Modernism and Disillusionment: A Study of the Prominent Works of the British Modern Period

Abstract

In this study, the concern is laid upon the emergence of modernism in literature and the advent of modernity in society and how this modernity led to disillusionment and pessimism in return. It has been portrayed how changing society has affected literature and literary works. An attempt has been made to examine the modern period through three writers of the modern era with respect to their three significant works and the change in the concept of reality in these works has been analyzed by various philosophers and their dominant philosophies of the time. The paper begins with a concise introduction to modernism. It then talks about the three notable works of three different modernist writers followed by various philosophers and their philosophies. They are W.B. Yeats (“The Second Coming”), Bertolt Brecht (“Mother Courage and Her Children”) and Samuel Beckett (“Waiting for Godot”).