Overview of the events of 1901?2000 in literature
Literature
of the 20th century refers to
world literature
produced during the 20th century (1901 to 2000).
The main periods in question are often grouped by scholars as
Modernist literature
,
Postmodern literature
, flowering from roughly 1900 to 1940 and 1960 to 1990
[1]
respectively, roughly using
World War II
as a transition point. After 1960, the somewhat malleable term "
contemporary literature
" widely appears.
Although these terms (modern, contemporary and postmodern) are generally applicable to and stem from Western literary history, scholars often use them in reference to
Asian
,
Latin American
and
African literatures
. Non-western writers, in particular in
Postcolonial literature
, have been at the forefront of literary evolution during the twentieth century.
Technological advances facilitated lower production cost for books, coupled with rising populations and literacy rates, which resulted in a significant rise in production of popular literature and
trivial literature
, comparable to the similar developments in music. The division of "popular literature" and "high literature" in the 20th century is overlapped by
genres
such as
detectives
or
science fiction
, despite being largely ignored by mainstream
literary criticism
for the most of the century. These genres developed their own establishments and critical awards; these include the
Nebula Award
(since 1965), the
British Fantasy Award
(since 1971) or the
Mythopoeic Awards
(since 1971).
Towards the end of the 20th century,
electronic literature
grew in importance in light of the development of
hypertext
and later the
World Wide Web
.
The
Nobel Prize in Literature
was awarded annually throughout the century (with the exception of 1914, 1918, 1935 and 1940?1943), the first laureate (1901) being
Sully Prudhomme
.
The New York Times
Best Seller list
has been published since 1942.
The
best-selling literary works
of the 20th century are estimated to be
The Lord of the Rings
(1954/55, 150 million copies),
Le Petit Prince
(
The Little Prince
, 1943, 140 million copies),
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
(1997, 120 million copies) and
And Then There Were None
(1939, 115 million copies).
The Lord of the Rings
was also voted "book of the century" in various surveys.
[2]
[3]
[4]
[5]
Perry Rhodan
(1961 to present) proclaimed as the best-selling book series, with an estimated total of 1 billion copies sold.
1901?1918
[
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]
The
Fin de siecle
movement of the
Belle Epoque
persisted into the 20th century, but was brutally cut short with the outbreak of World War I (an effect depicted e.g. in
Thomas Mann
's
The Magic Mountain
, published 1924). The
Dada
movement of 1916?1920 was at least in part a protest against the
bourgeois
nationalist
and
colonialist
interests which many Dadaists believed were the root cause of the war; the movement heralded the
Surrealism
movement of the 1920s.
1900
Genre fiction
1901
Genre fiction
1902
Genre fiction
Plays
1903
Genre fiction
1904
Genre fiction
Plays
1905
1906
Genre fiction
Plays
1907
Genre fiction
Plays
Poetry
1908
Genre fiction
Poetry
- Personae
by
Ezra Pound
(US, England, Italy) ? one of the first examples of 'modernist' poetry
1909
Poetry
Plays
1910
1911
Genre fiction
1912
Genre fiction
Plays
1913
Genre fiction
Poetry
1914
Poetry
1915
Genre fiction
1916
Genre fiction
Poetry
1917
Poetry
Non-fiction
1918
Poetry
Non-fiction
Interwar period
[
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]
The 1920s were a period of literary creativity, and works of several notable authors appeared during the period.
D. H. Lawrence
's novel
Lady Chatterley's Lover
was a scandal at the time because of its explicit descriptions of sex. James Joyce's novel,
Ulysses
, published in 1922 in Paris, was one of the most important achievements of literary modernism.
1919
Genre fiction
1920
Plays
1921
Plays
1922
Poetry
1923
Plays
Poetry
1924
Genre fiction
Plays
1925
Genre fiction
Poetry
Non-fiction
1926
Genre fiction
Poetry
Plays
Non-fiction
1927
Poetry
Plays
1928
Plays
1929
Non-fiction
Genre fiction
1930
Genre fiction
Poetry
Plays
Non-fiction
1931
Genre fiction
Plays
Non-fiction
1932
Poetry
1933
Genre fiction
Non-fiction
1934
Genre fiction
Poetry
Non-fiction
1935
Genre fiction
Poetry
Plays
1936
Poetry
Genre fiction
1937
Genre fiction
Non-fiction
1938
Genre fiction
Non-fiction
1939
Genre fiction
Poetry
Plays
World War II
[
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]
1940
Genre fiction
Plays
Non-fiction
1941
Genre fiction
Non-fiction
1942
Plays
1943
Genre fiction
Poetry
Non-fiction
1944
Plays
1945
Genre fiction
1946
Poetry
Plays
Non-fiction
1947
Plays
Non-fiction
1948
Genre fiction
Plays
Non-fiction
1949
Genre fiction
Plays
Postwar period
[
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]
The intermediate
postwar period
separating "Modernism" from "Postmodernism" (
1950s literature
) is the
floruit
of the
beat generation
and the classical science fiction of
Isaac Asimov
,
Arthur C. Clarke
and
Robert A. Heinlein
. This period also saw the publication of Samuel Beckett's trilogy of novels,
Molloy
,
Malone Dies
, and
The Unnameable
, which enacted the dissolution of the self-identical human subject and inspired later novelists such as
Thomas Bernhard
,
John Banville
, and
David Markson
. The first works of
electronic literature
were written in the 1950s.
1950
Plays
Genre fiction
Non-fiction
1951
Plays
Non-fiction
1952
Genre fiction
Plays
1953
Genre fiction
Plays
1954
Genre fiction
Plays
Non-fiction
1955
Genre fiction
Plays
Poetry
1956
Genre fiction
Plays
Poetry
Non-fiction
1957
Genre fiction
Plays
Poetry
1958
Genre fiction
Plays
Non-fiction
1959
Genre fiction
Plays
Cold War period 1960?1989
[
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]
1960
Non-fiction and Quasi-fiction
1961
Genre fiction
1962
Genre fiction
Non-fiction
1963
Genre fiction
Non-fiction
1964
Genre fiction
Non-fiction
1965
Genre fiction
Plays
Poetry
Non-fiction and Quasi-fiction
1966
Genre fiction
Non-fiction and Quasi-fiction
1967
Non-fiction
1968
Non-fiction and quasi-fiction
1969
Genre fiction
Non-fiction and Quasi-fiction
1970
Genre fiction
Non-fiction and Quasi-fiction
1971
Genre fiction
Non-fiction and Quasi-fiction
1972
Genre fiction
Poetry
1973
Genre fiction
1974
Genre fiction
Genre fiction
Non-fiction and Quasi-fiction
Poetry
1975
Genre fiction
1976
Genre fiction
Non-fiction and quasi-fiction
Poetry
Drama
1977
1978
Non-fiction and Quasi-fiction
Genre fiction
1979
Non-fiction and Quasi-fiction
1980
1981
Genre fiction
Non-fiction
1982
Genre fiction
1983
Genre fiction
1984
Non-fiction
1985
Genre fiction
1986
Non-fiction
1987
Genre fiction
1988
Genre fiction
1989
1990s
[
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]
1990
Genre fiction
1991
1994
1996
1997
Genre fiction
See also
[
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]
Overview of the events of 1950 in literature
References
[
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]
- ^
Lewis, Barry. "Postmodernism and Literature."
The Routledge Companion to Postmodernism
NY: Routledge, 2002, p. 121.
- ^
Seiler, Andy (December 16, 2003).
"
'Rings' comes full circle"
.
USA Today
. Retrieved
2006-03-12
.
- ^
Diver, Krysia (October 5, 2004).
"A lord for Germany"
.
The Sydney Morning Herald
.
Archived
from the original on 28 March 2006
. Retrieved
2006-03-12
.
- ^
Cooper, Callista (December 5, 2005).
"Epic trilogy tops favourite film poll"
.
ABC News Online
. Archived from
the original
on 2006-01-16
. Retrieved
2006-03-12
.
- ^
O'Hehir, Andrew (June 4, 2001).
"The book of the century"
.
Salon.com
. Retrieved
2006-03-12
.
External links
[
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]
History of the 20th century
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