Modern English and American literature - Учебное пособие

Автори: Л.В.Горішна, канд. філол. наук, доцент кафедри фонетики та граматики (Академія внутрішніх військ МВС України) Рецензенти: В.В. Місеньова, канд. філол. наук, доцент кафедри міжмовної підготовки (Харківський національний університет ім. В.Н.Каразіна), Т.О.Биценко, канд. філол. наук, доцент кафедри філології, перекладу та мовної комунікації (Академія внутрішніх військ МВС України) CONTENTS PREFACE INTRODUCTION. MAJOR LITERARY GENRES ENGLISH LITERATURE UNIT 1. THE EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY LITERATURE (1901-1939). MODERNISM Virginia Woolf James Joyce David Herbert Lawrence Comprehension Questions and Tasks UNIT 2.THE TWENTIETH CENTURY LITERATURE. NEW PERIOD. PROSE AND DRAMA John Galsworthy T.S. Eliot George Bernard Shaw Herbert George Wells William Somerset Maugham Richard Aldington Archibald Joseph Cronin Graham Greene Charles Percy Snow William Golding Iris Murdoch John Robert Fowles Comprehension Questions and Tasks UNIT 3. ANGRY YOUNG MEN WRITERS. THE GENERATION OF GENERAL DISCONTENT John Osborne Kingsley Amis John Braine Comprehension Questions and Tasks UNIT 4. A FEW MORE GLIMPSES OF POST-WAR LITERATURE Comprehension Questions and Tasks AMERICAN LITERATURE UNIT 5. AMERICAN LITERATURE OF THE FIRST HALF AND THE MIDDLE OF THE XX-TH CENTURY. NEW WAVES Theodore Dreiser Robert Frost Sherwood Anderson Francis Scott Fitzgerald William Faulkner Ernest Hemingway Robert Penn Warren Comprehension Questions and Tasks UNIT 6. AMERICAN LITERATURE OF THE SECOND HALF OF THE XX-TH CENTURY John Steinbeck James Albert Michener Irwin Shaw James Jones Flannery O’Connor John Updike Anne Tyler Michael Crichton Comprehension Questions and Tasks UNIT 7. THE HISTORY OF AMERICAN DRAMA Comprehension Questions and Tasks GLOSSARY SOURCES OF QUOTED MATERIAL PREFACE «Modern English and American Literature» is a course for students and cadets studying English and American literature at intermediate or advanced level of English. It is designed to motivate and involve students in effective studying process. The book can serve as a basis for effective literature lessons at which the students might be expected to understand, learn and appreciate the beauties of great English and American writers, the makers of song and story of their age. The book presents a survey of the most significant aspects of the literary process in Great Britain and the United States of America, its historical, social and economic background of the XX-th and the beginning of the XXI century. Considerable stress has been laid on the life of the various authors, their relationship and their work to the times in which they lived to stimulate class discussions and involve students in effective work on the literary matters. «Modern English and American Literature» consists of seven units. Each unit contains a variety of questions focused on assisting comprehension and guiding students towards their own understanding of the authors and their works. The book is designed for the students and cadets to get information about English literature, broaden their outlook, develop a high level of target language competence, enjoy the works of English writes and love literature! INTRODUCTION Major literary genres Fiction comes directly from oral traditions found in numerous cultures of the world. Sometimes there were storytellings or storysinging contests, as in the classical age of Greek letters. These early stories were about figures or events familiar to particular groups. New characters with new characteristics appeared. A work of fiction usually possesses characters, plot, setting, point of view, theme, and, sometimes, symbols. Fiction is a shared experience. The writer introduces the readers into his or her created world. William Faulkner, the American writer and a Nobel Laureate, said that “the primary job of any writer is to tell you a story, a story out of human experience - I mean by that, universal, mutual experience, the anguishes and troubles and griefs of the human heart, which is universal, without regard to race or time or condition. He wants to tell you something which has seemed to him so true, so moving, either comic or tragic, that it’s worth repeating. ” The most held opinion is that fiction is created from a mixture of fact and fancy. Telling a good story is considered to be a primary function of fiction, but telling a truthful story is equally important. Literature is commonly divided into three major genres: poetry, prose, and drama. Each major genre can in turn be divided into lyric, concrete, dramatic, narrative, and epic. Prose Prose can be divided into fiction (novels, novellas and short stories) and nonfiction (biography, autobiography, letters, essays, and reports). MODERNISM In Europe, the effect of World War I, and of the ghastly casualties was powerful and lasting. There was a grim contrast between the rousing patriotic speeches of the leaders at home and the slaughter in the trenches of France. The devastation of World War I brought about an end