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American Literary Modernism

American Literary Modernism. "the greatest single fact about our modern American writing is our writers' absorption in every last detail of their American world together with their deep and subtle alienation from it." - Alfred Kazin. Literary Modernism: 1915-1945. Reaction to World War I

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American Literary Modernism

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  1. American Literary Modernism "the greatest single fact about our modern American writing is our writers' absorption in every last detail of their American world together with their deep and subtle alienation from it." - Alfred Kazin

  2. Literary Modernism: 1915-1945 • Reaction to World War I • Response to a sense of social breakdown • Development of cubism and surrealism in the visual arts • International perspective on cultural matters • The Jazz Age and The Great Depression • Investigation of the excesses of the “Roaring 20s” • Consideration of class and trauma as raised by the Great Depression • View of the world as “fragmented” • The usual connective patterns are missing: morals and frameworks are compromised • Artist’s self-consciousness about questions of form and structure • Stylistic innovations, disruption of traditional syntax and form • “These fragments I have shorn against my ruin” (The Wasteland)

  3. Philosophy and Theory: A Brief Overview of the Intellectual Currents which Influenced Modernism

  4. Darwinism • Charles Darwin • Evolution • Displacement of the human position of privilege • Collapsing of boundaries between human and animal

  5. Existentialist Philosophy • Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche • Economic and psychological determinism • No divine patterns • Search for meaning • War and spiritual trauma

  6. Freudian Theory • Sigmund Freud • Psychoanalysis • Psychological determinism • Forces inside the self impact human behavior • Sexuality and repression

  7. Marxism • Karl Marx • Economic determinism • Forces outside the self impact human behavior • Class struggle • Relationship between labor and capitol

  8. Modernism as Movement

  9. Painting • Spirit of experimentation • New ways of seeing • New materials • New ideas about the function of art • Abstraction

  10. Sculpture • Addition: disparate objects and materials • Construction: involuntary sculpture • Abstract • Stylized • Minimalist

  11. Architecture • Materials and functional requirements determine the results (form follows function) • Adoption of the machine aesthetic • Rejection of ornament • Simplification of form

  12. Music • Sound-based composition: noise, factory, mechanical, speech • Extended techniques and sounds • Expansion on/abandonment of tonality

  13. Sciences • Quantum Theory • Theory of Relativity • Treatment of light and color • Treatment of energy • Treatment of time and space

  14. Themes of Modern Literature • Collectivism versus individualism • Anxiety regarding the past • Historical discontinuity • Disillusionment • Violence and alienation • Decadence and decay • Loss and despair • Breakdown of social norms and cultural sureties • Race and gender relations • Sense of place, local color

  15. Formal Aspects of Modern Literature • Formal experimentation • Free indirect discourse: a style of third-person narration which combines some of the characteristics of third-person report with first-person direct speech. Passages written using free indirect speech are often ambiguous as to whether they convey the views, feelings and thoughts of the narrator or those of the character the narrator is describing. This allows a flexible and sometimes ironic interaction of internal and external perspectives. • Stream of consciousness narration: a narrative mode which seeks to portray an individual’s point of view by giving the written equivalent of the character’s thought processes, either through loose interior monologue or in connection to action.

  16. Tensions within Modern Literature • Elitist impulse • Traditionalism • National jingoism and provinciality • Puritanical and repressive elements • Fear of technological advancement • Conservatism • Democratic impulse • Anti-traditionalism • Celebration of international culture • Free expression of sexual and political matters • Technology as liberation • Revolution

  17. The Modern Self • The chief characteristic of the self is alienation. • The “Lost Generation” (Gertrude Stein) • “Dissociation of Sensibility” (T.S. Eliot) • The “Dream Deferred” (Langston Hughes) • The modern self is often unable to act, feel, or express love • The modern self has a tormented recollection of the past

  18. American Literary Modernism: Major Authors

  19. Began her writing career as a reporter Poet and novelist Expatriate writer Major work: Nightwood(1936) Djuna Barnes

  20. Critique of materialism in early works Literature includes fragments of pop songs, news headlines, stream-of-consciousness monologues, naturalistic fragments from the lives of a horde of unrelated characters Major works: Manhattan Transfer (1925), U.S.A. (1938) John Dos Passos

  21. The most dominant literary figure between the two world wars. Influential poet and literary critic. Conceives of the poem as an object demanding a fusion and concentration of intellect, feeling, and experience. Major Works: Prufrock and Other Observations (1917), The Waste Land (1922) T.S. Eliot

  22. Southern American writer Many works center on the mythical Yoknapatawpha county Experimental techniques include stream-of-consciousness and dislocation of narrative time Focus on issues of sex, class, race relations The Sound and the Fury (1929), As I Lay Dying (1930), Absalom, Absalom! (1936) William Faulkner

  23. Focus on Jazz Age and Great Depression Examination of American materialism Exploration of the American dream Major works: The Great Gatsby (1925), Tender is the Night (1934) F. Scott Fitzgerald

  24.  Iceberg Theory of literature (one-eighth above water) Spare, tight journalistic prose style Objective, detached point of view Examination of masculinity, gender Major works: The Sun Also Rises (1926), A Farewell to Arms (1929), For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940) Ernest Hemingway

  25. Expatriate Author Coined the term “Lost Generation” Patron of authors and artists as well as artistic innovator “Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose.” Major works: Three Lives (1909), The Making of Americans (1925) Gertrude Stein

  26. Embodied the union of the artistic and the practical Employed in the insurance business Opaque poetic style, meaning is not transparent Major works: Harmonium (1923), The Man with the Blue Guitar (1937) Wallace Stevens

  27. Satirizes American society Collapse of the American dream Investigation of material culture Major works: Miss Lonelyhearts (1933), Day of the Locust (1939) Nathanael West

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