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Urban Existence in the Interwar English Literature
Urban Existence in the Interwar English Literature

Author(s): Ivanna Devdiuk
Subject(s): Evaluation research, Interwar Period (1920 - 1939), Theory of Literature, British Literature
Published by: Vilniaus Universiteto Leidykla
Keywords: urban; existence; mode; authenticity; thrownness;

Summary/Abstract: The paper highlights the peculiarities of the artistic modifications of urban existence in the English literature of the interwar period. We have analysed such novels as Death of a Hero by Richard Aldington, Antic Hay by Aldous Huxley, and Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, in which in the light of M. Heidegger’s analytic of Dasein, we investigated the ways of the main characters’ awareness of their own possibilities in a city. The article follows through the correlation between the heroes’ existence and urban reality, in which it is projected. We have discovered that in the novels Death of a Hero and Antic Hay urban discourse is characterised by eschatological markers, in which the semantics of the heroes’ loss of spiritual values and beliefs is expressed.

  • Issue Year: 2019
  • Issue No: 36(41)
  • Page Range: 73-83
  • Page Count: 12
  • Language: English