Literature1940 – 1970

Introduction source: literature without bonderies
Literature in the 1940’s till the 1970’s is an important timeline where the world survived World War II and liberation was the first step to rise again. But I will also write about the after War literature until the seventy’s.

Liberty – by Paul Eluard
And through the power of a word,
I start my life again.
I am born to know you,
to name you.

The Topic: War World II
The World War II is the horrifying historic event that mankind every known. But that did not stop literature to exist. Literature was used as a weapon against the occupation of the Nazi’s and to show support for the resistance. After the war, when Europe reunited with freedom, many writers felt a desire to write about the war. The world changed so and the writers needed to paint the world of today. That is why we have so many books on the World War II, because it had an enormous effect on the world. Not only history of war were topics of books, but also the personal side was a main theme such as Anne Franks diary book, which painted Anne’s thoughts and feelings on a very personal level in days of the war. Another thing is that literature played a role in the days of the war, especially in the resistance who spread different kind of illegal texts, to encourage the men of resistance who faught against the German soldiers. Poets such Paul Eluard and Jan Campert wrote many poems, where the last writer wrote a poem named The Eighteen Deaths. Still today, a 21st century there are still books being written and published what has the World War II as the main topic. But in these days, are the authors from Jewish descent who wrote about their horrible experiences in the war. They describe their fear in the circumstances they lived and the inhuman humiliation. “Is that a human”, a book written by Italian writer Primo Levi where he describes what he and millions of other had go through in the concentration camp. Many books about the war were also filmed like the “Assassination” of Harry Mulish and “The Girl with the Red Hair” of Theun de Vries. But in Germany are also many books published about the war, in the form the literature of mess (Trümmerliterature) where authors described the mess that war had caused. The writer Wolfgang Borchert, who is the famous representative of the literature mess, wrote may works.

The existentialism
A pessimist feeling called existentialism was a strong feeling after the war, was very present in the literature till the seventies. What is existentialism, you may think? Existentialism is feeling with the following motives: estranging; absurdity; border situations; egocentrism and engagement.

Estrangement
Here is a pessimist feeling where men feel estranged. By this I mean that men have idea what the meaning of life is. Because it could be clear if he creates, but when there is no answer, he gets confused. He should give his own interpretation to his own existence. Therefore he rebels against the civil life with the laid values, which will further cause confusion and a disturbed balance.

Absurdity
In novels and other writing texts, there is a pessimist feeling and sometimes a strong undertone where life is seen as useless. To paint a picture of what absurdity means, I will explain through an example. Willem Fredrik Hermans, an author works is always a pessimist person who does not see life as useful, as the main character see life as absurd. The Absurdist Drama by Samuel Beckett is clearly seen as an example where it describes this feeling.

Border situations
In roman books is the men centre in border situations, where he tries to clarify his existence through situations where the men stands against the wall with death, suffer, struggle and guilt. The only way to clarify is answering these questions with subjective answers.

Engagement
Engagement expresses the desire that men should not stand on the sideline, but take part of world’s society. In real life it means, he should have opinion or take sides on everything such as political colour. But other writers resist and especially against the ruling class like the group of writers named Angry Young Men in England.

Experiment in Poetry
In the art of poetry in classical form lead to unhappy reactions after 1945, people realized that many art forms such as music, film and literature could combine and form a new unity. So, they experimented, what is an important aspect of after war literature. The art of poetry is the experiment most notable clear to see than drama and prose. But to be honest, the experiment was not really knew, as it started after the World War I and flourished in Switzerland, Germany and France. The experiments continued on the paved path of movements like Expressionism and Surrealism, which in particular the Dadaism. This first experiment was in art was named the COBRA group. COBRA stood for Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam. Every poet who shared the same view with COBRA, worked together with COBRA artists.
Among the poets who helped the experiment to be classified as an art, were Lucebert, Gerrit Kouwenaar, Jan Elburg, Simon Vinkenoog, Bert Schierbeek en Paul Rodenko. But more writers shared the same views and felt close to the subject, but did not desire to be seen as a member of any movement. The big different between the after war prose writers on one side and the experiment poets and COBRA artists on the other side, was that they wrote about life. The after war writers painted life a sombre and useless world of chaos, as the experiments poets and COBRA artists tried to vitalize life. They did not try to through their poems in experiment style (which was seen by them as a lab) change the world, but hold a mirror to the world.

Literature and Society’s critic
Literature is a form that was used in the seventies to be critical on events that took place. Because of the thoughts of German philosophers like Theodor W. Adorno, Herber Marcusse and Max Horkmeier, made men look from a society’s point of view to literature. This was occurred manly in Germany. They felt that literature should be reaction on society’s and political events. That is why they joined with the upcoming protest of the sixties. Hans Magnus Enzensberger had a harsh tone on German society with its own satisfied civilians in his published 1957 poetry bundle “Vertedigung der Wölfe”. Another author was Friedrich Christian Delius, who portrait himself as defender of the students and expressed a lot in his works such Wenn wir, bei Rot of 1969 were he reworked newspaper articles and photo’s.

Conclusion
In the thoughts of these writers, they expressed their thoughts and changed the world little bit than the world they inherited from the forefathers. This shall be always the same as we, the generation of today do (or maybe did) and the generation of tomorrow will do. Literature is the art where it takes different form such as poetry and novels. Literature talks about everything such as religion, social and love. Through my journey, through three different times and movements, I will have learned so much, but their will more things that wait to be discovered, as literature is changing and sometimes reinventing itself.

Literature –

Through the arts of literature,
We paint through words a picture
of our deepest thoughts and feelings

we take men on a journey
in the front seat, to a world to see
that exists through words you are reading

giving you the message in an unique story
or in the beautiful art of prose and poetry
as literature exists forever, never ending

The Romantic Movement

Unknown
The movement of romance
Where the words softly dance
Inside people's hearts and minds
like the stars at nights

Introduction
Source: http://www.wisegeek.com/what-was-the-romantic-movement-in-literature.htm

The Romantic Movement in literature began around the end of the 18th century in Western Europe and flourished in the first half of the 19th century. The movement came from the rebellious feeling against the Enlightenment, which was created in the previous century, what its focus was on scientific and rational. The Romantic Movement literature did the opposite, as it characterized by any emphasis on emotion, passion and the natural world.

Nationalism was an important factor of the Romantic Movement. Therefore many authors turned to folk tales and native mythologies and saw them as their source material. What also remarks the Romantic Movement, is the return of aesthetics and ethos.

Early Romantic literature was emerged in Germany, where the most important literary figure of the period lived. His name was Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. He published his first novel, The Sorrow of Young Werther as the story is about a young, sensitive artist. Besides writing novel, he also used myth and local folklore as subjects for his poetry and helped a sense of German nationalism in the decades before a unified Germany. Some wars like American and French Revolutions in the late 18th century, added to the popularity of such romantic ideals as freedom, liberty and national pride.

In the 19th century Romanticism dominated the English literature. The art of poetry was the style of most important works in those days. The British poets who were Romantic poets were: William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Blake, Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley and John Keats. Common themes in their work include religious fervour, nature and Ancient Greek aesthetics and emotional response to beauty. The emotions such as fear and love were the two emotions which were exploited a lot in the 19th century in Britain.
Here are some examples: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights and Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre. In the still young United States of America, Romantic Movement also flourished and brought famous writers ‘alive’ such as Edger Allen Poe; Washington Irving and Nathaniel Hawthorne.

The Three Main Pillars of the Romantic Movement

Source: http://mens-en-samenleving.infonu.nl/sociaal-cultureel/2549-romantiek-een-culturele-stroming.html

Feeling above rational
One of the most important remarks of the Romantic Movement is that feeling takes place of rational. The Romantics believe that individual imagination is very important than rational approaching. The individual should be on the background of a society where industrial “is the centre piece of life”. The name romance, what means in French sensitive song or story and that is why the movement is called Romantic Movement

Imagination
Imagination is another pillar that plays a great role in the Romantic Movement. The artist tries to escape the daily life and they do with imagination. Through imagination, they try to paint the invisible and endless to try to contact with the Higher Force. An example of this is very clear written in the famous romantic poem named “La belle dame sans merci” by John Keats. In this poem, is one side the dream and imagination and on the other side is reality, what is contrasting. The dream is loved subject of romantics; it is an example of imagination and the invisible.

Worldview
The romantic artist creates his own worldview. If it was on the romantic artists, was that total rule of reason and the continuously strife for objectivity over. The romantic refuse ration and praise just the subjective and the out coming creativity. According to the romantics it should be over with the empty abstract reasoning and men should with help from example imagination try to look further than the shallow reality. At the time of the uprising of Romantic, came also another movement named Realism. This was a contradict movement which painted reality how it is, than the Romantic Movement idealized the reality. That is why they are counterparts of each other.

The theme’s of the Romantic era – source literature without boundaries

The past
Some Romantic writers did not like the era they lived, so the tried through writing escape their time and glorify another time. So they wrote stories about the middle ages where the characters brave men, beautiful maladies and the scene were tournaments or adventures, where the emphasis different emotions such as love and fear. But as you know, the middle ages were everything but only good. The romantic writers had little interest in subjects such as poverty and war

Horror and Scary Elements
Another theme of the Romantic writers was horror and scary elements. They loved to write stories about dangerous middle age castles with dark halls, that is haunted by ghosts and where awful things occur. These stories were mostly written with the Middle Ages in the back head, as the middle ages was the time period of magicians, highly powers and secrecy. It needs to be stories with a mystery around. To give you an impression, I will provide you a famous example. Frankenstein, the novel written by Mary Shelley is a story about a “machine” that comes alive.

Nature
The art of poetry provided for the Romantics an ideal instrument to express his feelings, as the Romantics go on a quest as they believe that they have a gift to understand things a lot better. So they found inspiration in nature. One of the famous Romantic writers who used nature as an inspiration was William Wordsworth, who taught to believe that his poem ‘I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud” gave him clear insight on the richness nature (that is described in his poem) really has and her unnoticed beauty.

Fate
Another theme of the Romantic writers was fate. They used this subject a lot in their writings. The reason was that many Romantic writers did not believe anymore in religions, as that was the consequences of nationalism in the 18th century. So they started to see life as an adventure filled with risks. In these form of writings, they described the fate’s different forms. A poet such as Charles Baudelaire described like some other writers the dark side of the human life. In his poems, the scene is the city of Paris where he compares it with the desert, where people are thirst and hungry, living in the worst conditions and abandoned with diseases. The fate plays therefore a huge role in the writing.

The religious feeling
In the Romantic movement, they were also writers who saw the opportunity to challenge values and ideas, which were based on faith. The reason is that other kind movements and historic events changed from religious to less religiously. These let for them, to question the values and ideas with religious roots and give new perception from another point of view on those ideas. One of those Romantic writers was Emily Dickenson. She used poetry to explain the new religious feeling, an alternative of the organised religious institutions. She used unique form to paint the perfect picture of her religious and life feelings and thoughts.

Humour
The next theme that always was used is humour. This theme was used in different forms by different writers through shallow humour to irony. In this kind of humour the writers criticised everything, what was portrayed as TRUE picture. An example is the Dutch writer Hildebrand gives in his Camera Obscura an irony touch to the civilian life in the 19the century. Another example is the American writer Mark Twain (pseudonym for Samuel Clemens), who wrote classic books like Tom Sawyer, the adventures of Huckleberry Finn used humour to his maximal in the stories of his books. The writer was also a joker, sent a telegram as a practical joke) to ten very important Americans with the following text: Run, everything is discovered. The next day, nine of them left.

Here under is a little piece of the essay (How to tell a story) of Mark Twain, where he describes different kind of humours:

………but only one difficult kind – the humorous – I will talk mainly about that one. The humorous story is American, but the comic story is English and the witty story is French. The humorous story depends for its effect upon the manner of the telling; the comic story and the witty story upon the matter. - by Samuel Clemens, a.k.a. Mark Twain

The national element
Our last theme is the national element. Writers from different countries in Europe, did not only use historic event and folktales, but also expanded in retelling songs and any other forms of folktales that passed on by oral, were writing in the 19th century. These folktales were from peasants and other ordinary people and mostly uninterested subject for the people of higher classes. But that changed when the scholars showed interest and went through the country to hear these folktales. One of the famous folktales is known in these days as a fairytale named Cinderella, by the brothers Wilhelm and Jacob Grim, who retold many oral stories in their own styles. Another writer who used national element in his works was Hendrik Conscience, a Belgium (Flaming) writer, who used to speak to his people or to stimulate the national pride through his roman. These are few examples of national elements in the Romantic Movement.

The Middle Ages

A Thousand Years
A thousand was their sentence
And therefore civilization was suspended
And poverty and war were presented
And wheredeath was embraced
As humor could not fade the daily stress
And misery still existed so they repent
And the plague could freely be spread
A thousand years, a thousand years oppressed
And when religion was seen as a bless
And literature was on his dying bed, so they said
As it left traces through the art of the pen

Introduction source: Wikipedia
The middle ages, also known as the dark ages existed for a thousand years. It started in the year 500 and ended in the year 1500. It was the period of time when the European society fell in a winter sleep, after the fall of the last Roman Empire. The civilization stopped developing at the pace of the Romans and the culture heritage of the Roman Empire laid under the dust of time as it was forgotten. Those times are also remarked by the tragedies such as the Black Death, which spread through Europe taking millions of lives and where people faced on disasters like wars and where many of them knew only poverty. But in my short trip through the dark ages in light speed, is to bring the literature side more to the front by telling something about it. This is the part people do not think when they hear the dark ages. Here, in my rapport of those times, you will only hear it.

Medieval Literature
When you think of literature, what is then you first thought? Is it Shakespeare or King Arthur. In my story, a described journey through time, I stop in medieval (middle ages) to see what kind literature they wrote and published. I saw that paintings and architecture were present in that time, as many countries in Europe had their own style and paintings were and are still seen as great works. But what about writing literature, what kind of themes did they use in those days and why. In little piece of work, I hope to clarify why, at least bring you little knowledge about those times of literature.

In the medieval, the times of the plague and other forms of tragedy, they had also lost most of the culture, after the fall of the last Roman Empire. But in today, men recovered many works of writers in those days. I will start with the points of view many writers wrote their works.

Religious
In the medieval times, the religious were the main form of literature as they were found in the libraries during those days. Why did the religious form of literature dominated? The answer is that clerics of the Catholic Church, who was the main religion in Europe were the intellectual center of society in the middle ages and because that is also why literature was produced in greatest quantity. They did use literature for theological and philosophical treaties or to write autobiographies of the lives of saints with a purpose as an encouragement to the devout and a warning to others. So religious literature had one goal, to bring the message across, no matter what the theme was.

An example is the Golden Legend of Jacobus de Voragine, what was popular in it’s time and even reported that it was read more than the Bible. Besides religious texts, there was also religious poetry such as Dies Irae and Stabat Mater, two of the most famous Latin poems on religious subjects. A religious clerics used Goliardic poetry, a four line stanzas of satiric verse with purpose to express their dissent. The mystery plays were not produced by the clerics at all. The mystery plays were plays that re-enact a scene from the Bible. But a mystery play texts were controlled by local guilds and were performed regularly on set feast days, sometime all night long. But not only Christians wrote religious texts in those days, but also Jewish population produced a number of outstanding writers. Examples are Maimondies and Rashi, who are the best known and most influential Jewish authors.

Secular
Secular literature is form of literature that was not produced very much as religious literature, but it survived time to be in our possession. One theme of these secular was courtly love, which became very important in 11th century in Roman languages (who influenced i French, Spanish, Provencal, Galician and Catalan language) Besides those language, it was also in Greek where travelling singers (who are called troubadours) made a living from their songs.

There is a lot of difference of secular writings. This depends mostly of the “country” feeling of the story. I mean by what kind of stories people desired to hear. The epic poems are different . An example the Matter of Britain, where courtly love was different than the Matter of France, where heroism or acts of war was more on the front than the Matter of Britain. But they did not only differ on the subject, but how emphasis the one (love and chivalry) against the other (acts of war). In every country, you have a famous story. In the German, is Beowulf one of the famous stories that is written in epic poetry. The French have the Song of Roland while the Britain has stories about courtly love.

Besides epic poetry, the literature went further than story telling, may I say. The form of poetry was writing political and goliardic, which the last was used by seculars and clerics. The travel literature – see adventure were in the middle ages as it had an entertaining purpose. But think also of Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales where 27 pilgrims tell their stories with moral behind it.

Woman’s Literature
In the middle ages, those were the times where being a woman was not easy. In the society of then, woman were not treated equal than men. But that did not stop some woman to use their skill with written word to gain any respect, acknowledge or just express their thoughts on differ matters. A religious writing was an easy topic to write about and to be published. Those woman who chose religious writing, frequently published their reflections, revelations and prayers were canonized as saints. The famous ones were mostly nuns, such as Care of Assisi, Bridget of Sweden and Catherine of Siena. But not everyone did like the views or perspective of a woman, especially the ones who were in power. They saw the works of woman as unorthodox. Not only the religious female writers, but also the ones such as Julian of Norwich and Hildegard of Bingen, who provided mystical visions insight a part of the medieval experience less comfortable for the ones who ruled. Woman also wrote influential texts in the framework of secular about subjects as courtly love and society. Marie de France and Christine de Pizan are being studied to provide a glimpse of the middle ages.

I want to mention that many writers of works, which some are classic are anonymous.
And therefore, we will never know them.

The Theme’s source: literature without bounders

Chanson of Geste – heroic poem / heroic story
These kind of stories or poetry, retells a historic event that took place, for an example on a battlefield or somewhere else. They used this event and made up some things that made the story great, created a hero where greatness and power where the main elements. It is important, because these are the main ingredients to a heroic story. The famous story is Chanson de Rolland and it goes about the Charles the Great that tried to liberate a Spanish village, but the villagers do not see him as a liberator and attack him when he returns back home. In this attack, a soldier named Rolland dies. This is just a little preview in the story.

Adventure
Another theme for the literature in these days, was an adventure of a brave knight or king going to a far land and fight different enemies or have new experiences. These stories were sometimes true and many were made up, just to entertain people. One of the famous adventure stories was King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, where King Arthur was center piece of the story with his Excalibur, a powerful sword having adventures with his knights

Humour
Humour was also a famous theme what just to enlighten the dark times which people lived in. These were stories were made up to make people smile and with a hidden moral. In this days, you don’t see that often. But they used that with message to say something. An example is the story of Gloriant’s Den Buskenblasser where a man (farmer) tries to be young again and how he is tricked by evil magician by blowing in a tube. But instead of getting younger, he gets the chimney dust and turns ugly. This is a little summary what the story is about. Another famous humour stories with moral is Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. In the tales, told by the different person you see humour as redline through a story.

Fausttheme
The last theme is nothing compared to themes above. The theme is about stories where person trades his soul for a wishes and dreams, but at the end always loses from the devil. The stories take a little deeper, as many stories are written and told in the time spirit, so men in those times could easily recognize the person and his or her dilemma. One of the famous stories is tragically history of dr. Faustus, where a doctor sells his souls for knowledge and power, but he loses them, when the devil comes for him, to take him away.

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