American Modernism: An Introduction

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American Modernism An Introduction  
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Images of WWI
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(No Transcript)
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I. Historical Background

• A. Period between the two world wars
  characterized by
• a. USAs traumatic coming of age
• b. Americans returned home but had lost isolated
  innocence
• ex. Soldiers from rural America could not easily
  return
• c. Technology and mechanization of work changed
  the economy and life.

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2. Post WWI Big Boom

• 1. prosperity and growth of middle class
• 2. college enrollment doubled in the 1920s

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Big Boom continued

• 3. many purchased the ultimate status symbol the
  automobile
• 4. electricity, radio, telephones, and cameras
  came into common use.

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3. Characteristics of the 20s

• A. 18th Amendment 1919
• - Prohibition and the rise of bootlegging and
  speakeasies
• B. 19th Amendment 1920
• Liberation of Women they have official voice in
  society
• C. Movies become a part of the week
• Charlie Chaplin and Clara Bow

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The Lost Generation

• Disillusioned and lost a sense of identityWhy?
• "... the greatest single fact about our modern
  American writing is our writers' absorption in
  every last detail of their American world
  together with their deep and subtle alienation
  from it." - Alfred Kazin, On Native Grounds, 1942

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II. Modern Attitude about Art

• 1. The modern artist is generally less
  appreciated but more sensitive, even more heroic,
  than the average person.
• -the painter Picasso
• -the poet T.S. Eliot
• -the writer Hemingway

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2. The artist challenges tradition and
reinvigorates it. Examples of Picasso
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III. Contradictory Elements

• 1. Democratic and elitist.
• Vast separation in wealthy and poor
• 2. Traditional and anti-tradition.
• Prohibition and conservative religious views vs.
  Economic and Artistic views of freedom

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Contradictory Elements

• 3. National jingoism and provinciality versus the
  celebration of international culture.
• 4. Puritanical and repressive elements versus
  freer expression in sexual and political matters.

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IV. Literary Achievements The Influence of
Realism

• 1. Dramatization of the plight of women.
• 2. Creation of a literature of the urban
  experience. (city life)
• 3. Continuation of the pastoral or rural spirit.
  (the farmer as hero)
• 4. Continuation of regionalism and local color.

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The Imagists

• Ezra Pound
• H. D.
• Jean Toomer
• William Carlos Williams

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The Expatriates

• Ezra Pound
• H. D.
• Ernest Hemingway
• F. Scott Fitzgerald

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Harlem Renaissance Poets

• Langston Hughes
• Countee Cullen

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VII. The Jazz Age

• An American Music
• emerges in New Orleans around the advent of the
  20th century
• blends elements from varied traditions, including
  African and African American, religious, brass
  band, and blues styles.
• Improvisational versus classic structure
• The Devils Music
• By the end of the 1920s, at least 60 communities
  across the nation enact laws prohibiting jazz in
  public dance halls.

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VII. The Jazz Age

• Jazz and Prohibition
• Prohibition brings jazz into gangster-run
  nightclubs, the venues that serve alcohol and
  hire black musicians.
• Speakeasies allow whites and blacks to mingle
  socially for the first time, and draw young
  audiences from all social classes.

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The Icons of Jazz