Selected Foreign Prose of the 20th Century - (Junior High School Part) (Revised Edition)

Author: Zou Hailun
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-06-01
Features: The foreign prose creation of the 20th century expanded and developed on the basis of inheriting the historical tradition of prose, with distinct marks of the era. In the confessions of the century's sentiments, it demonstrated rich diversity in form, rationality in content, realistic focus in perspective, and boundless variety in style. Among the numerous prose masterpieces of the 20th century, works in genres such as essays, travelogues, literary critiques, speeches, letters, prefaces, biographies, diaries, and memoirs were predominant. For example, the landscape essays and travelogues of Japanese writers Kawabata Yasunari and Yasuda Kiyoshi; the literary critiques of Virginia Woolf and Jorge Luis Borges; the prefaces, letters, and critiques of Shaw on music and drama; the extensive articles of Russell on philosophy, politics, science, history, religion, morality, ethics, and literature; the speeches of Churchill and Martin Luther King Jr.; Churchill's historical memoirs of World War I and II and numerous biographies; the letters of Rilke and José Martí; Camus's philosophical essays; the biographies of Romain Rolland; the sociological essays of Octavio Paz; the diaries of Jean-Paul Sartre, etc., are all influential and outstanding prose works of the 20th century. Additionally, the combination of poetry and prose gave rise to masterpieces such as Gorky's "Song of the Sea Gull" and "Song of the Eagle." Borges, on the other hand, merged fiction and prose, with his prose works containing the suspense and implications of novels. Clearly, this represents a new development and achievement in the form of prose during the 20th century.