Transcript Document 7345628

Modernism (1914 – 1945)
Disillusionment and Doubt
Corruption and Decay…
New Ideas / Styles / Experimentation
Historical Background
◦ The booming of American industry with its gigantic
roaring factories, its impersonality, and its large scale
aggressiveness, no longer left any room for the code of
polite behavior and well-bred morality fashioned in a
quiet and less competitive age.
◦ And it was during that period that a number of sensitive
writers found that since there was little remedy for a
country that was blind and deaf to everything save the
glint and ring of the dollar, the only way out was to
emigrate to Europe. There they began to think of
themselves in the words of Gertrude Stein, as the “Lost
Generation.”
Literature.
The First World War stands as a great dividing line
between the 19th century and contemporary America.
Writers of the first postwar consciously acknowledged that
America was, as Ezra Pound described it, “an old bitch gone
in the teeth.” Yet in the years between the two world wars
American literature achieved a new diversity and reached
its greatest heights. In 1922, T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land
was the most significant American poem of the twentieth
century… It helped to establish a modern tradition of
literature rich in learning and allusive thought.
In 1920 Sinclair Lewis published his memorable
denunciation of American small-town provincialism Main
Street, and in the same year
F. Scott Fitzgerald summarized the experiences and
attitudes of the decade in his short stories and in his novel
The Great Gatsby.
Earnest Hemingway wrote The Sun Also Rises and A
Farewell to Arms, and William Faulkner published one of
the most influential American novels of the age, The Sound
and the Fury.
During the twenty years between the two world wars six
American writers who did their best and most original
work won the Nobel Prize for literature.
“Lost Generation” of the Roaring Twenties
War disfigures and tears away precious lives. Its horrors
embed themselves in the minds of the survivors, who, when
left to salvage the pieces of their former existences, are
brushed into obscurity by the individuals attempting to
justify the annihilation of the world that was.
The era following World War I epitomizes the inheritance of
trouble and sorrow for the generation that remains to retrieve
some form of happiness - writer Gertrude Stein called it the
"Lost Generation."
After WWI, many young Americans left their
native country, bitter over the war and seeking
adventure. A circle of artistic expatriates
appeared-- among them Hemingway, F. Scott
Fitzgerald, Sherwood Anderson, Ezra Pound,
and Pablo Picasso. Hemingway and Fitzgerald
employed their keen social observation in
writing The Sun Also Rises and The Great
Gatsby, respectively, widely considered the two
masterpieces of Lost Generation fiction.
Poetry – the Imagists
They concentrated on the direct
presentation of images or word pictures.
 They wanted to produce the essence
without the explanations.
 They wanted to freeze a moment in time.
 They used the language of everyday
speech in irregular rhymes and patterns

Ezra Pound
Best remembered for the development of
imagism.
 He relied a great deal on allusions.
 He supported Italy during the second World
War and was tried for treason in the U.S. He
was declared criminally insane and spent 13
years in a mental hospital. He was later released
and lived his remaining years in Italy.

William Carlos Williams
He was both a poet and a doctor
 He, unlike other imagists, focused only on
things he regarded as American.
 He went on to win a Pulitzer Prize

T.S. Eliot
Thomas Sterns Eliot was born into a
wealthy family and attended Harvard.
 He began his writing career in college.
 While in his 20s, he moved to England.
 He married there and made many literary
friends.

Eliot continued



He created a sensation
in the literary word with
his use of new structures
and themes.
He focused on the
frustration and despair
of modern life.
Because of his use of
imagery, he became
famous as a Modernists
He published his
literary masterpiece
known as “The
Waste Land”
 Later, he turned to
plays and wrote
“Murder in the
Cathedral”
 He won a Nobel
Prize.

Wallace Stevens
He went to Harvard
to study business and
became an insurance
salesman. Later, he
started writing
poetry.
 Most of his poetry
was about nature and
the imagination.


“Anecdote of a Jar”

“The Emperor of Ice
Cream”
Marianne Moore
She started out publishing a literary
journal.
 She did not want her work published.
 She wrote about animals, nature, and
poetry itself

Carl Sandburg
One of the most
popular poets of his
day because he
captured the spirit of
the working class
 A poet that helped
establish Chicago as a
literary community
and wrote a famous
biography of Lincoln

Robert Frost
He depicted rural
New England in his
poetry.
 He was a conventional
poet that was popular
in England and
America.
 Was the first poet to
speak at a presidential
inauguration (JFK)

Prose Authors of Modernism

Steinbeck
• Fitzgerald

Hemingway
• Faulkner

Anderson
• Porter

O’Connor
Fitzgerald - The Jazz Age


The age takes its name from jazz music, which saw a
tremendous surge in popularity among many segments
of society during the affluent 1920’s.
Among the prominent concerns and trends of the
period are the public embrace of technological
developments (cars, air travel and the telephone) as
well as new modernist trends in social behavior, the
arts, and culture.
William Faulkner
Born in Oxford
Mississippi. Set the
majority of his
stories in the
fictional
Yoknapatawpha
County, Mississippi
 Although he had
little formal
education, he began
to make his mark

He focused mainly
on the decay of
traditional values as
small communities
got caught up in the
changes of the
modern age.
 He was considered a
regional writer until
he started
experimenting.

Faulkner Novels

As I Lay Dying. A
story about a family’s
journey to bury their
mother, told in 15
different points of
view. It was a
masterpiece of
narrative
experimentation.
The Sound and The Fury
 A complex story of the
downfall of a southern
family seen through the
eyes of three brothers.
One of whom was
mentally challenged;
 told by four different
people telling four
different points of view.
John Steinbeck

Steinbeck was born
in Salinas, California.
He ended up
supporting himself in
various jobs as a
laborer, teacher, and
journalist. He went
to Stanford
University but did
not graduate

He tried his hand at
writing but did not
succeed until he
began to write about
Depression era
topics. He had his
first real success was
Of Mice and Men.
Steinbeck Continued
His masterpiece The Grapes of Wrath
won a Pulitzer Prize. This book focused
on the plight of migrant workers.
 Later, he produced other best sellers
including: Cannery Row,The Pearl, and
East of Eden. He did win the Nobel Prize
for his discussions on social justice.

Hemingway

Hemingway’s style
◦ simple and natural / direct
◦ conversational, common, fundamental words
◦ simple sentences
◦ iceberg principle: understatement, implied…
◦ Use of symbolism

Main Theme – grace under pressure (?)
Hemingway’s heroHemingway’s hero is an average man of decidedly
masculine tastes, sensitive and intelligent, a man of
action, and one of few words. That is an individualist
keeping emotions under control, stoic and selfdisciplined in a dreadful place.
These people are usually spiritual strong, people of
certain skills, and most encounter death many times.
Terms to know

Expatriate: a person who either temporarily or
permanently lives in a country other than that of the
person's upbringing or legal residence.

Flapper: in the 1920s referred to a "new
breed" of young women who wore short
skirts, bobbed their hair, listened to jazz music,
and flaunted their disdain for what was then
considered acceptable behavior.
Terms to know
Apostrophe-the
 Blank Verse- poems
speaker or narrator
without rhyme but
addresses a person
with meter.
or thing.
 Meter-a pattern of
 Personificationstressed or unstressed
Giving human
syllables
characteristics to
 Pastoral-poem that
known human things.
deals with rural
settings

Terms to know
Stream of
Consciousnesspresent thoughts as
they issue directly
from a character’s
mind.
 Flashback-an
interruption that
describes a past
event.

Dialect-manner of
speaking that is
specific to a
particular group.
 Hyperboleexaggeration for
humor purposes.
 Imagery-descriptive
language that appeals
to the senses.
