Twentieth-Century---Modernism ofAmeiricanLiterature

Twentieth-Century---Modernism ofAmeiricanLiterature

American Literature

Twentieth-Century---Modernism ofAmeiricanLiterature

Part V Twentieth-Century Literature

Twentieth-Century---Modernism ofAmeiricanLiterature

The American Modernism (I) (1914 - 1945)

Twentieth-Century---Modernism ofAmeiricanLiterature

Section 1 The 1920sI. Introduction The 1920s is a flowering period of American literature. It is considered “the second renaissance” of American literature. The nicknames for this period: (1) Roaring 20s – comfort (2) Dollar Decade – rich (3) Jazz Age – Jazz music

Twentieth-Century---Modernism ofAmeiricanLiterature

II. Background 1. First World War – “a war to end all wars” (1) Economically: became rich from WWI. Economic boom: new inventions. Highly-consuming society. (2) Spiritually: dislocation, fragmentation. 2. wide-spread contempt for law (looking down upon law) 3. Freud’s theory

Twentieth-Century---Modernism ofAmeiricanLiterature

III. Features of the literature Writers: three groups (1) Participants (2) Expatriates(移居海外的人) (3) Bohemian(放浪者) (unconventional way of life) – on-lookers

Twentieth-Century---Modernism ofAmeiricanLiterature

Two areas: (1) Failure of communication of Americans (2) Failure of the American society

Twentieth-Century---Modernism ofAmeiricanLiterature

Part One: Introduction: I. The background of producing modernism1)

2)

3)

4) 5)

Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species (1859) radically altered the nineteenth century romantic view that nature, especially human nature, was benign. Herbert Spencer and the "Gospel of Wealth" or Social Darwinism: reconciled inpidualism with capitalism by suggesting that the interests of each citizen as well as the interests of the state are served by free economic expansion. The work of Marx, and Freud, as well as other great intellectual explorers and rebels had mounted an assault against orthodox religious faith that lasted into the twentieth century. World War I in particular deepened doubt and reauthorized disillusionment. Another source of disillusionment was the rapid transformation of American society that accelerated with World War I.

Twentieth-Century---Modernism ofAmeiricanLiterature

II. Modernism?1)

Modernism is a cultural movement that generally includes the progressive art and architecture, design, literature, music, dance, painting and other visual arts which emerged in the beginning of the 20th century , particularly in the years following World War I. It was a movement of artists th and designers who rebelled against late 19 century academic and historicist tradition, and embraced the new economic, social and political aspects of the emerging modern world. 2) The avant-garde movements that followedincluding Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Cubism, Futurism, Expressionism, Constructivism, 3) De Stijl(抽象画派), and Abstract Expressionismare generally defined as Modernist.

Twentieth-Century---Modernism ofAmeiricanLiterature

3)

Modernism in literature is not easily summarized, but the key elements are experimentation, anti-realism, inpidualism and a stress on the cerebral(大脑的) rather than emotive aspects. The work of Modernist writers is characterized by showing the disenchantment(醒悟、不抱幻 想), dislocation(错位), and alienation(异化) of men in the world, and by the emphasis on experimentation and formalism and objectivism which are, in most cases, a reaction to the cataclysm

( [‘kæt kliz m]灾难) known as the Modern Age. 3) Among American writers, the best-known Modernists are T.S.Eliot, Ezra Pound, F.Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, William

Twentieth-Century---Modernism ofAmeiricanLiterature

III. The Schools of American Modernism:1) 2)

Modern poetry: experiments in form (Imagism) Prose Writing: modern realism (the Lost Generation)

3) 4) 5) 6)

Novels of Social Awareness The Harlem Renaissance The Fugitives and New Criticism The 20 Century American Dramath

Twentieth-Century---Modernism ofAmeiricanLiterature

ImagismI. Background Imagism was influenced by Formalism, French symbolism, ancient Chinese poetry and Japanese literature “haiku”

Twentieth-Century---Modernism ofAmeiricanLiterature

II. Development: three stages1. 1908~1909: London, Hulme 2. 1912~1914: England -> America, Pound 3. 1914~1917: Amy Lowell

Twentieth-Century---Modernism ofAmeiricanLiterature

III. What is an “image”?An image is defined by Pound as that which presents an intellectual and emotional complex in an instant of time, “a vortex(混合) or cluster of fused ideas” “endowed with energy”. The exact word must bring the effect of the object before the reader as it had presented itself to the poet’s mind at the time of writing.

Twentieth-Century---Modernism ofAmeiricanLiterature

IV. Principles1. Direct treatment of the “thing”, whether subjective or objective; 2. To use absolutely no word that does not contribute to the presentation; 3. As regarding rhythm, to compose in the sequence of the musical phrase, not in the sequence of a metronome.

Twentieth-Century---Modernism ofAmeiricanLiterature

V. Significance1. It was a rebellion against the traditional poetics which failed to reflect the new life of the new century. 2. It offered a new way of writing which was valid not only for the Imagist poets but for modern poetry as a whole. 3. The movement was a training school in which many great poets learned their first lessons in the poetic art. 4. It is this movement that helped to open the first pages of modern English and American poetry.