Modern Era1910-1945

New and innovativeIn literature, In PaintingIn MusicAnd other arts

The Modernist movement was

Disillusionment with traditions that seemed to become no longer true or relatable

Caused by

Major changes in American life developed in an era filled with turbulence and trials

EXAMPLES?

What influenced it

Onset of WWI (called the Great War or War to end all wars) “turning point in American life, marking a loss of innocence and a strong disillusionment with tradition”

Prohibition Nineteenth Amendment Great Migration Immigration Act Great Depression

Historical influences

Fire at Triangle Shirtwaist company Sinking of the Titanic Influenza epidemic killed about 500,000

people in the US; 30 million worldwide Fixing of the World Series in 1919

Social influences

Development of the automobile Assembly line Radio Movies Advertising Air travel Explosion of popular heroes: Babe Ruth

Charles Lindbergh

Cultural changes

bold experimentation wholesale rejection of traditional themes and styles.

Result?

Emphasis on bold experimentation in style and form: reflected the separations of society

Rejection of traditional themes/subjects Sense of disillusionment and loss of faith in

American Dream Rejection of the ideal of a hero as infallible in

favor of a hero who is flaws and disillusioned but shows grace under pressure

Interest in the workings of the mind; expressed through new ways of telling story (stream of consciousness)

Elements of modernism

Modernist literature often conveys fragmentation

abrupt shifts in perspective, voice, and tone obscure symbols and images rather than

clear statements of meaning

What does it look like?

F Scott Fitzgerald Ernest Hemingway John Steinbeck T. S. Eliot (poet) Sherwood Anderson, Claude McKay (poet) Katherine Anne Porter Robert Frost (poet) Eugene O’Neill (playwright)

Who are the modernists?Novelists, short story writers, poets, playwrights

Order, sequence, and unity did not seem to the modernists to convey reality.

Instead, they emphasized discontinuity, discordance, and fragmentation as more representative of the modern experience.

Faced with making sense of fragments and intuiting connections left unstated, the reader of a modernist work is often said to participate in the creative work of making the poem or story, him or herself

Therefore it was not widely popular, called for more work by the reader (Norton Anthology of American Literature)

Disorderly conduct

Many modernists left the US to write abroad Particularly settled in France Called ex-patriots (ex-pats) Continued to write about American themes Believed European climate was more

conducive to their writing

Au Revoir, USA