Великобритания

1. Творчество Дж. Голсуорси: «Сага о Форсайтах».

Classical (critical, social) realism is an artistic movement expressed in the visual and other realist arts, which depicts social and racial injustice, economic hardship, through unvarnished pictures of life's struggles; often depicting working activities as heroic. This is not to be confused with Socialist Realism the official USSR art form that was institutionalized by Joseph Stalin in 1934 and later allied Communist parties worldwide. Social realism is not a new concept or newly used in English literature. In 19th century it was used in French literature by Flaubert and Balzac. In England it was George Eliot, who introduced this term social realism. She used realism in her novels. Ibsen, G.B. Shaw, Harold Pinter and John Galsworthy used realism in their plays.

John Galsworthy (1867 – 1933)

His works give the most complete and critical picture of English bourgeois society at the beginning of the 20th century.

Galsworthy occupies a conspicuous place as a writer of realistic plays in modern English drama. His plays deal with the problems of contemporary life in a realistic manner. His presentation and criticism of social questions earned for him the reputation of a powerful social realist in English drama. Galsworthy’s plays realistically describe modern society and its problems. He totally eschewed the romantic element in his presentation of problems. Ideas, institutions, morality, class interests and social forces form its main theme. He depicted the familiar aspects of every day life in a natural manner. He explored the dramatic possibilities of the common place. He minutely observed life around him and tried to create in his plays an atmosphere of absolute truth. He endeavoured to depict the realistic picture of society and its problems. But he did not hold any view on social or moral progress of mankind. He analyzed problems and institutions, particularly English ones, from the point of view of a liberal compassionate, upper middle-class man.

"The Forsyte Saga" is a history of three generations of the the Forsyte family from the eighties of the 19th century up to the twenties of the 20th century.

It is a social novel: the author shows the Forsyte family as a small unit of English upper middle class society of his own time. The Forsytes possess all the features typical of their class as a whole, and they have to obey the laws which govern it. He who dares to disobey these laws is ostracized by society.

Characteristic features of the Forsytes are: extreme individualism, egoism, an ability never to give themselves away, contempt for everything foreign, a strong sense of property, money worship, tenacity, snobbery, practicality.

The collision between the sense of property and money worship on the one hand, and true love and a keen sense of beauty on the other hand, motivates the plot of the novel Soames Forsyte- the man of property- is the main character of the novel. He is an embodiment of the spirit of society where the cult of property rules the world. He is sure that everything in the world can be bought with money. He regards not only his pictures, houses and investments as his property but even his wife.

Soames is unable to comprehend that all his property, large as it is, cannot make Irene love him. The other members of the family are unable to understand it either. In their opinion the very fact that Irene has no fortune of her own is enough to make it her duty to love and obey her rich husband. That is the Forsytes' conception of love and marriage.

Only when Irene left him and he realized that she was penniless, that she had taken nothing that he or his people had given her, he came to understand how deeply she hated him In Galsworthy's opinion property is "an empty shell". Soames' fate confirms this idea: rich as he was, he was not happy.

Key works:

The Forsyte Saga:

The Man Of Property (1907) - Собственник

The Indian Summer Of A Forsyte (1918) – Последнее лето Форсайта

In Chancery (1920) – В петле

Awakening (1920) - Пробуждение

To Let (1921) – Сдаётся внаём

Закончив «Сагу», Голсуорси продолжил писать о Форсайтах, под названием «Современная комедия» вышел следующий цикл произведений:

A Modern Comedy:

The White Monkey (1924)

The Silver Spoon (1926)

Swan Song (1928)

Наконец, общий цикл о Форсайтах завершили три романа под общим названием «Конец главы»:

End Of The Chapter:

Maid In Waiting (1931)

Flowering Wildness (1932)

Over The River (1933)

Villa Rubein (1900)

The Silence (1901)

The Dark Flower (1913), etc.

2. Творчество О.Хаксли.

Social realism, Anti-Utopia

Aldous Huxley (1894 – 1963)

Key works:

Point Counter Point — 1928 (В музыке контрапунктом называется вид многоголосия, в котором все голоса являются равноправными. И этот принцип соблюдается в романе Хаксли. Здесь нет главных героев, нет единой сюжетной линии, основное содержание - в рассказах о каждом из персонажей и в их разговорах с другими персонажами.)

Brave New World — 1932

Huxley's fiction demonstrate a constant concern for the power of technology to influence human values and that the authentic test of technological progress is the degree to which it aids or hinders society in its humane development. From his early novels that satirized the frivolous lives of the English upper class to his more probing works of anti-utopian themes, Huxley questioned a culture obsessed with materialism and a blind belief that the advance of technology will lead humanity to a higher and happier existence.

According to Huxley, the modern civilization makes corrupted society: only apparently it's positive, but hides great eviles: with progress, the mankind is going to be dehumanised and manipulated, a perfect and hypocrite happiness is more important than human's freedom.

In Brave New World the author questions the values of 1931 London, using satire and irony to portray a futuristic world in which many of the contemporary trends in British and American society have been taken to extremes. The novel is best appreciated as an ironic commentary on contemporary values.

Two worlds are opposed: a modern, aseptic, illusory, almost virtual world, represented by London, in which there are no boredom, no dissatisfation, no private property,no istitutions but only the duty to be happy and deprivation of natural rights; a primitive and savage world, represented by New Mexico, in which man lives according to nature, having the right to be unhappy, afflicted by diseases and aches, free from the conditioning of society. Between the two, the modern world will get the upper hand on the other: the Savage will committ suicide and the progress will triumph inevitably.

There's a clash between characters - John, the Savage Man, and Mustapha, the Modern Man, on this question: John considers very important literature, especially Shakespeare, and freedom, Mustapha is persuaded that art has to be sacrificed to the stability, and that happiness is the most important principle of life and society: his idea of happiness is utopian, because it consists in a continuous satisfaction of any kind of desire. But this happiness is possible only through a general brainwash and taking on a synthetic drug named "soma".

SOCIETY is a consumer and communist society based on three principles: Community, Identity and Stability:

-Community: it's more important than individual.

-Identity: the individual identity is lost in favour of the mass.

-Stability: it conveys the perfect happiness, and consists in an absence of dangers, emotions, novelties, imperfections, struggles to live or to be happy.

The choice of their names isn't casual: they're named Lenina Crowne, Bernard Marx, Polly Trotsky, Sarojini Engels. The use of names belonging to teoricals and politicals of communism reveals a critic of marxist ideas of history and society: in this society, there isn't the "fight of class", because every man is predestinated to a social class (Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta or Epsilon) before his birth. There is not revolution, because the principal purpose of society is the stabilitity, which aim is to achieve the general happiness, that's possible with a massification of population, thoughts and opportunities.

В жанре антиутопии также писал Дж. Оруэлл, Замятин