The Early 20th century English Literature 5 страница

8. What plays did he write?

9. What can you say about the plot and the main characters of Waiting for Godof?

10. When was Beckett awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature?

William Golding (born in 1911)

William Golding was born in Cornwall, England in 1911. He attended the famous private school, and then went to Brase-nose College, Oxford, where he started to study science*. After a short period he changed to study English Literature. Golding graduated from Oxford in 1935 and started a career in teaching.

At the outbreak of the Second World War, Golding joined the Royal Navy and was involved in active service throughout the war. The effects of the war on Golding were enormous and helped to create his pessimistic view of human nature.

After the war he returned to teaching, a career that he con­tinued even after achieving fame as a writer. His first novel, Lord of the Flies, was published in 1954 and was accepted as an immediate critical success. This was followed by The Inheritors (1955), a novel set in the prehistoric age.

Pincher Martin (1956) was followed by Free Fall, and then by The Spire in 1964. There was a pause in Golding's literary production, and then in 1979 he published Darkness Visible and Rites of Passage in 1980. In 1983 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

The novel Lord of the Flies touches some unusual themes. It received huge critical and popular acclaim on its publication and became an important novel, often studied, cited and read through the '50s, '60s and '70s. Now it remains one of the most important contributions to English literature made this century.

The novel is in the form of the fable. A fable is a tale that tells one story through another. The characters exist on two levels: as indi­viduals and as types. i

In this novel a group of boys, refugees from an atomic war, are on a deserted island. After an initial sense of liberty and adventure in this tropical paradise, the boys begin to organize themselves into a little democratic society, electing Ralph as their leader. The group hold meetings, go on expeditions to patrol the island, start building shelters to live in, organize the supply of water, and decide to keep a fire burning constantly, with the hope of signalling to passing boats. The group is composed of "littluns" of about six years old and "bi-guns" of about twelve. Apart from Ralph, another of the biguns, Jack, helps lead the group, by organizing a group of choirboys into a band of hunters, whose task it is to hunt pigs. However, things begin to get out of control. The littluns are afraid by the idea of a "beastie" or "snakey-thing" that they believe lives in the forest.

At night the children suffer from nightmares, even when the rational Piggy, an unpopular but intelligent fat boy, tries to tell them that there is no beast on the Island.

The rational projects that they originally established are gradu­ally abandoned, and under the influence of Jack, the boys return to the savage state based around hunting and the fear of the beast, which Jack develops into a kind of God, the Lord of the Flies. Ralph and Piggy try to keep control of the group, but Jack is too strong and all the boys except Ralph, Piggy and Simon, a strange, solitary boy, leave the first camp and follow Jack to live a savage life.

The boys now become hunters, painting their faces, chanting and dancing, throwing stones and spears. Maurice and Roger act as Jack's assistants. The fear of the beast grows, particularly when

one night a dead man on a parachute falls onto the island. The boys think that the parachute is the beast. Jack encourages the boys to leave "sacrifices" to the beast every time they kill on a hunt.

One night, Simon discovers the true nature of the parachute/ beast, but when he goes to the camp to tell the boys, he is killed, mistaken for the beast. After Simon's death, the hunters led by Jack, Roger and Maurice, kill Piggy and then decide to kill Ralph and to offer him as a human sacrifice to the Lord of the Flies. Ralph is forced to hide while they hunt him.

During the hunt, the boys set fire to the island and a passing ship sees the flames and lands to rescue them, thus saving Ralph's life.

Golding's development of the novel form during the 1950s and 1960s led him to an interesting experimentation with genre. He used the science fiction genre and the fantasy story to provide an effective narrative style for his analyses of human nature.

Vocabulary

abandon [э'Ьагпёэп] v отказываться;

оставлять acclaim [э'Иеип] п шумное приветствие chant [tfa:nt] v петь choir boy ['kwaigboi] n участник хора

мальчиков cite [salt] v цитировать initial [I'nijbl] а первоначальный involve [m'vnlv] v вовлекать narrative f naerativ] а повествовательный nightmare ['naitmea] n кошмар; страш­ный сон

Questions and Tasks

1. Relate briefly the story of Golding's life.

2. What was his first novel?

3. What can you say about the plot and the main characters of Lord of the Flies'?

4. What form is the novel written?

5. What genres did Golding use in the novel Lord of the Flies'?

6. Name his other notable works.

7. Speak on Wiliam Golding's place in English literature.

Iris Murdoch (1919-1999)

Iris Murdoch [ 'aians 'm3:dt)k] was bom in Dublin. Her mother was Irish and her father was an English civil servant who served as a cavalary officer in the World War I. The family moved to Lon­don in her childhood and she grew up in the western suburbs of it.

Murdoch studied classics, ancient history and philosophy at Somerville College, Oxford. During World War II she was an active member of the Com­munist Party, but soon she became dis­appointed with its ideology and re­signed. Some years later Murdoch took up a postgraduate studentship in philosophy. In 1948 she was elected a fellow of St Anne's College, Oxford, working there as a tutor until 1963. Since then Murdoch devoted herself entirely to writing. Between the years 1963 and 1967 she also lectured at the Royal College of Art.

Murdoch published her first novel in 1954. This was Under the Net, a comedy. Most of her novels, however, are more philosophical than comic. They have a wide range of themes, and show that serious novels can still become best-sellers. Among the best-known works are The Bell (1958), which depicts an Agli-can religious community, and a novel about the Irish rebellion in 1916, The Red and the Green (1965). Perhaps her best works from the 1970s are Black Prince (1973), A World of Child (1975) and The Sea, the Sea, which won the Booker Prize in 1978. It is con­sidered her major work.

Murdoch published over twenty novels. She was a prolific and highly professional novelist. Murdoch dealt in her works every­day ethical or moral issues.

The novels combine realistic characters with extraordinary situations, and many of them have a religious or philosophical

theme. She is always concerned with moral problems of good and bad, right and wrong, art and life, and the nature of truth. Iris Murdoch died in Oxford on February 8, 1999.

Vocabulary

ethical ['eOikal] о этический fellow [Те1эи] п член совета колледжа issue ['isju:] n вопрос postgraduate fpsust'grffidjuit] а аспи­рантский

Questions and Tasks

1. Relate briefly the story of Iris Murdoch's life.

2. When did she publish her first novel?

3. What kind of novel was it?

4. What novels are considered to be her best-known ones?

5. What novel won the Booker Prize?

6. What issues did Murdoch deal in her works?

7. How many novels did Murdoch publish?

8. What moral problems did^he touch on her novels?

9. When did she die?

American Literature

The Beginning of Literature
I in America

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