Unit 7: The Modern Era

I. A Century of Change Much change: electric lights mass merchandising mass media (tv & radio) transportation (cars & planes) instant communication (phones) Medicine (antibiotics & anesthesia) weapons of mass destruction suburban housing skyscrapers labor unions women workers population explosion

II. WWI Before WWI, the US was “isolationist” (involved in our own concerns) Writing was traditional & regional WWI began in 1914 US delayed until 1917 War changed the life and culture of Americans

III. The Lost Generation Writers who fought / participated in war: John Dos Passos, Ernest Hemingway, ee cummings They saw war as chaotic, destructive, & meaningless Gertrude Stein gave this group of writers the name “Lost Generation” They questioned the fundamentals of the American Dream They said people are dominated by their environments

IV. The Jazz Age & NY Literary Scene 1920’s Jazz Age - conflict between older, conservative generation and a material, alienated younger generation 1919 Prohibition - no alcohol Culture of “speak easies” or “juke joints,” flappers, The Charleston, gangsters NY became a literary center - Greenwich Village (bohemians) Edith Wharton, Eugene O’Neill, Thomas Wolfe “Algonquin Round Table” - writers who met at Algonquin Hotel

V. Great Depression & 30’s Radicalism “Chief Chronicler of the Jazz Age” - F. Scott Fitzgerald 1925 The Great Gatsby 1929 Great Depression began Writers examine basic American ideals Karl Marx - German political theorist millionaires: Carnegie, Morgan, Rockefeller hunger, labor unrest, unions, anarchist bombings

FDR New Deal Policies: Social Security, welfare, unemployment insurance, federal jobs 1930’s “Great Dust Bowl” - Oklahoma droughts, led to great migration to California John Steinbeck: The Grapes of Wrath Upton Sinclair: The Jungle Richard Wright: Native Son

VI. The Expatriates F. Scott Fitzgerald Ezra Pound Ernest Hemingway Edna St. Vincent Millay TS Eliot Gertrude Stein Moved to Paris or London Gathered in cafes to exchange ideas believed the US was inhospitable to high culture

VII. Modernism in American Lit Modernism: international literary & artistic movement characterized by a rejection of artistic conventions of the past “Make It New” Cubist painter: Pablo Picasso Modernist writers - free verse, stream of consciousness Subjectivism: treat reality not as absolute & orderly, but as depending on the point of view of the observer

More Modernism Imagist Poetry: single moments of sense perception without reference to the poet’s emotions. Irony: a signature technique of modernist lit; a sense of hopelessness

VIII. Changes in Roles of Women Women’s roles expanded 1920 Women’s Right to Vote Could attend college & work outside the home An increased role in art and literature A golden age of American women

IX. Alternative Literary Responses Postwar Regionalists: Robert Frost, Zora Neale Hurston, Faulkner, Tennessee Williams, Eudora Welty, Katherine Anne Porter, etc. Fugitives: Southern writers who rejected Northern commercial values; wanted to return to Southern traditions New Criticism: approach to understanding lit through close readings & paying attention to patterns (imagery, metaphors, sounds, symbols) Harlem Renaissance: explosion of Black artists, writers, & performers

X. WWII After Worldwide Depression of the 1930’s, Europe placed hopes in ultranationalist leaders Italy: Benito Mussolini Spain: Francisco Franco Germany: Adolf Hitler (theories of racial purity, the Aryan race) Hitler invaded Poland US entered WWII after Pearl Harbor; Dec 7, 1941 WWII over in million Jews killed Prison camps: Auschwitz, Treblinka, Buchenwald