Transcript Document

The American Modernism
(1914 - 1945)
Part One: Introduction
I. The background of producing modernism
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4)
Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species (1859) radically altered
the nineteenth century romantic view that nature, especially
human nature, was benign.
The work of Marx, and Freud, as well as other great intellectual
explorers and rebels had mounted an assault against orthodox
religious faith that lasted into the twentieth century.
World War I in particular deepened doubt and reauthorized
disillusionment.
Another source of disillusionment was the rapid transformation
of American society that accelerated with World War I.
II. Modernism?
Modernism is a cultural movement that generally
includes the progressive art and architecture, design,
literature, music, dance, painting and other visual arts which
emerged in the beginning of the 20th century , particularly
in the years following World War I.
• Modernism in literature is not easily summarized, but the
key elements are experimentation, anti-realism,
individualism and a stress on the intellect rather than
emotive aspects.
• The work of Modernist writers is characterized by
showing the disenchantment, dislocation, and alienation
of men in the world (a reaction to the violent upheaval
known as the Modern Age.)
Modernism
• Uncertainty, disillusionment (expatriates),
fragmentation
• Often omitted exposition, transitions,
resolutions
• Stretched boundaries, outside the
box/experimentation
• Stream of consciousness
III. The Schools of American Modernism:
1) Modern poetry: experiments in form (Imagism)
2) Prose Writing: modern realism (the Lost Generation)
3) Novels of Social Awareness
4) The Harlem Renaissance
5) New Criticism
th
6) The 20 Century American Drama
Part Two: Modern poetry:
experiments in form (Imagism)
I. Imagism:
1) It is a Movement in U.S. and English poetry
characterized by the use of concrete language and
figures of speech, modern subject matter, metrical
freedom, and avoidance of romantic or mystical themes,
aiming at clarity of expression through the use of
precise visual images.
2) Initially led by Ezra Pound, then Amy Lowell, and
others.
3) The Imagist manifesto came out in 1912 showed three
Imagist poetic principles: direct treatment of the “thing (no
fuss, frill, or ornament）, exclusion of superfluous words
precision and economy of expression, the rhythm of the
musical phrase rather than the sequence of a metronome
free verse form and music）.
4) There existed great influence of Chinese poetry
on the Imagist movement. Imagists found value
in Chinese poetry was because Chinese poetry is,
by virtue of the ideographic and pictographic
nature of the Chinese language, essentially
imagistic poetry.
5) Also influenced by Japanese Haiku
II. The Major Representatives of the
Modern Poetry:
 Ezra Pound (1885- 1972)
 T.S.Eliot (1888 - 1965)
 Wallace Stevens (1879 - 1955)
 William Carlos Williams (1883 - 1963)
 Robert Frost (1874 - 1963)
 E.E.Cummings (1894 - 1963)
A Chinese imagistic poetry:
Autumn
Evening crows perch on old trees wreathed with withered vine,
Water of a stream flows by a family cottage near a tiny bridge.
A lean horse walks on an ancient road in western breeze,
The sun is setting in the west,
The heart-broken one is at the end of the Earth.
《天净沙·秋思》
马致远
枯藤、老树、昏鸦，小桥、流水、人家，
古道、西风、瘦马，夕阳西下，断肠人在天涯。
“In a Station of the Metro”
The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.
人群中幽然浮现的一张张脸庞，
黝黑的湿树枝上的一片片花瓣。
 About the poem:
① The “Metro” is the underground railway of Paris.
② The word “apparition”, with its double meaning,
binds the two aspects of the observation together:
 Apparition meaning “appearance”, in the sense
of something which appears, or shows up;
something which can be clearly observed.
 Apparition meaning something which seems real
but perhaps is not real; something ghostly which
cannot be clearly observed.
③ The poem is an observation by the poet of the human
faces seen in a Paris subway station. It looks to be a
modern adoption of the Japanese haiku.
④ He tries to render exactly his observation of human
faces seen in an underground railway station. He sees
the faces, turned variously toward light and darkness,
like flower petals which are half absorbed by, half
resisting, the wet, dark texture of a bough.
⑤ Repeating it, you can have a colorful picture, also you
can feel the beauty of music through its repetition of
different vowels and consonants
⑥ Feeling of wistfulness, ambiguity; sense of touch and
sight
Fan-Piece, For Her Imperial Lord
O fan of white silk,
clear as frost on the grass-blade,
You also are laid aside.
Ezra Pound
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Apostrophe: directly addressing the fan
Imagery: frost on grass-blade (contrast)
Metaphor: she is the fan-piece
Theme: feeling unwanted; fleeting feelings