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The Lost American Dream: Part 2 The Lost Generation

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That is what you are. That's what you all are... All of you young people who served in the war. You are a lost generation. Gertrude Stein

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The Lost Generation Nearly 10 million soldiers died and about 21 million were wounded. U.S. deaths totaled 116,516 in WWI The generation of young people who came of age during and shortly after World War I is known as the WWI generation or the Lost Generation. Characterized by a feeling of disillusionment, many American Writers migrated to Europe (especially Paris) during WWI to WWII

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Avant-Garde French translation: Advance guard Pushes boundaries of what is accepted as the norm or status quo Experimental and innovative Promotes radical social reforms

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IMPACT America's awareness of its lack of cosmopolitanism helped establish Americas culture as it is today. As American customs became more defined, European and other countries recognized America as a distinctive culture and nation. Beyond this, the novels of the Lost Generation give insight into the American life during the 1920s

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Some Key Writers of the Lost Generation Ernest HemingwayErnest Hemingway* F. Scott FitzgeraldF. Scott Fitzgerald* John Dos Passos* E.E. CummingsE.E. Cummings* Gertrude Stein* Ford Maddox Ford Sylvia Beach Archibald MacLeish Ezra PoundEzra Pound* Sherwood Anderson John Steinback James Joyce* Zelda Fitzgerald* John Steinbeck

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Existentialism and the Lost Generation Much of modern literature, philosophy, and art portrays the world as lonely or meaningless. Existential protagonists are often lonely, anxiety ridden characters who are trying to make sense of their lives, or who are trying to retain their courage in spite of the fact that the universe cares nothing for those things we call beautiful or good.

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Modernist Writers and Inagist Poetry: lyrical expression Moved away from poetry inspired by personal imagination, culture, emotions and memories of the poet Believed poetry should make an intellectual statement about the world. Favored precise detailed imagery and clear simplistic language Experimented with syntax and structure

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E.E.Cummings Manipulates syntax and punctuation for stylistic purposes* poetry often deals with themes of love and nature, as well as the relationship of the individual to the masses and to the world.*

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I carry your heart with me (I carry it in my heart) I am never without it (Anywhere I go you go, my dear; And whatever is done by only me is your doing, My darling) I fear no fate (For you are my fate, my sweet) I want no world (For beautiful you are my world, my true) And it's you are whatever a moon has always meant And whatever a sun will always sing is you Here is the deepest secret nobody knows (Here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud And the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows Higher than soul can hope or mind can hide) And this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart I carry your heart (I carry it in my heart) --by E.E. Cummings

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T.S. Eliot The Wasteland Parallels Valley of Ashes in Gatsby A poet must take as his material his own language as it is actually spoken around himHis direct duty is to his language

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Exerpt from The Wasteland The Waste Land BY T. S. ELIOTT. S. ELIOT FOR EZRA POUND IL MIGLIOR FABBRO I. The Burial of the Dead April is the cruellest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain. Winter kept us warm, covering Earth in forgetful snow, feeding A little life with dried tubers. Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade, And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten, And drank coffee, and talked for an hour. Bin gar keine Russin, stamm aus Litauen, echt deutsch. And when we were children, staying at the arch-dukes, My cousins, he took me out on a sled, And I was frightened. He said, Marie, Marie, hold on tight. And down we went. In the mountains, there you feel free. I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.

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Ezra Pound Considered by many to be the poet responsible for defining a modernist visual in poetry. *

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THE GARDEN By Ezra Pound En robe de parade. Samain Like a skein of loose silk blown against a wall She walks by the railing of a path in Kensington Gardens, And she is dying piece-meal of a sort of emotional anemia. And round about there is a rabble Of the filthy, sturdy, unkillable infants of the very poor. They shall inherit the earth. In her is the end of breeding. Her boredom is exquisite and excessive. She would like some one to speak to her, And is almost afraid that I will commit that indiscretion

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F. Scott Fitzgerald It was an age of miracles, it was an age of art, it was an age of excess, and it was an age of satire,

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Ernest Hemingway distinctive writing style had an enormous influence on 20th-century fiction. PROSE*

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John Dos Passos wrote forty- two novels, as well as poems, essays, and plays, and created more than 400 pieces of art.

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Gertrude Stein Stream of Consciousness Art Collector and inspiration to the Avant Garde