Understanding Modernism: A.C. Ward’s View of 20th-Century Writing

Through A.C. Ward’s Eyes: Exploring the Literary World of the 20th Century

 This blog has been created as a part of the lab activity given by Dr. and Prof. Dilip Barad Sir, based on A.C. Ward’s The Setting: 20th Century English Literature.Click here for further Reading.

Here is mind map:

The mind map visually outlines the major literary trends and historical forces of the 20th century.

The infographic gives a concise snapshot of the text’s structure.

Executive Summary

The first half of the twentieth century in Britain was a period of profound contradiction, defined by a simultaneous and ever-accelerating technological progress and an unprecedented moral and spiritual regress. This dynamic, rooted in the Scientific Revolution, reshaped every facet of society and its literature. The era was fundamentally characterized by a forceful revolt against the perceived stability, order, and certainties of the Victorian age. This rejection, championed by influential figures like Bernard Shaw, fostered an "interrogative habit of mind" that, while invigorating for some, created a "spiritual vacuum" for the broader population.

English literature fractured along ideological lines. An early division emerged between the socially-motivated "art for life's sake" proponents, such as the Fabian Society writers who sought political change, and the intellectually exclusive "art for art's sake" principles of the Bloomsbury Group. A more significant schism occurred in 1922 with the publication of James Joyce's Ulysses and T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land. This moment marked a turning point where literature retreated into an "esoteric fastness," creating a new intellectual elitism that held the "common reader" in contempt and fostered an academic criticism detached from life.

The aftermath of the Second World War saw the rise of the Welfare State and an affluent society. However, the anticipated contentment failed to materialize, replaced by widespread discontent, rampant consumerism fueled by manipulative advertising, and a celebrated "revolt of youth." This period was marked by a decline in craftsmanship, a cultural indifference to form and style, and a pervasive contempt for authority, culminating in an age where traditional virtues were scorned and public exhibitionism replaced commendable reticence.

The Paradox of the Twentieth Century: Progress and Regress

The defining characteristic of the early twentieth century was the dual nature of the Scientific Revolution, which yielded both immense progress and profound regress. In just over fifty years, humanity experienced more upheaval than in "perhaps fifty generations in the past."

• Technological Advancement: Man's growing mastery of the physical world produced transformative inventions. The internal combustion engine led to the aeroplane and the motor car, granting unprecedented mobility. Nuclear power emerged with dual potential for "universal destruction" and "world protection."
• Moral and Spiritual Relapse: This material progress was accompanied by a severe decline in moral and spiritual values. The same technologies that offered mobility and power also enabled mass slaughter in two world wars.
• The Revolt of Youth: A key consequence of these changes was the "revolt of youth," described as a notable revolution within the Scientific Revolution. Increased mobility allowed young people to escape parental guidance, while their susceptibility to "emotional conditioning" made them targets for mass manipulation, as seen in movements like the Hitler Youth.

The Rejection of Victorianism

A central theme of the early twentieth century was the comprehensive repudiation of the preceding era's values, which were dismissed by the new generation as "dull and hypocritical."

Victorian Characteristics

• Belief in Permanence: Victorians viewed their core institutions—the home, the constitution, the Empire, the Christian religion—as unshakable and "established in perpetuity." They lived as if in a "house built on unshakable foundations."
• Acceptance of Authority: The era was defined by "widespread and willing submission to the rule of the Expert." This "insistent attitude of acceptance" applied to religion, politics, and family life, but was often based on a "readiness to accept phrases at face value without critical examination." To twentieth-century minds, Victorian faith often seemed to lack a "core of personally realised conviction."

Twentieth-Century Reaction

• A New Creed of Inquiry: The new century was governed by a restless desire to "probe and question." Bernard Shaw became a primary herald of this change, attacking the "old superstition" of religion and the "new superstition" of science. His watchwords were "Question! Examine! Test!"
• A Sense of Universal Mutability: The Victorian idea of permanence was replaced by an understanding of constant change. H.G. Wells articulated this with his concept of "the flow of things," describing the world not as a home, but as "the mere sight of a home."
• Consequences of the Revolt: For some, Shaw's challenge to old moralities was a "trumpet call," invigorating and liberating. For others, the experience was profoundly destabilizing, captured in the words of Shaw's character Barbara: "I stood on the rock I thought eternal; and without a word it reeled and crumbled under me." For the multitude, the revolt from Victorianism ultimately created "only a spiritual vacuum."

Divergent Paths in Early Twentieth-Century Literature

As Victorianism waned, English writers split into distinct camps with opposing philosophies on the purpose of art.

The Fabian Group: 'Art for Life's Sake'

• Sociological Motives: This group, including prominent writers like Bernard Shaw and H.G. Wells, believed literature should be secondary to sociological and political motives. Shaw stated that "'for art's sake alone' he would not have written even a single sentence."
• Political Aims: The Fabian Society, founded in 1884, aimed for the "spread of Socialist opinions, and the social and political changes consequent thereon." Its influence grew with the founding of its mouthpiece, The New Statesman, in 1913.
• Legacy and Critique: The research of Fabians Sidney and Beatrice Webb was instrumental in designing the Welfare State. Their work led to "unprecedented material and physical benefit to millions." However, in their focus on the masses and State control, they were "blind to the leaven in the social lump—the exceptional, the eccentric, the individually independent-minded, the nonconforming."

The Bloomsbury Group: 'Art for Art's Sake' Restored

• Intellectual Circle: This group included figures like Virginia Woolf, E.M. Forster, Lytton Strachey, and Roger Fry. They were a circle of friends who valued intellectualism, good manners, and the arts above all else.
• Aesthetic Focus: They felt themselves to be of "superior mentality" and tended to be "contemptuous of lesser minds." They restored the principle of "art-for-art's sake," with members like Roger Fry pioneering the acceptance of Post-Impressionist art in Britain.
• Influence on Public Affairs: Despite their aesthetic focus, the group had a significant real-world impact through John Maynard Keynes. His book The Economic Consequences of the Peace (1919) was a "destructive commentary" on the Versailles Treaty that may have encouraged German resentment, while his later economic theories revolutionized British thinking.

The Post-1922 Literary Schism: The Rise of Intellectual Elitism

The year 1922, with the publication of James Joyce's Ulysses and T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land, marked a watershed moment when "literature left the highroad of communication and retreated into an esoteric fastness."

• A New, Difficult Literature: Before 1922, leading writers like Hardy, Kipling, and Shaw were enjoyed by the "general body of averagely intelligent readers." The new literature, in contrast, was designed for a "small and fastidious public."
• Contempt for the Common Reader: This new intellectualism was rooted in a "contempt for normal intelligence." T.S. Eliot dismissed those who saw a conflict between this new literature and life as "flattering the complacency of the half-educated." An early commentary on Ulysses celebrated that Joyce "never once betrayed the authority of intellect to the hydra-headed rabble of the mental underworld."
• The Rise of Academic Criticism: This shift gave rise to a new style of criticism based on close textual analysis. The author critiques this as a form of "professional inbreeding, a kind of cerebral incest," arguing that it turns literature into mere "raw material for university exercise" and isolates it from life.
• The Folly of Over-Analysis: The dangers of this approach are illustrated by Professor William Empson's analysis of a T.S. Eliot poem in Seven Types of Ambiguity. Empson built an elaborate theory around a syntactic ambiguity that was, in fact, a simple printer's error, a mistake "not caught up until the sixth edition."

Literature and the World Wars

The two World Wars had profoundly different effects on the literary landscape and national mood.

Feature	The First World War (1914-1918)	The Second World War (1939-1945)
National Mood	Romantic-patriotic fervor and belligerent enthusiasm.	Stoical determination and endurance.
Literary Output	A "surprising outburst of poetry" (Rupert Brooke, Siegfried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen) that was "intelligible and attractive to the common reader."	Produced "little verse and that little was mostly in a minor key and often obscurely phrased."
Post-War Literature	A wave of anti-war books in the late 1920s (All Quiet on the Western Front, Death of a Hero) protesting the war's spiritual cost.	A revival of interest in religious literature, with some writers exploiting the trend for commercial profit.
Artistic Philosophy	In the interwar period, a conviction arose that art must be the "handmaid of politics," leading to "dreary polemics."	The common view of the war as a "vast crime imposed upon mankind by man."

The Post-War Affluent Society and its Discontents

The establishment of the Welfare State after 1945 created an affluent society, but its social and cultural consequences were largely negative.

• The Failure of Utopia: The removal of economic stress through full employment and social security "did not justify the expectation" of contentment. Instead, a "mood of sullen discontent settled upon large numbers," and crime and prostitution "flourished as never before."
• The Rise of Consumerism and Advertising: The loosening of government controls stimulated demand. Advertisers exploited the public desire to "emulate and if possible to outdo one’s neighbors." They moved beyond promoting a product's quality, instead using "depth psychology" to create an "automatic emotional response" by linking products like beer, chocolates, and gas stoves to "human love."
• Cultural and Artistic Decline: A widespread "indifference- and in some quarters a positive antagonism- to form and style in writing" took hold. The approved novels and plays of the 1950s often flouted craftsmanship, as "Art gave place to anti-Art." This was accompanied by a decline in manners, replaced by the "barbaric loutishness" of anti-heroes like those in Lucky Jim and Look Back in Anger.

The Psychology of a Disintegrating Age

The mid-twentieth century was marked by a preoccupation with psychological abnormality, a cult of immaturity, and a systemic erosion of authority.

• The Psychiatric Vogue: The influence of writers like Kierkegaard, Rilke, and Kafka fostered a focus on "spiritual morbidity or of mental sickness." This led to a "growing assumption that most men and women are cases to be diagnosed, that the world is a vast clinic, and that nothing but abnormality is normal."
• The Cult of Immaturity and the Beatniks: The "revolt of youth" was amplified by the unprecedented spending power of adolescents. This created a "cult of immaturity," exemplified by the Beatnik movement. Originating in America, Beatniks professed "utter disgust" with society and determined to "contract-out," yet remained parasitic "beneficiaries of the society they affected to despise."

Erosion of Authority and Values: The period saw a pervasive "contempt for authority." This manifested in "bastard satire" that was merely "witless innocence" and popular ridicule, cheapening a high literary art form. Traditional virtues were actively scorned, with chastity becoming "a by-word" and reticence replaced by a "passion for exhibitionism" fueled by the media's "personality cult." This environment, where it was easy to gain a reputation and just as easy to lose it, was deemed profoundly damaging to the serious practice of literature and scholarship.

This graphic clearly maps out the detailed structure of the text.

This video offers a  overview of Chapter 1 from A.C. Ward’s The Setting – 20th Century English Literature.

This is a  Hindi video podcast discussion covering Chapter 1 of A.C. Ward’s The Setting – 20th Century English Literature.

Learning Outcomes: Chapter 1 – The Setting: 20th Century English Literature by A.C. Ward

• I gained a clearer understanding of the major cultural, social, and intellectual forces that shaped 20th-century English literature.

• A deeper awareness is developed of the shift from Victorian stability to modernist uncertainty and experimentation.

• I was able to identify the paradox of progress and decline, where scientific growth coincided with moral and spiritual crisis.

• The contrasting ideas of the Fabian Group and Bloomsbury Group are now more clearly understood and compared.

• I recognized why the year 1922 is considered a turning point in modern literature.

• The impact of both World Wars on society, creativity, and literary form is examined in depth.

• I explored how the Welfare State, consumerism, and mass advertising influenced post-war cultural behaviour.

• Key psychological anxieties of the era—rebellion, loss of identity, and obsession with psychiatry—are clearly identified.

• I learned how to visually present complex ideas through infographics and structured diagrams.

• Digital skills are enhanced through creating a podcast debate, video overview, and infographic for the chapter.