Twentieth Century Literature

In the transition from the nineteenth to the twentieth century, literature took on all the basic characteristics of a modern national literature.  It is usually thought that the modern novel and narrative in the leading literatures came about after the disintegration of Realism, when a transition was made from Naturalism to Impressionism.  Modern lyric poetry began with the transition to symbolism.

Literary criticism also changed, as did literary theory.  Literary theory left the external interpretation of literature behind and moved to internal interpretation – to the analysis of the artistic traits of a work, and not of the circumstances under which it came into being.  In literature, similar phenomena are to be noticed not only in the appearance of the lyric poems, but in literary criticism as well.