American Modernism

1915-1946

The Modern Age

Major Historical Events• World War I - America becomes a “World Power”

• 1914– Germany advance stalled into Europe

– Turned into trench warfare

– “Modern” machine guns introduced

• 1915 – Germans sank the Lusitania (a British Passenger ship– 1200 people died (128 Americans)

– Opinions began to shift to Allies

• 1917– Germany declared unrestricted submarine warfare

– America joined Allies – very cheerful stuff (short hair, showing ankles, doughboys, etc…)

• 1918– Nov. 1918 Treaty of Versailles ended WWI

• 1919 – Prohibition

– Liquor became illegal = bootlegging, speakeasies, gang warfare

• 1920(21) – huge economic boom

– Roaring Twenties – Flappers, jazz, movies (Charlie Chaplin), dancing – the Charleston & the Jitterbug

• 1929 – Stock Market Crash

• 1932 – 12 million w/o jobs (25% of the workforce)

– FDR elected president on New Deal plan (also elected 1936 & 1940) only Pres. to serve 3 terms

• 1939 – German invasion of Poland sparks WWII

– America stayed out even when France fell in 1940

• 1941 (Dec 7th) Japan attacked Pearl Harbor

– US declared war on Axis Powers (Germany, Italy, Japan)

• 1945 – Allies Defeat German/Italy (Dropped two atomic bombs on Japan)

– Women in the work force

– Men returned from war – baby boomers

Modernism is Born• People are looking for new answers and ideas –

old values and ideas brought WWI

• Sought to capture essence of modern life -fragmented & unorganized

• Every age considers itself modern

• Our modern age is must less rigid in its rejection of previous schools/modes of thought

• We are less about WHAT we think and more about HOW we think

• We acknowledge that “knowledge and understanding are never definitive”

• Focus on literature is its CONTEXT rather than its form– Things are not defined by the “formula” they fit, but

rather by the content they contain

– How lit/art is viewed &interpreted rather than what mold it fits into

• Acknowledges “reality and truth” but only in terms of individual/subjective experiences

• highlighted shifting, changing forms of “reality” –early art had been a product of skill and craft

• Is a mish-mash of all earlier literary movements

• People are no longer isolated and the world became a much smaller place

• Technology, gender roles, relationships, and education began to define reality based on new definitions as opposed to previous and standard schools of thought

• Expatriates (exiles as they called themselves)

– WWI disenchanted many people (became the Lost Generation) – lived in Europe after WWI – some returned to the US, some didn’t

– Fitzgerald & Hemmingway are the most famous

– Saw very little in civilization to praise or even accept as tolerable

• Between WWI & WWII

– New psychological theories

– Stream-of-consciousness technique (thoughts, memories, & insights all run together)

– Poetry began to use word play, shapes, etc…

• Harlem Renaissance

– Black writers mostly from the South

• Langston Hughes & Zora Neale Hurston for example

– Harlem became a hub for black writers, musicians, artists, etc…

Theories, Movements, & “isms”• Imagism – anti-romanticism

– Offered hard, clear, expression, concrete images, and everyday language

– Patterned after the classics (Roman, Greek, Chinese classics and Japanese poetry)

• Positivism– Scientific method could define everything including human society

• Like Sheldon in The Big Bang Theory – Schrödinger's Cat

• Darwinism– Evolution and Natural selection

• Marxism– Economic needs dictate ALL aspects of society

– Capital vs labor

– Materialism defined human history

• Psychoanalysis– Freudian idea that sexual desire and gender roles define everything we do

as human beings