The Moderns Disillusion, Defiance, Discontent Communication Arts, Joplin High School - Brenda White, 2009

I. Introduction A.World War I brought a clash of the old and the young. B.Reality hit: half a million killed in one battle C.America seemed to have lost its innocence. 1.Idealism became cynicism 2.Writers began to question authority 3.New moral codes; slang expressions D.The Great Depression brought suffering to millions of Americans. E.The modernist movement called for bold experimentation and rejection of tradition.

II. The American Dream A.Americans had always held some of these beliefs. B.The American Dream evolved out of three basic tenets. 1.America is a new Eden. 2.Optimism, opportunity, progress 3.Triumph of the individual C.Emerson: “Trust the universe and trust yourself.”

III. A Crack in the World: Breakdown of Beliefs A.World War I damaged the idealism of the American Dream. B.Authors were no longer only from New England, but came from the South, Midwest, and the West. It was the birth of regionalism. C.Karl Marx - Marxism 1.Marx fueled the Russian Revolution in Marxism directly opposed the American system of capitalism and free enterprise. 3.After a visit to Marxist Russia, American journalist John Reed wrote: “I have seen the future and it works.”

III. A Crack in the World: Breakdown of Beliefs (continued) B.Sigmund Freud - Psychoanalysis 1.Called for understanding of sexuality and its effect on our lives. 2.The role of psychology was becoming understood, and as a result the degree of individual freedom an individual really has was questioned. C.Stream of Consciousness literary style 1.Moment-by-moment flow of a character’s perceptions and memories. 2.James Joyce’s Ulysses 3.Katherine Anne Porter’s Granny Weatherall 4.William Faulkner (almost everything!)

IV. At Home and Abroad: The Jazz Age A.Prohibition: In 1919 it became part of the Constitution through an amendment. 1.Alcohol was contrary to traditional American values. 2.Ushered in the age of the bootlegger, the speakeasy, short-skirted flappers, and gangsters. B.The Jazz Age / Expatriates 1.The Jazz Age was so-named by F. Scott Fitzgerald. 2.Fitzgerald and many others were Americans in search of pleasure abroad. 3.The wave of expatriates was a sign of something wrong with the American Dream. 4.The idea of America as land of heroes was disappearing.

V. Grace Under Pressure: The New American Hero A.Disillusionment was a major theme in the fiction of the time. B.Ernest Hemingway ( ) 1.Influential post-WWI writer 2.Known for his reportorial literary style: straightforward, few adverbs, minimalist, bare bones 3.Reportorial refers to his journalistic training. C.Hemingway’s new American hero 1.Man of action, warrior, tough competitor 2.A code of honor, courage, and endurance 3.Hemingway called this attitude “grace under pressure” 4.Hemingway’s beliefs: bravery, decency, competency, skill

VI. Modernist Voices in Poetry: A Dazzling Period A.American poetry went into somewhat of a decline B.Writers looked to European artists for inspiration: 1.Henry Matisse and Pablo Picasso were exploring new ways to see and represent reality. 2.Poets like Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot started using a technique called Symbolism to fashion a new, modernist poetry. 3.Pound spearheaded the poetic movement called Imagism. 4.Imagism aims at clarity of expression through the use of precise visual images. 5.These styles prevailed until midway of the 20th century.

VI. Elements of Modernism Emphasis on bold experimentation in style and form, reflecting the fragmenting of society Rejection of traditional themes and subjects Sense of disillusionment and loss of faith in the American Dream Rejection of the idea of a hero as infallible in favor of a hero who is flawed and disillusioned but shows “grace under pressure” Interest in the inner workings of the human mind sometimes expressed through new narrative techniques such as stream of consciousness

VII. Voices of American Character: Poets of Tradition A.Some poets rejected modernism and chose to stay home instead of finding inspiration abroad. B.Some of those poets were: Edwin A. Robinson of Maine, Edgar Lee Masters of Kansas, Robinson Jeffers of California and John Ransom of Tennessee. C.Robert Frost 1.The greatest of these stay-at-home poets 2.From New England; handled speech skillfully but with a twist all his own 3.Individual poetic genius 4.Used iambic pentameter to create a uniquely American poetic voice

VIII. The Harlem Renaissance: Voices of the African American Experience A.There were two forms of African-American poetry 1.Conventional forms (Paul Laurence Dunbar) were quickly accepted by the masses 2.New forms based on spirituals, jazz, rhythms (Langston Hughes, “Shakespeare of Harlem”) B.Harlem Renaissance 1.Geographical center of this movement was Harlem 2.Spiritual center was the too-long-ignored African Americans who wanted their art recognized 3.These poets mixed their talents with the jazz and other music coming out of New Orleans, Memphis, and Chicago to become part of the Jazz Age.

IX. The American Dream Revised A.A belief in self-reliance B.This is the richest period of American literature since the flowering of New England. C.Ideas challenged the American Dream resulting in the second American Renaissance. D.Writers continued to ask fundamental questions about meaning and purpose of human existence.