The 1920s was another glorious golden age in the history of English literature, with brilliant literary stars and excellent works. In the field of poetry, T.S. Eliot (1888- 1965) published "The Wasteland" in 1922, describing the spiritual loss of the post-war western world with a large number of myths and expressing the hope of human regeneration. His poems represent the outstanding achievements of modernist poetry creation. William Butler Yeats (1865- 1939), an Irish poet, tried to establish his own symbolic system of mysticism and made a profound exploration of the philosophy of life. Ye Zhi's creative path is from tradition to modernity, which reflects the transition and change of English poetry, and represents the process of modern poets getting rid of the influence of the old times and creating modern poetry style.
English modernist literature tries to get rid of the shackles of tradition in both ideological content and artistic form, and it is avant-garde. In essence, modernist literature is elite literature. After the publication of Ulysses, few people care about it on ordinary streets. In the 1930s and 1940s, characterized by crisis and war, severe social reality, acute social contradictions and urgent social problems created conditions for the return of realistic literary tradition, and novels with realistic techniques were once again welcomed by people. English novels in 1930s changed from introversion to extroversion in theme, showing the dominant influence of society on personal destiny, and changed from vanguard to conservative in form, adopting traditional narrative techniques. During this period, there were several trends in British literary circles: First, they paid attention to contemporary political and social issues and created literature with left-wing tendencies. The second is to attack the corruption of the middle and upper bourgeoisie and create social satirical novels. Evelyn waugh (1903- 1966) described the absurdity, evil and depravity in the marriage, family, school, religion and political life of English society in his works such as the humble body and a handful of dust. The third is the popularity of entertainment literature. Priestley (J. B. Priestley, 1894- 1984) tells the life stories of all social strata in the form of comedy, showing the life in the vast areas of Britain. Agatha christie (189 1- 1976), the "queen of detective stories", carefully weaves the ups and downs and confusing storylines in detective novels such as Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile.
Graham greene (1904- 199 1) and robert Graves (1895- 1985) appeared in the 1930s. As a Catholic writer, Green devoted himself to exploring the spiritual crisis of human beings in modern society, recording the sufferings of individual souls between good and evil, and combining exploring people's inner world with reflecting on contemporary political and social issues. Brighton Rock and Power and Glory, published in the late 1930s, established his position as an important British novelist in the 20th century. Graves is a poet and novelist. His trilogy "I, Claudius", "Claudius and his wife Mesalina" and "The Count" are classics of modern historical novels. Realistic expression makes people living in ancient times feel close to each other, but at the same time, they maintain their historicity.