ART FOR LIFE’S SAKE

Abstract

The first half of the 20thcentury is one of the most turbulent eras in the history of English literature. Modern Age marks a sharp and clear departure from the self-complacency, and stability of the Victorian period. The transition from the old to the new, from blind faith to rational thinking is very interesting. The twentieth century is called the Age of Interrogation and Anxiety because the scientific revolution and changing social, moral, political and economic conditions have shaken man’s faith in the authority of religion and church. The persistent mood of skepticism and interrogation has increased disproportionately in want of a new set of values. In the Modern Age number of writers rejected the doctrine of “art for art’s sake”. They developed the new literacy creed of “art for life’s sake” or, at least, for the sake of the community. A much stronger claim to be modern was made by Shaw with his socialism, H.G. Wells with his science fiction and Rudyard Kipling with his empire building and steam engines. The growth of a restless desire to probe and question changed the beginning of the twentieth century. Bernard Shaw vigorously attacks the “old superstition of religion” and the “new superstition of science”. The effect of his writing was to spread abroad for at least a generation “The Interrogative habit of mind”.