorable tc him chiefly for the many hours spent with the excellen picture collection in the Dublin National Gallery, t< which Shaw eventually left a large part of his fortum

Bernard Shaw joined his mother in London, and i the four years from 1879 to 1883 he wrote five Ion novels and sent them to as many publishers as he coul find stamps to reach. He wrote: "My mother was щ interested in my manuscripts. I don't think she eve read a single of them. She accepted me as a good-for nothing, just what she would expect from a son of her! husband." His few immature novels had little success,! and his own experience had taught him that he had no] promising future in the novel.

In 1885 he was elected to the executive board of thq Fabians, who considered themselves Marxists and aol cepted a very unrealistic materialism. They proclaimed] an immediate revolution under Fabian leadership, and] they set the probable day of the revolution "not later

than 1889" — the anniversary of Bastille Day. The Fabians participated with other socialists in the strug­gle for freedom of speech at street meetings which had begun in 1885 and let up to the "Bloody Sunday" in the Trafalgar Square in November, 1887, during which several men were killed. Shaw supported the struggle against fascism, imperialism and wars.

In 1892 he turned to drama.

His plays are divided into three cycles:

1. Unpleasant Plays (1892-1894);

2. Pleasant Plays (1894-1897);

3. Three Plays for Puritans (1897-1899).

The most significant plays are ''Widowers' Houses" (1892), "Mrs Warren's Profession" (1894), "The Man of Destiny" (1895), "Pygmalion" (1912), "The Apple Cart" (1930).

The high spirits which characterized his plays before 1914, often bringing into his comedy a lively element of farce, did not appear so much afterwards. His plays are full of brilliant dialogues and witty paradoxes. He mocks at bourgeois charity, satirizes bourgeois businessmen. Shaw called himself a jester of English society. A jester can say whatever he likes. Nobody can be offended by jester's jokes. His method of developing a play often involves a turn which takes the audience half by surprise, as it may have taken the dramatist himself. Shaw wrote: "When I am writing a play I never invent a plot: I let the play write itself and shape itself, which it always does even when up to the last moment I do not foresee the way out. Sometimes I do not see what the play was driving at until quite a long time after I have finished it." [27].

PYGMALION

"Pygmalion" (1912) is well-known because it ^Ш the basis for the musical play and film "My Fdit Lady". The title of the play comes from a Greek mythj Pygmalion, a sculptor, carved a statue out of ivory, и was the statue of a beautiful young girl called Galatee Pygmalion fell in love with Galatea, so the goddeii Aphrodite breathed life into the statue, and Galatea became a beautiful young creature. In Shaw's story tin professor of phonetics, Henry Higgins by name, take! a flower-seller from the London streets and makes hew into a grand lady. Eliza Doolittle, a girl of eighteen»! comes from the lowest social level and speaks with J strong Cockney accent, the most illiterate English^] which was like a stamp on anybody's reputation.

The play shows how Eliza, having heard the cofl versation between Higgins and Pickering about her«t self, sees a chance of being pulled out of the gutteM She comes to Higgins's house and stays there to be] taught. Higgins, in his turn, bets Pickering that he, will pass Eliza, off "as a duchess at an ambassador'!] garden party in six months". Higgins is convince™ that it is only a manner of speaking which can disrf tinguish a common flower-girl from a duchess. At last] Eliza passes as a princess at an Embassy. So she had won the professor's bet for him.

The experiment completed, Higgins loses all his interest in the matter, entirely forgetting that he been dealing with a human being. Eliza's feelings wounded, and she decides to give the professor lesson. For Eliza, the flower-seller, the most importai thing in human relationships is that people car

about each other; for professor Higgins, the most important thing is that they help each other to im­prove themselves.

Eliza: He (Pickering) treats a flower girl as if she

was a duchess. Higgins: And I treat a duchess as if she was a flower

girl.

Eliza: Oh! if I only could go back to my flower basket! I should be independent of both you and father and all the world! Why did you take my independence from me? Why did I give it up? I'm a slave now, for all my fine clothes.

Eliza:... I never thought of us making anything of one another; and you never think of any­thing else. I only want to be natural. [...] I want a little kindness. I know I'm a common ignorant girl, and you are a book-learned gentleman; but I'm not dirt under your feet. [...] I did it because we were pleasant together and I come — came — to care for you; not to want you to make love to me, and not forgetting the difference between us.

As in his niany other plays, Bernard Shaw delights in turning upside down, the accepted traditions of his time using sharp and witty language.

William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)

William Butler Yeats was Irish. 1 He was a great figure in the poetry of the early part of the 20th century. When he began writing, an important 1 concern of his poetry was to praise 1 and glorify the nature of his nativaB land and its people. He revived the 4 myths and legends, and made a great I contribution to the new literary traditions linked with j the national liberation movement.

His work covered fifty years: his first poems were \ written in 1889 and his last ones were written in 1939.. He was a symbolist who had his roots in the aesthetic movement of the 8O's-9O's of the 19th century. His j earlier poetry is an attempt to escape from his age to J the "Lake Isle of Innisfree", a self-created world of J loveliness:

And I shall have some peace there, for peace

comes dropping slow,

Dropping from the veils of the morning to

where the cricket sings;

There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a

purple glow,

And evening full of the linnet's wings.

Yeats wants to get away from the reckless world and plunge into the dreamy, mythical world of stars:

Be you still, be you still, trembling heart; Remember the wisdom out of the old days: Him who trembles before the flame and the flood. And the winds that blow through the starry ways, Let the starry winds and the flame and the flood Cover over and hide, for he has no part With the lonely, majectical multitude.

The most important collections of verse belonging to Yeats's first period are "The Wind Among the Reeds" (1899), "The Rose" (1903), "Green Helmet and other Poems" (1912).

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