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Thomas HardyA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
The turn of the 20th century was defined by a new, fast-paced way of life and a constant state of flux. With massive innovations in technology during this period, life was becoming more convenient than ever. However, the growing pervasiveness of new technologies accompanied by increasing urban sprawl and multiple successive wars left many writers and artists during this period feeling isolated, disjointed, and out of place. The literary movement that emerged during this time is known as Modernism, which found its manifestation in the disjointed, confrontational, confused, and cynical attitudes of writers like Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein, and T.S. Eliot. For many modernists, values and ideals that were previously concrete and that were lauded as worthy of preservation were now toothless in the face of death and destruction. Belief systems that included classical art, religion, and philosophy crumbled from postwar anxiety because they no longer offered compelling answers for humankind’s plight. The modernists’ anxious querying of moral and ethical pitfalls resembles the dead querying the fate of humankind in “Channel Firing.” From Eliot’s “The Waste Land” to Ezra Pound’s search for an earthly paradise, the modernists assessed the surrounding destruction and asked “why” and “what now” through the written word: Unlike the dead in “Channel Firing,” however, many didn’t even find a God, let alone a lackluster one, that was capable of providing answers.
By Thomas Hardy
Ah, Are You Digging on My Grave
Ah, Are You Digging on My Grave
Thomas Hardy
At an Inn
At an Inn
Thomas Hardy
Far From The Madding Crowd
Far From The Madding Crowd
Thomas Hardy
Jude the Obscure
Jude the Obscure
Thomas Hardy
Neutral Tones
Neutral Tones
Thomas Hardy
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
Thomas Hardy
The Convergence of the Twain
The Convergence of the Twain: Lines on the loss of the "Titanic"
Thomas Hardy
The Darkling Thrush
The Darkling Thrush
Thomas Hardy
The Man He Killed
The Man He Killed
Thomas Hardy
The Mayor of Casterbridge
The Mayor of Casterbridge
Thomas Hardy
The Return of the Native
The Return of the Native
Thomas Hardy
The Withered Arm and Other Stories
The Withered Arm and Other Stories
Thomas Hardy
The Woodlanders
The Woodlanders
Thomas Hardy
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