The Times They Are a Changin'

The 20th century changed the world of poetry. Major world events boded on the mind of many a writer, reflecting in their work. Diaspora in the British Empire, the two World Wars, and cultural and societal events was behind the poetic change that took place in the early 1900's.

Claude McKay's "If We Must Die" is a poem that depicts the racial issues he experienced as a Jamaican born citizen living in white neighborhoods. His prose is as full of eloquence as any Romantic or Victorian writer, but the issue he is writing about is something either of those writers could not relate to: being persecuted or even killed because of skin color. "If we must die, O let us nobly die/ So that our precious blood may not be shed/ In vain; then even the monsters we defy/ Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!" (Greenblatt et al, 2006). When reading his poem from an objective stance, one could assume he is describing a bloody battle in any war during any time period. His ultimate message of the poem could be achieving honor, even in death.

Seamus Henley writes about a blacksmith, ever present and non-changing though the world is changing around him: "He leans out the jamb, recalls a clatter/ Of hoofs where traffic is flashing in rows/ then grunts and goes in, with a slam and a flick/ To beat iron out, to work the bellows," (Greenblatt et al, 2006). Though the job of the blacksmith has not differed for decades upon decades, the world has, bringing with it industry and technology.

The world that these poets saw was very different from the world of the Romantics and Victorians. Things in the world of the Romantics and Victorians were easier in a way, more black and white. While the world of the 20th century writer became muddled with grey, full of detail and chaos.

References:

Greenblatt, et al. [Eds]. (2006). The Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Romantic

Period Through the Twentieth Century [vol. 2] (8th ed.). New York,

NY: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.

Science in a Victorian Age

Both Charles Darwin and Robert Louis Stevenson were Victorian writers that shared common threads in their works: science and change.

"The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" is Stevenson's novella about a man that experiments on his own nature, specifically his good and evil nature. Dr. Jekyll creates a potion that separates his free will and conscience from his morality and reasoning, ultimately creating a separate persona that is Mr. Hyde. The main character of the story is a scientist who wishes to test and prove a new theory, much like the real-life scientist, Charles Darwin.

By writing "The Origin of Species" and "The Descent of Man", Darwin was not opening up the idea of evolution, but making it more plausible with his own theory of natural selection, (Greenblatt et al, 2006). Evolution had been a theory lightly discussed by scientists of the time, but Darwin's research made it all the more believable. With the printing of Darwin's writings, great debate and change began in the scientific community, and even amongst the general populace. Before, it had been an accepted mode of thought that animals were a separate from humans, with both being unable to change unless the Creator saw fit to do so. After Darwin made a compelling argument for evolution and for his new idea of natural selection, people began to see the world differently.

Stevenson also took a staid idea (the concept of good and evil), and brought it to the forefront with his story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. On a deeper level, his story was ultimately alluding to the fact that there is good and evil in every person and that it cannot be denied. If one tries to deny it, or repress it with potions like Dr. Jekyll was eventually forced to do, than they may create a split-personality of Mr. Hyde-caliber. Repression, even in nature and especially in society, often leads to rapid and sometimes violent revolutions.

The works of Stevenson and Darwin have changed through the 20th century into the 21st century. In the 20th century, both works may have been hard to accept, for the moral and scientific truths they portray. Yet, from a modern perspective, the works of Stevenson and Darwin are so widely accepted that they are a part of the everyday cultural language. For example, when one is explaining evolution or natural selection, they may refer to it as "Darwinism". Also, when referring to a person that is acting strangely in opposing fashion, they would be described as being "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde".

Greenblatt, S., et al. (Eds.) (2006). The Norton anthology of English literature (8th ed., Vol.2). New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.