Impact Of Contemporaries On Writers English Literature Essay
When people read plants of literature, they frequently dont know the influence behind it. Writers can be influenced by many things such as their clip period, milieus, and existent life experiences and so on. But a really of import influence on authors is the impact of their literary coevalss. Two authors that lived during the same clip period and were influenced by their coevalss are Virginia Woolf and T.S Eliot. Although they wrote different genres of fiction, they were portion of the same group that came to “ practically command the cultural life of London ” ( Moss 3 ) .
Virginia Woolf was born on January 25th, 1882 and many people regard her as an of import figure of both modernism and feminism authorship in the 20th century ( Bell 22 & A ; 221 ) . One thing that influenced her was her household summer holidaies to St. Ives as a kid because it was the originative influence behind her books To the Lighthouse, Jacob ‘s Room, and The Waves. ( Bell 32 ) . She grew up with 6 siblings and her male parent was the first editor of the Dictionary of National Biography. She had freedom to her male parent ‘s library and was determined to be a author from a immature age. Woolf ne’er went to school and trained to go a painter. She kept diaries since a immature age and wrote in them a batch. She lost her female parent when she was 13, it was a annihilating loss but she was close to her sister Vanessa and her brother Thoby. Thoby introduced her to his Cambridge University friends. In 1904, the siblings moved to the Bloomsbury subdivision of London. The siblings accommodated creative persons, authors, and intellectuals. The Bloomsbury Group was made up of Clive Bell, Roger Fry, John Maynard Keynes, Duncan Grant, Thoby Stephen, Lytton Strachey, Leonard Woolf, Desmond MacCarthy, Adrian Stephen, and Saxon Sydney-Turner. They were an influential group in London and dominated the literary universe. ( Moss 3 ) . She married Leonard Woolf on Aug 10, 1912 and together they created the Hogarth Press Her three most complete modernist plants are Mrs. Dalloway ( 1925 ) , To the Lighthouse ( 1927 ) and The Waves ( 1931 ) ( Moss 2 ) . Woolf knew Eliot because he would see her at her gazebos ( Bell 234 ) . Their circle of authors and philosophers enabled Woolf and Eliot to make new and interesting thoughts to the literary universe since they would read each other ‘s plants and knock each other ‘s plants. Harmonizing to Moss, “ Virginia set the type for Eliot ‘s celebrated verse form The Waste Land herselfaˆ¦ ” ( 2 ) . This shows how literary coevalss can hold an of import impact on a author ‘s work since they were able to read and knock each other ‘s plants at their assemblages.
T.S Eliot was born Sept 26th, 1888 in St. Louis, Missouri and was an of import poet of the twentieth century. Eliot went to Harvard and studied doctrine at the Sorbonne, Harvard, and Merton College, Oxford ( Bush 1 ) . T. S. Eliot and Virginia Woolf were coevalss and critics of each other ‘s work. They were besides good friends for over 20 old ages. At Harvard, he read The Symbolist Movement in Literature by Arthur Symon ‘s, which was influential since it introduced him to poetry of Jules Laforgue. Jules Laforgue influenced his verse form “ The Love Song of Alfred J. Prucock ” ( Wilson 1 ) Ezra Pound was besides an of import and indispensable individual in Eliot ‘s life. He encouraged Eliot to compose and gave him advice on personal facets of his life. Harmonizing to David Daiches, Eliot rearranges the thoughts of Ezra Pound and others ( Curley 343 ) Another influential individual in Eliot ‘s life was Bertrand Russell who was a celebrated philosopher and a instructor of Eliot at Harvard. Russell introduced Eliot to his rational friends and expanded Eliot ‘s foundation of support and gave him entree to people that Ezra Pound did non cognize. Russell besides offered fiscal aid when he needed it. Vivien Haigh-Wood was besides an of import figure in Eliot ‘s life. Eliot married her in 1915 with the encouragement of Pound.
Most critics can hold that The Wasteland is the most influential English-language verse form of all time written. By 1917, Eliot had great success by printing Prufrock and Other Observations. He was besides influenced by H.F Bradley because “ the survey of Bradleyaˆ¦solved his critical job, supplying him with a point of position towards history and so with the scenario for his most comprehensive essay, “ Tradition and the Individual Talent ” ” states Hugh Kenner ( Curley 336 ) Eliot provinces, “ Poets must develop or secure the consciousness of the yesteryear and that he should go on to develop this consciousness throughout his calling. ” ( 6 ) . All the authors that influenced Eliot contributed to his thought of “ historical sense ” because he believes that it is really of import for authors to hold thoughts of their ain and non be compared to old authors that are similar to them. He was besides alone in his Hagiographas since “ all poets and critics are merchandises of their age, but all do non interact with their age so smartly or so publicity as did Eliot ( Curley 337 ) . This shows how Eliot believes in the sense that authors must larn from the yesteryear and the present to larn from it and be able to make new elements. Literary influences played a big function in his development because he had to read their plants to make his ain single thoughts. Without larning from coevalss, authors do n’t cognize how to lend new thoughts to the literary universe.
Virginia Woolf and T.S Eliot both benefitted from the people in their life and predecessors. Woolf wrote many feminine plants and her novels included the subject of modernism. She besides discussed how of import it was for a adult female to hold resources to be able to compose fiction ( Woolf 2 ) . During Virginia Woolf ‘s clip, adult females were still oppressed and their thoughts were n’t able to make the literary universe. Harmonizing to Moss, Woolf suggests that adult females novelists “ will, as Jane Austen did, of course develop a sentence structure more reflective of their manner of thought. This thought, and the manner in which she put it into pattern in their authorship of her ain novels, is possibly Woolf ‘s most digesting bequest to English literature ” ( 1 ) This shows how literary influences and predecessors can impact a authors manner. Both authors learned from their coevalss and used their plants to better understand their ain coevals.
In Traditional and the Individual Talent, Eliot discusses how authors have to larn and hold an apprehension of the past coevalss. Eliot besides believes that holding “ historical sense ” is “ a sense of the timeless every bit good as the temporal every bit good as of the temporal and the timeless and temporal together, is what makes a writer traditional ” ( Eliot 4 ) . Harmonizing the New World Encyclopedia, “ Woolf ‘s technique treats the past as closely involved with the present ” ( 4 ) . This is an thought that T.S Eliot besides explains in his essay Tradition and the Individual Talent. Eliot wrote many celebrated verse forms and he has a distinguishable manner which he generated from his survey of the work of his coevalss.
Woolf had dislocations throughout her composing calling but she was able to do important recovery and continue composing. In her essay A Room of One ‘s Own, she insists “ speaks to those women-and men-on the brink of a new universe of gender dealingss, turn toing the uncertainness of how to act, believe and compose at the foreseeable terminal of this history of female subjugation ” ( Moss 2 ) . This quotation mark shows how her authorship created a revolution and helped adult females who were oppressed to compose. During her childhood, she ne’er went to school but was able to obtain influential books from her male parent ‘s library. ( Bell 51 ) He allow her take any book she wanted to read and it helped her head grow. T.S Eliot besides had dislocations that caused authors block but he regained his popularity and making out to the church helped him retrieve. T.S Eliot ‘s purpose is to demo that using his diehard rules to societal life is every bit merely as it is right to use them to literature. He “ seems to experience that unless he can turn out this, he is, in his work an individualist: non a diehard radically connected with the historic procedure but isolated original, personal, in the sense that he is composing about his ain beliefs which are “ home-made, ” and so do him bizarre and different from the people around him ” ( Curley 334. ) His positions are displayed in his plants and poems that he wrote. His verse forms are the merchandise of a constricted emotional experience, which led him to trust on books for experiences that he was n’t able to exemplify from his ain life. This shows how extra plants and authors have influenced him.
T.S Eliot was besides influenced by European poets such as Dante Alighieri, Charles Baudelaire, and Jules Laforgue. His professorsA Josiah Royce and George SantayanaA besides impacted his work. ( Wilson 1 ) But Jules LaForgue had the most of import impact because T.S Eliot says that LaForgue was “ the first to learn me how to talk, to learn me the poetic possibilities of my ain parlance of address ” ( Soldo 1 ) T.S Eliot died on Jan, 4th, 1965 ( Bush 1 ) After his decease, the church of St. Michael ‘s in East Coker made a plaque for his epitaph that was a line chosen from his work Four Fours and it says, “ In my beginning is my terminal. In my terminal is my beginning. ” T.S Eliot and Virginia Woolf both show how larning from their coevalss can hold a permanent impact on their plants. By larning from literary influences, authors can develop their ain thoughts and make their ain single manner.
