British Literature Between the Wars: A Comprehensive Overview
UK Between the Wars (1918-1939)
Socio-Political Background
Three main political parties were encountered in the period: the Tories, the Liberal Party & the Labour Party. In 1906 the Liberals won the election but the Great War brought to an end this government. The popularity of the Conservative Party increased during the WWI & in 1916 the Conservative leaders supported the supplanting of the Liberal Asquith by David Lloyd George.
When Victory came in 1918, Lloyd George was at the height of his popularity & the right to vote to women was granted.
After WWI, Britain was profoundly hurt economically. The industries of the Indian Reign were now weakened & taken over by the Japanese market.
The PM Lloyd George spent a lot of time dealing with foreign affairs & consequently disregarding the problems within UK. He had to resign.
MacDonald, who has been PM previously, ascended to the power again in 1929. The British economy was at that moment devastated by the Great Depression, & the PM was badly equipped to handle this situation. Hence, the Liberal Cabinet resigned but MacDonald remained PM. The new government was in fact a Conservative government, & MacDonald, by consenting to remain PM, became in Labour histories a traitor. Under Neville Chamberlain, the coalition government pursued a protectionist policy. Finally, the economy improved & the unemployment rates were reduced.
Chamberlain has always been regarded as the man of appeasement as he intended to formulate a policy of accommodation with Germany & Italy. But also, as the man who began British rearmament & declared war against Germany. In 1939 he signed an alliance with Poland & commanded preparations for war.
Not only did British problems affect politics but also the monarchy. Upon the death of George V, his son Edward VIII decided to abdicate since he had fallen in love with an American divorcée. The PM Baldwin had determined that Edward couldn’t marry her so as to remain monarch. He was succeeded by George VI.
Administration of the British Empire
Regarding the creation of dominions, the Balfour Declaration & the Statue of Westminster would recognize these territories as “autonomous communities within the British Empire” & they would become independent members of the Commonwealth of Nations.
As for the Government of India, the demands for self-rule had been growing strong. When the Government of India Act was established, some of its main points were the founding of the Reserve Bank of India & the competence given to the provincial governments.
Finally, in Ireland, Catholics & Protestants organized themselves in military units for independence. Sinn Fein won the general elections in 1918 & established the unofficial parliament in Dublin called Dáil Éireann. An agreement was reached between Ireland & Britain & the Irish Free State was established in 1922, but disagreements over the treaty led to an Irish Civil War.
WWII (1939-1945)
Britain & France declared war on Germany on September 3 when Poland was invaded by German troops two days before. WW2 fell into three phases:
- Phoney war. Perhaps the most important event of this phase was the announcement that Churchill assumed to have reached the end of his career in 1936. In 1940, Hitler overran Denmark & Norway, & the Norwegian campaign destroyed the Chamberlain government. Churchill was announced as PM. In 1940, Churchill said that the British would fight alone, paving the way for the second phase of the war.
- Heroic phase. Britain stood alone & began the battle for survival in the air over the British Isles. The phase ended with the Japanese declaration of war on the US & the British Empire.
- The Grand Alliance: it lasted until the capitulation of Germany in 1945. US entered the war & the Allies took control of Germany. Japan was defeated after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima & Nagasaki.
The Most Representative Writers of the Period
The Novel
The great impact of different fields of science & the social changes preceding & following WWI made novelists of the period go against the already established conventions. The most relevant productions in UK during the time can be classified according to:
- Pessimistic works which were influenced by WWI & by the Great Depression. The most outstanding writer of this period is Aldous Huxley (Brave New World)
- Works of authors who started their career earlier in time & were not much influenced by the pessimistic mood of the younger generations, like Forster (Passage to India)
- Modernist works had the common feature of experimenting with the form. (V. Woolf, flow of consciousness)
1 D.H. Lawrence
His literary career has been divided into four periods:
- The first period contains autobiographical elements (Sons & Lovers)
- In the second period, Lawrence’s works are based on emotional inner states. Two novels stand out, The Rainbow & Women in Love. In both of them human relationships & love are explored with psychological precision.
- During the third period he wrote three novels about the problems of political leadership. One of these novels is The Plumed Serpent, which makes visible Lawrence’s fascist leanings.
- Finally, in the last period the author returns to sexual themes (Lady Chatterley’s Lover)
2 Virginia Woolf
Her characteristic method, the ‘stream of consciousness’, intended to examine for a moment an ordinary mind on an ordinary day. Her main concern was to render the inner life of characters. She also uses poetic rhythms & imagery in order to capture her characters’ moods with great detail.
Her literary production is extensive, & among her most famous novels we encounter Mrs. Dalloway, which contains many flashbacks as she seeks to bring together past memories & present action. Another of her novels, Orlando, presents a character that begins as a man in the 16th century & ends as a woman in 1928.
3 Graham Greene
His books are divided into two groups: serious novels & entertainments. In his serious novels the characters that are failures are seen as being nearer to God than those who are more successful (Brighton Rock)
Poetry
Poets of the period were divided into two groups: War poets & Modernist poets. The poems written after WWI were based on bitterness. Modern poets, on the other hand, combined tradition & experiment in their works.
1 William Butler Yeats
The Irish poet is a great figure in the poetry of the time. In writing, an important concern of his poetry was to show the character of Ireland.
His most famous poem, An Irishman Foresees His Death is a soliloquy given by an aviator in the WWI.
2 T.S. Eliot
One of the best well-known figures in the second quarter of the century was T.S. Eliot. He writes as a man living the years after WWI in which men’s lives had been lost or damaged & their hopes broken.
The Waste Land is a long, complex poem which brings together a very different group of characters.
The aim of his other great work, Four Quartets, is to show different ways of experiencing God & reality in different ways.
3 W.H. Auden
He thought that changes in the forms & subjects of literature could serve as a way of helping political & social change.
His poems often communicate a strong sense of the realities of everyday life, & his style was accessible. As a whole, he published about 400 poems, including seven long poems.
Bibliography
- Albert, E. (1990). A History of English Literature. Walton-on-Thames: Nelson.
- Alexander, M. (2000). A History of English Literature. London: Macmillan Press.
- Sanders, A. (1996). The Short Oxford History of English Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press.