Aldous Huxley and Evelyn Waugh are modern rivals to the satiric genius of Jonathan Swift. Their separate but contemporaneous series of novels also reflect a radical shift in tone and style from the preceding era. After 1918 in Britain there ensued a "steel blue" decade in which Victorian/Edwardian sentimentality was virtually taboo. The range of this postwar writing ran from the brittle (Noel Coward) to the sardonic (T. S. Eliot), and at its center was the testing of "modern" life styles. Huxley and Waugh put these to the test, found them inadequate, then began seeking values to replace those found lacking. / Chapter I provides an overview. Chapter II compares the first novel of each author (Huxley: Crome Yellow, 1922; Waugh: Decline and Fall, 1928), in which farce prevails and no moral norms are deducible. Chapter III compares Huxley's second novel (Antic Hay, 1923) to Waugh's second (Vile Bodies, 1930), to show a moral stance rapidly developing as a pattern of follies and vices emerges. Chapter IV examines Huxley's Point Counter Point (1928) and Waugh's Brideshead Revisited (1945), to reveal satirical parody giving way to trenchant moral statement as a firm moral stance arrives. Chapter V analyzes each author's further drift towards allegory and didacticism. Chapter VI discusses Huxley's post-Point Counter Point fiction as he seeks ethical constructs with which to formulate a "final solution," and Chapter VII explores Waugh's parallel attempts after Brideshead Revisited to seek to sacred amid the profane in his fictions. / Finally, Chapter VIII concludes that although these two novelists diverged in their search for a moral ground--Huxley gravitating towards mysticism, psychophysical exercises and drug experiment (Island, 1962); and Waugh towards Catholicism and aristocratic tradition (Sword of Honour trilogy, 1952-1961)--they both came to embrace a romanticism earlier rejected in order to combat the sterility and barbarism they felt to be pervasive elements in the modern world. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 47-07, Section: A, page: 2599. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1986.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_75882 |
| Contributors | RUTLAND, BLAKE SCHERYL., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 424 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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