The Modern Age

1910-1930

Historical, Social, and Cultural Forces

World War I

Began in 1914
Allies v. Central Powers
U.S. joined war in 1917 (Lusitania)
Allies won November 11, 1918
10 million soldiers died

Historical, Social, and Cultural Forces

Roaring Twenties

U.S. soldiers returning home

Booming economy
Jazz
Late night parties
Flappers
Prohibition
Gangsters (Al Capone)

Historical, Social, and Cultural Forces

Womens Rights

19th Amendment passed in 1920

Better job opportunities and military
opportunities

Great Migration

African Americans left the rural South for the

North.
Better jobs and living conditions
Harlem, New York was a popular place to
relocate.

Historical, Social, and Cultural Forces

Pop Culture

Automobiles (1913)
Radios (1920)
Movies (Talkies- 1927)
Baseball (Babe Ruth)

The Great Depression

Black Tuesday Stock Market Crash

By 1933 a quarter of the population was
unemployed

Modern Poetry

Characteristics
Make it new: break away from
traditional poetry
Imagist movement: Direct presentation
of images
Breaking the rules: Ignored all writing
rules

Modern Poetry

Poets

Ezra Pound
T.S. Eliot
William Carlos Williams
Amy Lowell
E.E. Cummings
Carl Sandburg
Robert Frost

The Imagists

Imagist presented a concrete tangible

image that appears frozen in time.

Imagist method is similar to photography

Imagist Principles/Manifestos
The image is the essence, the raw material, of
poetry.
Poetry should be expressed in brief, clear,
concrete language that forms precise images.
Images should convey poems meaning and
emotion.
Language should sound like simple speech.
Topics should not be high-minded or poetic.
No topic is unsuitable.

Modern Fiction
The

Modern American Short

Story
Modern writers experimented with
new ways of capturing the rich
complexity of human life and
responded to a world that was
starting over after World War I.

Modern Fiction

Important Authors
Sherwood

Anderson
Ernest Hemingway*
F. Scott Fitzgerald*
Henry James
Katherine Anne Porter*

Modern Fiction

Stream of Consciousness

A reoccurring element in modern American

fiction.

William James (brother of author Henry

James) an American psychologist coined
the phrase in 1890. He believed that
people had a constant stream of thoughts
that flow through their minds without
clear logic order.

Modern Fiction

Stream of Consciousness Story Elements

First person point of view

Lack of conventional sentence structure or
grammar
Free associations that flow through a
characters mind and link distinctly separate
events.
Interior monologue

Modern Fiction

The Lost Generation

Many writers left the United States during this

period and established new lives in Europe.
International perspective contrasted with the
regionalism that dominated literature following
the Civil War.
Themes of change, indecision, and broken
attachments dominate modern fiction.

Modern Fiction

Features of the Modern Short Story

Understatement (de-emphasis on the importance

of something or someone)
Irony (contrast between appearance and reality)
Stream of Consciousness
Antiheroes (conflicted characters engulfed by
indecision)
Everyday settings
Themes of instability and loss
Plots without clear climax or resolution

Harlem Renaissance

Represented the coming of age of the

African American culture.

Influenced by jazz music. The music was

largely improvisational/spontaneous. Jazz
inspired a an energetic social life and filled
the clubs.

Harlem Renaissance

The Neighborhood
Harlem became a main destination
during the great migration. It was a
haven for African Americans. They were
able to escape the restrictions in
Harlem.

Important Writers
Zora Neale Hurston
Claude McKay *
Robert Hughes
Langston Hughes*
Georgia Douglas
Countee Cullen *

Claude McKay
Born and educated in rural Jamaica.
Won an award for his poetry in 1912. He
used his prize money to come to the USthe land of opportunity.
He was shocked by the racisim and
violence he found in the US.
His poem If We Must Die is said to be
the spark that ignited the Harlem
Renissance.
Spent most of his life looking for ways to
counter the ignoble cruelty of racism.

Claude McKay

Langston Hughes
Born in Joplin Missouri in 1902
Traveled around the U.S. and lived in six
different cities by the time he was 12.
His writing celebrated the dignity of ordinary,
working-class African Americans.
His poetry helped many people to look past
stereotypical views of African Americans.
He is considered the poet laureate of Harlem.

Langston Hughes