The Moderns

1914-1939
World War I (1914-1918)
Also called the Great War
Began in June 1914 when Archduke Francis Ferdinand from Austria-Hungary was
assassinated by a Serbian nationalist
First global conflict
USA joined WWI in 1917
50 million killed
Ended with the Treaty of Versailles in 1919
Political and Social Milestones
Womens Suffrage
Women won right to vote in 1920 with passing of 19th Amendment
Rise of shorter skirts and modern hairstyles
Women began keeping up with the boys partying, playing sports, producing art
Political and Social Milestones
The Great Depression (1929)
Caused by the crash of the New York Stock Exchange
Between and 1/3 of American workers were unemployed
Homeless tent cities were called Hoovervilles after President Herbert Hoover
who was reluctant to correct the economic downturn
The American Dream seemed to be lost
Political and Social Milestones
Americas voice in fiction was changing
The nation seemed to have lost its innocence after WWI
Many European writers wrote about the war but not many American ones did
The idealism of Americans turned to cynicism
Questioning of authority and tradition
Modernists called for bold experimentation and rejection of traditional themes
and styles
Preview
Three central assumptions that make up what we call the AMERICAN DREAM
America as a new Eden
America was thought of as a land of beauty, bounty, and unlimited promise
A belief in progress
Americans had come to believe in progress that life will keep getting better
and that we are always moving toward an era of greater prosperity, justice, and
joy
Triumph of the individual
Importance of the independent, self-reliant person
Everything is possible if you just trust yourself
The American Dream: Pursuit of a Promise
Emphasis on bold experimentation in style and form which reflects the
fragmentation of society
Rejection of traditional themes, subjects, forms
Sense of disillusionment and loss of faith in American dream
Rejection of sentimentality and artificiality
Rejection of ideal heroes in favor of flawed, disillusioned heroes who show
grace under pressure
Elements of Modernism
Interest in inner workings of human mind, expressed through new narrative
techniques such as stream of consciousness
Revolt against spiritual debasement of modern world
Elements of Modernism

Devastation of WWI damaged optimism for future and faith in individualism

Writers became skeptical of New England Puritan traditions
Rise of writers from South, Midwest, and West
Rise of Marxism and psychoanalysis movements
Breakdown of Beliefs and Traditions
Karl Marx believed that economics shaped all aspects of society
Capitalism had to be destroyed in order to make a classless society
Wanted all property owned communally and for everyone to receive equal benefits
and rewards
These ideals went directly against the American values of free enterprise and
capitalism
Some Americans, though, thought that Marxist ideals would provide workers with
much-needed rights
Marxism and the Challenge to Free Enterprise
Sigmund Freud Founder of psychoanalysis
Examined the workings of the unconscious mind
Called for a new understanding of sexuality and the role it plays in our
thoughts
Anxiety about free will if our actions are controlled by unconscious thoughts,
do we really have free will?
Literary result of psychoanalysis stream of consciousness
Freud and the Unconscious Mind
Abandoned chronology and attempted to imitate moment-by-moment flow of
characters perceptions and memories
James Joyce, Katherine Anne Porter, William Faulkner
Stream of Consciousness
1919 Prohibition
Constitution amended to prohibit manufacture and sale of alcohol which was
thought to be a social evil
Prohibition ushers in the age of bootleggers, speak-easies, cocktails, flappers,
jazz, and gangsters
Women played a prominent role in Jazz Age
1920 Gained right to vote
Began to have a presence in artistic and intellectual circles
The Jazz Age
Many American writers moved to Europe
F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway
Europe had no Prohibition on alcohol
Living there was cheap after WWI
Wave of expatriates (Americans living abroad) signaled that something had gone
wrong with the American dream
The Jazz Age
Most influential post-WWI writer was Ernest Hemingway
Literary style reduced extravagance of literary language to the bare bones of
the truth it had to express
Hemingway introduced new type of hero
A man of action, a warrior, a tough competitor
Followed a code of honor, courage, endurance
Had grace under pressure
Disillusioned (much like the author himself)
At the mysterious center of creation lay nothing at all
Grace Under Pressure: The New American Hero
Hemingway found the answer to crisis of faith in a belief in the self
Qualities like decency, bravery, competence, skillfulness
Importance of enjoying lifes rare good moments before these moments pass us by
Grace Under Pressure: The New American Hero

By the 1920s, British influence on poetry had diminished and American poets
began a period of experimenting with new styles
Poets began exploring art (like Picasso, who used new ways to see and represent
reality)
Poets tried to mimic this and create poems that inspired new ways of seeing and
thinking
Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, e.e. cummings
Symbolism and imagism
Modern Voices in Poetry: A Dazzling Period of Experimentation
Form of expression in which the world of appearances is violently rearranged by
artists who seek a different and more truthful version of reality
Tried to portray emotional effects objects can suggest rather than simply
describe objects
Symbolists wanted to get rid of symbols that had become dull and meaningless
through overuse (wouldnt use religious or national symbols that we are used to
ie. Eagle, cross, heart, etc.)
Symbolism: The Search for a New Reality
Stressed the need for non-rational
Imagination is more important than reason
Hoped to bring self-discovery through poems that lead the imagination to
discover truths
Similar to Romanticism in the sense that they stressed the importance of feeling
and imagination
Different in the sense that symbolists did not find spiritual renewal in nature
Nature, by this time, had been subjected to so much scientific classification
that it had lost its mystery
Symbolists saw the world as spiritually corrupt
Wanted to redefine what it meant to be human in a time of individualism and mass
culture
Symbolism: The Search for a New Reality
Believed that poetry could be made more pure by concentration on precise, clear
image
Imagery alone could carry a poems message
Concentration on raw power of image to communicate thoughts and feelings
Stressed the use of the language of common speech
Stressed the use of the exact word, not a decorative, fancy word
Image defined as something that presents an intellectual and emotional idea in
an instant
Imagism: The Exact Word
Rise of free verse poetry
Poetry without regular rhyming and metrical patterns
A New Poetic Order
While many poets went abroad, others stayed at home and defied the revolution of
modernism
These poets preferred to use plain American speech
Most influential of these was Robert Frost
Used old poetic techniques but gave them a unique New England voice
Voices of American Character
Movement begun by African American poets who wanted to focus on the contribution
of African Americans to American culture
Poetry based its rhythm on spirituals and jazz, based its lyrics on blues music,
based its diction on street talk of the ghetto
Movement was a catalyst for appreciation of black talent in American culture
The Harlem Renaissance: Voices of the African American Experience
Writers during Modernism experimented with subject matter and form
One of the richest periods for American writing

Strove to answer basic human questions

Who are we?
Where are we going?
What values should guide us on our search for identity?
What is the American dream?
The American Dream Revised