1. The Modern Age

2. Historical, Social, and Cultural Forces
World War I
Began in 1914
Allies v. Central Powers
U.S. joined war in 1917 (Lusitania)
Allies won November 11, 1918
10 million soldiers died

3. Historical, Social, and Cultural Forces
Roaring Twenties
U.S. soldiers returning home
Booming economy
Jazz
Late night parties
Flappers
Prohibition
Gangsters (Al Capone)

4. Historical, Social, and Cultural Forces
Women’s Rights
19th Amendment passed in 1920
Better job opportunities and military opportunities
Great Migration
African Americans left the rural South for the North.
Better jobs and living conditions
Harlem, New York was a popular place to relocate.

5. Historical, Social, and Cultural Forces
Pop Culture
Automobiles (1913)
Radios (1920)
Movies (Talkies- 1927)
Baseball (Babe Ruth)
The Great Depression
Black Tuesday Stock Market Crash
By 1933 a quarter of the population was unemployed

6. Modern Poetry Characteristics
Make it new: break away from traditional poetry
Imagist movement: Direct presentation of images
Breaking the rules: Ignored all writing rules

7. Modern Poetry Poets Ezra Pound T.S. Eliot William Carlos Williams
Amy Lowell
E.E. Cummings
Carl Sandburg
Robert Frost

8. The Imagists
Imagist presented a concrete tangible image that appears frozen in time.
Imagist method is similar to photography

9. Imagist Principles/Manifestos
The image is the essence, the raw material, of poetry.
Poetry should be expressed in brief, clear, concrete language that forms precise images.
Images should convey poems meaning and emotion.
Language should sound like simple speech.
Topics should not be “high-minded” or poetic. No topic is unsuitable.

10. Modern Fiction The Modern American Short Story
Modern writers experimented with new ways of capturing the rich complexity of human life and responded to a world that was starting over after World War I.

11. Modern Fiction Sherwood Anderson Ernest Hemingway*
Important Authors
Sherwood Anderson
Ernest Hemingway*
F. Scott Fitzgerald*
Henry James
Katherine Anne Porter*

12. Modern Fiction Stream of Consciousness
A reoccurring element in modern American fiction.
William James (brother of author Henry James) an American psychologist coined the phrase in He believed that people had a constant stream of thoughts that flow through their minds without clear logic order.

13. Modern Fiction Stream of Consciousness Story Elements
First person point of view
Lack of conventional sentence structure or grammar
Free associations that flow through a character’s mind and link distinctly separate events.
Interior monologue

14. Modern Fiction The Lost Generation
Many writers left the United States during this period and established new lives in Europe.
International perspective contrasted with the regionalism that dominated literature following the Civil War.
Themes of change, indecision, and broken attachments dominate modern fiction.

15. Modern Fiction Features of the Modern Short Story
Understatement (de-emphasis on the importance of something or someone)
Irony (contrast between appearance and reality)
Stream of Consciousness
Antiheroes (conflicted characters engulfed by indecision)
Everyday settings
Themes of instability and loss
Plots without clear climax or resolution

16. Harlem Renaissance
Represented the coming of age of the African American culture.
Influenced by jazz music. The music was largely improvisational/spontaneous. Jazz inspired a an energetic social life and filled the clubs.

17. Harlem Renaissance The Neighborhood
Harlem became a main destination during the great migration. It was a haven for African Americans. They were able to escape the restrictions in Harlem.

18. Important Writers Zora Neale Hurston Claude McKay * Robert Hughes
Langston Hughes*
Georgia Douglas
Countee Cullen *

19. Claude McKay Born and educated in rural Jamaica.
Won an award for his poetry in He used his prize money to come to the US- the land of opportunity.
He was shocked by the racisim and violence he found in the US.
His poem “If We Must Die” is said to be the spark that ignited the Harlem Renissance.
Spent most of his life looking for ways to counter the “ignoble cruelty” of racism.

20. Claude McKay

21. Langston Hughes Born in Joplin Missouri in 1902
Traveled around the U.S. and lived in six different cities by the time he was 12.
His writing celebrated the dignity of ordinary, working-class African Americans.
His poetry helped many people to look past stereotypical views of African Americans.
He is considered the poet laureate of Harlem.

22. Langston Hughes