Warm-up –Answer these Essential Questions

1. Explain the style of the Modernist time period in literature.

2. Name the genres of the Modernists.3. What was happening in the U.S.

during this period?4. What was the purpose of the

Modernists?5. Name some works from this period.6. Name some authors from this

period.7. What was the Harlem Renaissance?

AMERICAN LITERATURE

Modernism

1914-1946

Georgia Performance Standard

• ELAALRL3: The student deepens understanding of literary works by relating them to their contemporary context or historical background, as well as to works from other time periods.

b. The student relates a literary work to the characteristics of the literary time period or historical setting: – iv. Modernism (including Harlem

Renaissance)

Genre & Style of the Modernism Period

Style Genres

novels

plays

poetry

highly experimental

as writers tried to find

a unique style

use of interior

monologue & stream of

consciousness

interior monologue: a speech by one

person in the middle of the play, story, or

poem

stream of consciousness:

a literary technique that presents the

thoughts & feelings of a character as they

occur.

Historical Context of Modernism• Writers reflected the ideas of Darwin

(survival of the fittest) and Karl Marx (how money and class structure control a nation).

• WW I (destroyed sense of optimism from past)

• Roaring 20’s• Great Depression• WWII• overwhelming technological changes of

the 20th century• rise of the youth culture• Harlem Renaissance

Modernism•Modernists experimented with a wide variety of new approaches and techniques, producing a remarkably diverse body of literature.

Modernism continued…

•Modernists omitted expositions, transitions, resolutions, and explanations that were used in traditional literature=

NON-TRADITIONAL WRITING AND FORMS

Modernism continued…

• In poetry, they abandoned traditional forms and meters in favor of free verse. They made up rhythms to suit individual poems.

• The themes of their works were usually implied, rather than directly stated, creating a sense of uncertainty and forcing readers to draw their own conclusions.

Expatriates (artists born in America but moved to other countries)

• Some writers were disillusioned ( by WWI and

went to Europe to live: Gertrude Stein, Sherwood

Anderson, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest

Hemingway, Ezra Pound, and T.S. Eliot

Stream of Consciousness

• Writers began using this technique to re-create the natural flow of a character’s thoughts.

DONE FIRST BY BIERCE IN “AN OCCURRENCE @ OWL CREEK

BRIDGE” BUT COPIED BY MANY MODERN WRITERS

Poets• E.E. Cummings used new

techniques in his poetry: wordplay, unique typography, and special punctuation.

• William Carlos Williams used informal, conversational speech in his poetry; also known for minimalist and imagist poems

Nobel Prize for Literature• The first American to win this prize in

1930 was Sinclair Lewis. He wrote Main Street, Babbitt, and Arrowsmith.

• The playwright Eugene O’Neill, won the prize in 1936 for his plays.

• In 1938, Pearl S. Buck won. She wrote about China where she had lived as a child. The Good Earth is considered her best work.

• Other winners: T.S. Eliot (1948), William Faulkner (1949), Ernest Hemingway, and John Steinbeck (Of Mice and Men and The Grapes of Wrath)

F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Great Gatsby andThis Side of

Paradise

(both stories depict life in the roaring

1920’s)F. Scott Fitzgerald 1896 - 1940

•William Carlos Williams (also a physician) used informal, conversational speech in his poetry. •His epic poem is “Paterson” named for a New Jersey city. It is on the next 3 slides.

Paterson lies in the valley under the Passaic Fallsits spent waters forming the outline of his back. Helies on his right side, head near the thunderof the waters filling his dreams! Eternally asleep,his dreams walk about the city where he persistsincognito. Butterflies settle on his stone ear.Immortal he neither moves nor rouses and is seldomseen, though he breathes and the subtleties of his machinationsdrawing their substance from the noise of the pouring riveranimate a thousand automations. Who because theyneither know their sources nor the sills of theirdisappointments walk outside their bodies aimlessly for the most part,locked and forgot in their desires-unroused.

—Say it, no ideas but in things— nothing but the blank faces of the houses and cylindrical trees bent, forked by preconception and accident— split, furrowed, creased, mottled, stained— secret—into the body of the light!

From above, higher than the spires, highereven than the office towers, from oozy fieldsabandoned to gray beds of dead grass,black sumac, withered weed-stalks,mud and thickets cluttered with dead leaves-the river comes pouring in above the cityand crashes from the edge of the gorgein a recoil of spray and rainbow mists-

(What common language to unravel? . . .combed into straight lines from that rafter of a rock's lip.)

A man like a city and a woman like a flower—who are in love. Two women. Three women.Innumerable women, each like a flower.

Butonly one man—like a city.

Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961)•Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (1953)•Nobel Prize in Literature

(1954)

•He wrote The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms, among others.

•Much of his best writing focuses on WWI and its aftermath.

John Steinbeck (1902-1968)

• Won Nobel prize for Literature

• Two works are: Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men

Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951)

• In 1930, he was the first American to win the Nobel prize for literature.

• Three of his works are Main Street, Babbitt, and Arrowsmith.

T. S. Eliot (1888-1965)• In 1938, he won the

Nobel prize for literature.

• He was an expatriate and went to Europe in 1914. He lived in England until he died.

• His poem, ”The Waste Land” is considered by some to be the most important poem of the century.

First few lines of “The Waste Land”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.

The Harlem Renaissance

• This movement started around 1921 and continued into the 1930’s.

• It was a rebirth of art, music and literature from Harlem, New York.

• The video on the next slide will explain the Harlem Renaissance.

Click in the area below to start the video (6:40)

Georgia Performance Standard

• ELAALRL3: The student deepens understanding of literary works by relating them to their contemporary context or historical background, as well as to works from other time periods.

b. The student relates a literary work to the characteristics of the literary time period or historical setting: – iv. Modernism (including Harlem

Renaissance)

Answer these Essential Questions

1. Explain the style of the Modernist time period in literature.

2. Name the genres of the Modernists.3. What was happening in the U.S.

during this period?4. What was the purpose of the

Modernists?5. Name some works from this period.6. Name some authors from this

period.7. What was the Harlem Renaissance?

1. Explain the style of the Modernist time period in literature.

•highly experimental as writers tried to find a unique style

•use of interior monologue & stream of consciousness

2. Name the genres of the Modernists.

NovelsPlaysPoetry

3. What was happening in the U.S. during the Modernists time period of literature?

• WW I• Roaring 20’s• Great Depression• WWII• technological changes of the 20th century• rise of the youth culture• Harlem Renaissance

4. What was the purpose of the Modernists?

to capture the essence of modern life in both the form and content of their work

5. Name some works from this period.

The Grapes of Wrath, The Great Gatsby, The Sound and the Fury, The Good Earth, Of Mice and Men, etc…

6. Name some authors from this period.

Possible answers: Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, T.S. Eliot, E.E. Cummings, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sinclair Lewis, William Carlos Williams,

7. What was the Harlem Renaissance?

A rebirth of art, music, and literature that happened in Harlem, New York