Modernism And Experimentation

Native American Oral Tradition Pre-dates Puritan Period

Review of PreviousLiterary Periods PURITAN/COLONIAL 1650-1750 Sermons, diaries, personal narratives Written in plain style

Revolutionary/Age of Reason 1750-1800 Political pamphlets Travel writing Highly ornate style Persuasive writing

The Umbrella of Romanticism 1800-1860 Character sketches Slave narratives Poetry Short stories

The Umbrella of Romanticism Transcendentalism 1840-1860 Transcendentalists: *True reality is spiritual *Idealists Self-reliance & individualism Emerson & Thoreau

The Umbrella of Romanticism Anti-Transcendentalism or Gothicism Used symbolism to great effect Sin, pain, & evil exist Poe, Hawthorne, & Melville

Realism/Naturalism 1855-1900 Period of Civil War/Post Civil War Civil War brings demand for a "truer" type of literature that does not idealize people or places Writings of Twain, Bierce, Crane, Dickinson Hurston fits here and in the Harlem Ren

Learning Targets Students will be able to explain how the Modernist movement was shaped by the period following World War I. Students will be able to explain Ernest Hemingway’s “Iceberg” strategy of writing and how it reflects the characteristics of Modernism.

Post - World War I Many historians have characterized the period between the two world wars as the United States' “beginning of the end”.

Atrocities of War World War I (1914-1920) was called “The War to End All Wars” due to the horrid conditions during warfare. American soldiers, who were poor and inexperienced in overseas combat, witnessed the terrible cost of war on innocent European civilians.

American soldiers would march all across Europe, stumbling upon cities and towns that were bombed and turned into wastelands. Bodies would be piled into corners to be burned.

Mustard Gas and Trench Warfare WWI soldiers would fight in the European countryside by digging themselves trenches through the land.

Enemy forces responded with the usage of MUSTARD GAS Enemy forces responded with the usage of MUSTARD GAS. A thick, yellow gas heavier than air that would flood the trenches like water.

Mustard Gas would burn your skin, eyes, and lungs.

The Effects of WWI Shocked and permanently changed, American soldiers returned to their homeland but could never regain their innocence.

War-Mongers They found America to be celebrating its most successful economic time in its short history. Upper-Class Americans made profit from the war and were prospering greatly. This time period was known as “The Roaring Twenties.” The “War to End All Wars” pushed America to become one of the most powerful and wealthiest countries in the world.

“Made in America” America became the center of the world. Businesses flourished, college enrollment tripled, and America celebrated its new wealth and power.

The culmination of victory of World War I and the resulting financial boom made Americans feel invincible. While the world suffered from the affects of the war, America remained untouched.

The Roaring Twenties

While they knew the rest of the world was suffering unspeakable horrors, returning American soldiers came home to a calloused and apathetic America. The young generation was permanently scarred from the war and remained poor while wealthy America partied and celebrated its good fortune.

While the Rich Got Richer War veterans and the younger generations were rebelling, angry and disillusioned with the savage war and blamed the wealthy for America’s involvement in the war. While people prospered, veterans suffered.

THE LOST GENERATION Despite outward happiness, modernity, and unparalleled material prosperity, young Americans of the 1920s were "the lost generation" -- so named by literary portraitist Gertrude Stein.

The Lost Generation believed… The Wholesome, Secure and Supportive American Family American Patriotism and Greatness Moral Values and Ethics built from Religious Beliefs The process of building the “American Dream” and American culture… WERE ALL LIES!!!

The Lost Generation After experiencing Europe, the Lost Generation felt that America substituted quick “materialism” and “capitalism” over the pursuit of defining American culture. They left America behind and moved to Europe to experience what they thought was real culture.

In their writings, The Lost Generation rejected all American writing styles (which ironically were still written in the European style), the result was a new form of writing for the modern age.

Modernism Characteristic #1 Rejection of all social norms and cultural sureties.

Social Norms/Cultural Sureties Women were given the right to vote in 1920. Hemlines raised; Margaret Sanger introduces the idea of birth control. Karl Marx’s ideas flourish; the Bolshevik Revolution overthrows Russia’s czarist government and establishes the Soviet Union. Writers begin to explore these new ideas.

Modernism Characteristics #2 The “meaning” of stories and poems are up to the reader, not the writer. The meaning may be lost within the words.

Modernism Characteristics #3 The Hero or Protagonist is a lost individual facing an unmanageable future. His/her journey is insignificant to the world.

Theme of Alienation Sense of alienation in literature: The character belongs to a “lost generation” (Gertrude Stein) The character suffers from a “dissociation of sensibility”— separation of thought from feeling (T. S. Eliot) The character has “a Dream deferred” (Langston Hughes).

Modernism Characteristic #4 Society is a product of the “metropole” – the city and urban landscapes – the city conditions define American Culture.

Urbanscapes Life in the city differs from life on the farm; writers began to explore city life. Conflicts begin to center on society.

Modernism Characteristic #5 Rejection of “Rules of Literature” – Free Verse and Stream of Consciousness writing is embraced.

Modernism Embraced nontraditional syntax and forms. Challenged tradition Writers wanted to move beyond Realism to introduce such concepts as disjointed timelines. An overarching theme of Modernism was “emancipation”

Modernist Writers Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner, John Steinbeck, Gertrude Stein, T. S. Eliot, E. E. Cummings, Robert Frost Harlem Renaissance writers such as Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, James Weldon Johnson, Countee Cullen, Jean Toomer, Richard Wright

“Landscape with the Fall of Icarus” Read William Carlos Williams’ poem “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus” Discuss how the poem may reflect the characteristics of Modernism.