1. 1914-1945

2.  Originated in Europe in the early 20th century  United States.  It was fueled by domestic shifts (increase in city life, technology and wealth, for example) as well as changes on an international scale (like WWI and WWII).  Topics: Growth, prosperity, fear, war, death, money, alienation, materialism, psychology and disillusionment.

3.  Modernism was a countermovement to the lifestyle and sensibility of the Victorian era.  Reflected the fears and uncertainty of citizens  The old rules and the old ways of living and thinking were no longer relevant.

4.  So, in order to truly understand literary modernism, it's important to take a look at a little U.S. history.  Modernism (the time period) was set in motion, in one sense, through a series of cultural shocks.  Influenza pandemic 1918  Stock market crash 1929/Dust Bowl/Great Depression  18 th amendment (1919)  19 th amendment (1920)  The assassination of Archduke Ferdinand of Austria   WWI, which ravaged Europe from 1914 through 1918,  a.k.a The Great War or the “War to End All Wars”.  During the turn of the century  industrialization. Cities began to grow and technology changed everything.

5.  The problem with World War I? Technology. War became about mass casualties.  Flame-throwers  Automatic weapons  Mustard gas  Anti-aircraft guns  WWII  Long-range and guided missiles  Atomic bomb  High-powered cannons

6.  After the First World War, American artists chose to live abroad.  These included: Gertrude Stein, Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald (expatriates)  Modernism in American literature reflection the lost generation’s experiences.

7.  A youth culture emerged - one in which free expression and a deliberate break from tradition became defining characteristics. (Lost generation)  The term refers to the spiritual and existential aftershock of the time period.  Lost Generation struggled to find meaning in the chaotic world.  no longer felt patriotic, content or safe.  Nothing was truly knowable. “It was an age of miracles, it was an age of art, it was an age of excess, and it was an age of satire.”—F. Scott Fitzgerald.

8.  Unification or fragmentation  stream-of-consciousness AND non-linear plot lines  Archetypes  Allusions, symbolism, irony, satire  Imagery-very realistic details (Realism)  Championship and celebration of inner strength.  Characters’ experiences are that of alienation, loss, and despair.  Concerned with examining the sub-conscious.

9.  http://study.com/academy/lesson/the-lost- generation-expatriate-writers-of-the-20th- century.html http://study.com/academy/lesson/the-lost- generation-expatriate-writers-of-the-20th- century.html

10.  Spanning the 1920s to the mid-1930s  the Harlem Renaissance was a literary, artistic, and intellectual movement that kindled a new black cultural identity.  Harlem (a borough in NY) became the center of a “spiritual coming of age” transformed “social disillusionment to race pride.”

11.  Contributors: Jean Toomer, Langston Hughes, Nella Larsen, Duke Ellington, and Zora Neale Hurston–Billie Holiday, Claude McKay, Alain Locke etc.  The publishing industry, fascinated with the exotic world of Harlem, sought out and published black writers.  Focused on a realistic portrayal of black life  The movement was not political but aesthetic.  Influence of jazz (Jazz Age)  The Harlem Renaissance influenced future generations of black writers, but it was largely ignored by the literary establishment until the civil rights movement. (1950s)

12.  http://www.history.com/topics/roaring- twenties/videos/the-harlem-renaissance http://www.history.com/topics/roaring- twenties/videos/the-harlem-renaissance