American Literature 4.ppt

1、American Literature,Part Four Modern American Literature (1910-),Chapter 7,American literature after WWI,Background Information,Between the beginning of World War I and the end of World War II (19141945), the United States became a “modern” nation driven with internal fractures.,Background Informati

2、on,Literature of the period struggled to understand the new and diverse responses to the advent of modernity.,Background Information,Some writers celebrated the changes; others lamented the loss of old ways of being. Some imagined future utopias; others searched for new forms to speak of the new rea

3、lities.,Background Information,In all, writers inquired into the connection between art and politics. Some deemed it inappropriate to link the two while others insisted that art could not be politicalbecause to be political was to assume a political position.,Background Information,Urbanization, ind

4、ustrialization, and immigration had altered national demographics of the 1920s. Harsh conditions in cities was often blamed on new immigrants, and in 1924 Congress enacted the Exclusion Act, barring immigration from certain parts of the world, notably Asia, as a way to control the racial and ethnic

5、composition of the United States.,Background Information,Following the crash of the stock market in 1929, a depression set in, causing unrest and economic upheaval on a global scale.,Background Information,Background Information,Europe saw the rise of fascist dictators and in the United States, poli

6、tics and economics became central concerns overriding questions of individual freedom.,Background Information,Under Franklin Roosevelts presidency, liberal reforms aimed to cushion the population from the effects of the depression and helped alleviate a potential civil war.,Background Information,In

7、 addition, the apparent failure of capitalism and individualism, led to growing sympathies with communism, especially because it opposed fascism. But in this period, previously silent and disenfranchised groups, notably women and African Americans, began to write.,Background Information,Rampant indu

8、strialization led many workers and those sympathetic with the plight of the laboring classes to turn to the Marxist writings of Karl Marx.,Background Information,Marxs ideas, which formed the basis of communist philosophy, advanced the notion that liberty and justice should exist for all, and not ju

9、st for those who controlled the means of production. Such ideas became popular with writers and intellectuals but were often deemed “un-American.”,Background Information,The 1920s was a period marked by rampant social and economic change. “Prohibition”forbidding the manufacture, sale, or exchange of

10、 alcoholgave rise to organized crime and the “Gangster” phenomenon of the 1920s.,Background Information,Background Information,In addition, the importance of the work of Austrian psychiatrist, Sigmund Freud, meant that Americans were reflecting more on the nature of desire, the psyche, fears, and tr

11、auma.,Background Information,With the 19th amendment, women became more politically enfranchised. Their roles in the private as well as public sphere changed, as women began to advocate equality with men. Nonetheless certain writers, including Ezra Pound and Ernest Hemingway, maintained that authors

12、hip was a strictly masculine vocation.,Background Information,Following the Great Migration out of the South, and in direct response to the industrial needs of World War I, African Americans began to take advantage of “opportunities” in the North.,Background Information,ERA OF THE GREAT MIGRATIONFam

13、ily arriving in Chicago during the period known as the Great Migration,Background Information,Despite facing racism and segregation in the North, African Americans became an important part of the cultural fabric of the nation.,Background Information,W. E. B. Dubois argued that African Americans had

14、a “double consciousness”they were aware of being American and being black.,Background Information,Women writers such as Nella Larsen also insisted that an awareness of gender made African American womens experiences different.,Background Information,In the world of business and technology, rapid adv

15、ances were made; the most notable innovation was Henry Fords development of assembly-line automobile manufacturing that made cars affordable and accessible to a wider segment of the population.,Background Information,Henry Ford more specifically, it refers to the breakdown of traditional society und

16、er the forces of modernity.,Background Information,At a formal level, works were constructed out of fragments and are notable for what they omit. Works begin arbitrarily, unity is disrupted, and shifting perspectives, voices, and tones are common. Symbols and images, rather than statements, predomin

17、ate with the effect of surprising, shocking, and challenging readers.,Background Information,Despite the level of formal disunity, modernist works desire unity. In this way, it differs from postmodernism, which does not strive to produce any form of coherence or unity.,Background Information,Because

18、 modernism was an international movement, it was seen by some to conflict with American literary traditions. But traditional Americanists, such as Hart Crane, William Carlos Williams, or William Faulkner, also used “modernist” techniques, shaping the tradition to account for the distinctiveness of t

19、he nation.,Background Information,“High” modernists, who were permanent expatriates living in Europe such as Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, H. D., and T. S. Eliot, left the United States because of its perceived hostility to high culture. However, they all maintained U.S. citizenship and viewed themsel

20、ves as “ambassadors” of American culture in Europe during the 1920s.,Background Information,Other writers rooted their works in specific regions of the United States: Willa Cather in the Midwest, John Steinbeck and Carlos Bulosan in California and Robert Frost in New England.,Background Information,

21、The South in particular gave rise to a multiplicity of voices including those of Katherine Anne Porter, Jean Toomer, and William Faulkner. John Dos Passos, Hart Crane, F. Scott Fitzgerald, e.e. cummings, and William Carlos Williams attempted to speak for the nation as a whole.,Background Information

22、,John Dos Passos,Background Information,African Americans made significant contributions to the American modernist movement.,Background Information,During the Harlem Renaissance, black Americans such as Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston became prominent and applied modernist techniques to speak

23、 of the realities of black cultural and political life.,Background Information,Langston Hughes,Background Information,Influenced by modernism, Hughes incorporated blues rhythms into his poetry and Hurston incorporated depictions of black folk life into her world.,Background Information,Largely white

24、 audiences of Harlem Renaissance art and culture became attuned to the specificities of cultural-political realities of African America.,Background Information,Women writers also contributed in vital ways to the heterogeneity of the literature during the interwar period. Authors like Edna St. Vincen

25、t Millay, Dorothy Parker, Amy Lowell, and Nella Larsen were intent on depicting the thoughts and experiences of women.,Background Information,By demanding cultural freedom for women, many of these authors began to also operate as public figures that took positions on public issues from race to labor

26、 and womens issues.,Background Information,A final, but significant, artistic development in the interwar period is in the realm of drama. After 1920, with the production of Eugene ONeills Beyond the Horizon, the United States was able to claim that it had produced a world-class playwright. Though theatre itself was not