1. Modern Era 1910-1945

2. The Modernist movement was • New and innovative • In literature, • In Painting • In Music • And other arts

3. Caused by • Disillusionment with traditions that seemed to become no longer true or relatable

4. What influenced it • Major changes in American life developed in an era filled with turbulence and trials • EXAMPLES?

5. Historical influences • Onset of WWI (called the Great War or War to end all wars) “turning point in American life, marking a loss of innocence and a strong disillusionment with tradition” • Prohibition • Nineteenth Amendment • Great Migration • Immigration Act • Great Depression

6. Social influences • Fire at Triangle Shirtwaist company • Sinking of the Titanic • Influenza epidemic killed about 500,000 people in the US; 30 million worldwide • Fixing of the World Series in 1919

7. Cultural changes • Development of the automobile • Assembly line • Radio • Movies • Advertising • Air travel • Explosion of popular heroes: Babe Ruth Charles Lindbergh

8. Result? • bold experimentation • wholesale rejection of traditional themes and styles.

9. Elements of modernism • Emphasis on bold experimentation in style and form: reflected the separations of society • Rejection of traditional themes/subjects • Sense of disillusionment and loss of faith in American Dream • Rejection of the ideal of a hero as infallible in favor of a hero who is flaws and disillusioned but shows grace under pressure • Interest in the workings of the mind; expressed through new ways of telling story (stream of consciousness)

10. What does it look like? • Modernist literature often conveys fragmentation • abrupt shifts in perspective, voice, and tone • obscure symbols and images rather than clear statements of meaning

11. Who are the modernists?Novelists, short story writers, poets, playwrights • F Scott Fitzgerald • Ernest Hemingway • John Steinbeck • T. S. Eliot (poet) • Sherwood Anderson, • Claude McKay (poet) • Katherine Anne Porter • Robert Frost (poet) • Eugene O’Neill (playwright)

12. Disorderly conduct • Order, sequence, and unity did not seem to the modernists to convey reality. • Instead, they emphasized discontinuity, discordance, and fragmentation as more representative of the modern experience. • Faced with making sense of fragments and intuiting connections left unstated, the reader of a modernist work is often said to participate in the creative work of making the poem or story, him or herself • Therefore it was not widely popular, called for more work by the reader (Norton Anthology of American Literature)

13. Au Revoir, USA • Many modernists left the US to write abroad • Particularly settled in France • Called ex-patriots (ex-pats) • Continued to write about American themes • Believed European climate was more conducive to their writing