Modernism (1914-1945)
Intro
Modernism is defined as the artistic rendering of the experience of modernity. The Modernist era began with World War I and ended after World War II was over. World War I was the final severance between the pre-modern and modern world. It separated the medieval and post-medieval worlds.
Modernist views were completely free of optimism. In the midst of World War I, the Great Depression, prohibition, and the beginning of another World War, there seemed to be no reason to have hope in the world. As writers, such as e. e. Cummings, Ernest Hemingway, and John Dos Passos, were coming back from the war, they began to write stories that reflected the horrors of war. Hopelessness also came with the economic boom during the 1920s. Many people were becoming wealthy and started depending on their wealth for happiness. However, people during this time quickly realized that money and materials could not make them completely content with their lives. F. Scott Fitzgerald accurately conveys this theme in his widely known novel The Great Gatsby. Also, Modernism was a reader's response era. Depending on the reader, a piece of writing could have multiple different meanings. This concept moved away from what the author was originally intending and focuses more about what the audience interprets the message of the story to be. There was no absolute truth. Modernism was an extremely depressing literary era.
With Modernism came an important historical mark for African American literature called the Harlem Renaissance. This was the artistic movement of African Americans, specifically in the New York neighborhood of Harlem. This movement gave the black community a voice in America giving them a chance to voice their desires concerning the discrimination that was occurring in America. Artists such as Countee Cullen and Langston Hughes were key figures during this time and helped to boost the Civil Rights movement in the early 1900s.
Modernist views were completely free of optimism. In the midst of World War I, the Great Depression, prohibition, and the beginning of another World War, there seemed to be no reason to have hope in the world. As writers, such as e. e. Cummings, Ernest Hemingway, and John Dos Passos, were coming back from the war, they began to write stories that reflected the horrors of war. Hopelessness also came with the economic boom during the 1920s. Many people were becoming wealthy and started depending on their wealth for happiness. However, people during this time quickly realized that money and materials could not make them completely content with their lives. F. Scott Fitzgerald accurately conveys this theme in his widely known novel The Great Gatsby. Also, Modernism was a reader's response era. Depending on the reader, a piece of writing could have multiple different meanings. This concept moved away from what the author was originally intending and focuses more about what the audience interprets the message of the story to be. There was no absolute truth. Modernism was an extremely depressing literary era.
With Modernism came an important historical mark for African American literature called the Harlem Renaissance. This was the artistic movement of African Americans, specifically in the New York neighborhood of Harlem. This movement gave the black community a voice in America giving them a chance to voice their desires concerning the discrimination that was occurring in America. Artists such as Countee Cullen and Langston Hughes were key figures during this time and helped to boost the Civil Rights movement in the early 1900s.
Ernest Hemingway
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Ernest Hemingway was a famous American novelist. He is considered to be one of the greatest authors of the 20th century. He is well known for his writings A Farewell to Arms and Old Man and the Sea, which won the 1953 Pulitzer Prize. Some of his other novels include The Sun Also Rises and For Whom the Bell Tolls.
Hemingway was born on July 21 of 1899 in Cicero, Illinois. He was the second out of six children to Clarence and Grace Hemingway. As a child, he spent a great amount of his early years at his family’s cabin in Michigan. Here he became a sort of outdoorsman, finding a love for sports like hunting and fishing and learning to appreciate the outdoors. In his high school years, Hemingway was a mediocre athlete, participating in football, swimming, and water basketball. Among his other extracurriculars, he enjoyed working on his school newspaper, called the Trapeze, where he mostly wrote sports articles. Immediately after graduating, Hemingway took a position at the Kansas City Star as a journalist. This job helped him gain the literary experience and knowledge that would shape his writing style and fiction in the years to come.
Around the time of Hemingway’s graduation, World War I was raging in the United States. Hemingway tried to enlist in the army when he became eighteen, but was turned away because of his poor vision. However, he was determined to help out the war effort somehow, so he signed up to be an ambulance driver in the Red Cross organization. He was accepted as a volunteer, left his job as a journalist, and sailed to Europe to begin his new work. First, Hemingway went to Paris, but was shortly moved to Milan after he had received his orders. Only a few weeks after arriving, he was severely injured by fragments from an Austrian mortar shell that had landed only a few feet away from him. It is believed that although he had over two-hundred pieces of shrapnel in his leg, he still managed to carry a wounded soldier to a first aid station. For this, he received the Italian Silver Medal for Valor. This event along with his stay at a hospital in Milan and his relationship he had with his nurse there greatly inspired his novel, A Farewell to Arms.
Upon returning from Milan, Hemingway went home to Chicago to live with his parents. While there, he took another journalism job at the Toronto Star. He also met Hadley Richardson who would soon become his first wife. After marrying Richardson, he took his new wife and moved to Paris where he became a key part in what is known as the “Lost Generation.” He met other Lost Generation writers like Gertrude Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, and more. While in Paris, he attended a festival that inspired his novel The Sun Also Rises that talks about the postwar disillusionment of his generation. This is considered his greatest work. After this novel’s publication, he divorced his due to an affair he was having with another woman. He would divorce and remarry three more times before his death.
In 1954, Hemingway was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Even though Hemingway’s writing career had reached this kind of peak, he was still recovering from his injuries from war and was suffering from great depression. After writing A Moveable Feast, a memoir about his time in Paris, he retired in his work and moved to Idaho. There on July 2, 1961, he committed suicide in his home. His writing style has influenced many writers even today and he has left great pieces of work as his legacy.
Hemingway was born on July 21 of 1899 in Cicero, Illinois. He was the second out of six children to Clarence and Grace Hemingway. As a child, he spent a great amount of his early years at his family’s cabin in Michigan. Here he became a sort of outdoorsman, finding a love for sports like hunting and fishing and learning to appreciate the outdoors. In his high school years, Hemingway was a mediocre athlete, participating in football, swimming, and water basketball. Among his other extracurriculars, he enjoyed working on his school newspaper, called the Trapeze, where he mostly wrote sports articles. Immediately after graduating, Hemingway took a position at the Kansas City Star as a journalist. This job helped him gain the literary experience and knowledge that would shape his writing style and fiction in the years to come.
Around the time of Hemingway’s graduation, World War I was raging in the United States. Hemingway tried to enlist in the army when he became eighteen, but was turned away because of his poor vision. However, he was determined to help out the war effort somehow, so he signed up to be an ambulance driver in the Red Cross organization. He was accepted as a volunteer, left his job as a journalist, and sailed to Europe to begin his new work. First, Hemingway went to Paris, but was shortly moved to Milan after he had received his orders. Only a few weeks after arriving, he was severely injured by fragments from an Austrian mortar shell that had landed only a few feet away from him. It is believed that although he had over two-hundred pieces of shrapnel in his leg, he still managed to carry a wounded soldier to a first aid station. For this, he received the Italian Silver Medal for Valor. This event along with his stay at a hospital in Milan and his relationship he had with his nurse there greatly inspired his novel, A Farewell to Arms.
Upon returning from Milan, Hemingway went home to Chicago to live with his parents. While there, he took another journalism job at the Toronto Star. He also met Hadley Richardson who would soon become his first wife. After marrying Richardson, he took his new wife and moved to Paris where he became a key part in what is known as the “Lost Generation.” He met other Lost Generation writers like Gertrude Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, and more. While in Paris, he attended a festival that inspired his novel The Sun Also Rises that talks about the postwar disillusionment of his generation. This is considered his greatest work. After this novel’s publication, he divorced his due to an affair he was having with another woman. He would divorce and remarry three more times before his death.
In 1954, Hemingway was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Even though Hemingway’s writing career had reached this kind of peak, he was still recovering from his injuries from war and was suffering from great depression. After writing A Moveable Feast, a memoir about his time in Paris, he retired in his work and moved to Idaho. There on July 2, 1961, he committed suicide in his home. His writing style has influenced many writers even today and he has left great pieces of work as his legacy.
Literary Themes
Literary themes during this time focused mainly on hardship, hopelessness, disillusionment, and fragmentation. This time period was filled with disillusionment concerning the American Dream and the reason for true happiness. In the midst of the Jazz age and the Booming Twenties, Americans began to believe that the more they possessed, the happier they would be. This concept ended up not being true. This caused all hope to be lost among the American population, because if the wealthiest person could not find happiness, then why should anyone try in the first place? Also, the growing wealth in America caused the decline of regular morals. People became reckless and careless, believing that their wealth could justify their actions. Wealth fragmented the views of reality.
Timeline
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Key Authors
T.S. Eliot- The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, The Waste Land, Four Quartets, Murder in the Cathedral, The Cocktail Party, The Family Reunion, The Confidential Clerk, The Elder Statesman
F. Scott Fitzgerald- Winter Dreams, The Great Gatsby, This Side of Paradise, Tender is the Night, The Beautiful and the Damned, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Love of the Last Tycoon, Tales of the Jazz Age
Ernest Hemingway- In Another Country, The Old Man and the Sea, A Farewell to Arms, The Sun Also Rises, For Whom the Bell Tolls, A Moveable Feast, To Have and Not to Have
Ezra Pound- The Cantos, Make it New, Cathay, The Spirit of Romance
E. E. Cummings- "A Total Stranger One Black Day", "I Carry Your Heart With Me," "I Shall Imagine Life," "Love is More Thicker Than Forget," "Silence," "Humanity I Love You"
William Carlos Williams- " The Red Wheelbarrow," "This is Just to Say," A Sort of A Song," Danse Russe," "Dawn," "Complete Destruction"
John Dos Passos- Manhattan Transfer, The 42nd Parallel, The Big Money, District of Columbia,
Hilda Doolittle- Heat, "Sea Rose," "The Mysteries Remain," "Helen," "Pear Tree," "Oread," "Sheltered Garden"
John Steinbeck- The Grapes of Wrath, The Turtle, Tortilla Flat
James Thurber- The Night the Ghost Got In, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, Many Moons, The 13 Clocks, The Thurber Carnival, My Life and Hard Times, The Wonderful O, My World and Welcome to It, The Years with Ross
Carl Sandburg- Chicago, Grass, Fog, Arithmetic, At a Window, Autumn Movement, A Father to His Son
Robert Frost- Birches, The Road Not Taken, Stopping By the Woods on a Snowy Evening, Fire and Ice, Nothing Gold Can Stay, Acquainted with the Night, A Late Walk, A Question
Countee Cullen- Incident, A Brown Girl Dead, The Wise, Fruit of the Flower, Heritage, For a Poet, From the Dark Tower
Langston Hughes- The Negro Speaks of Rivers, Dreams, as I Grew Older, Mother to Son, I Too, April Rain Song, Cross, Let America Be America Again.
F. Scott Fitzgerald- Winter Dreams, The Great Gatsby, This Side of Paradise, Tender is the Night, The Beautiful and the Damned, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Love of the Last Tycoon, Tales of the Jazz Age
Ernest Hemingway- In Another Country, The Old Man and the Sea, A Farewell to Arms, The Sun Also Rises, For Whom the Bell Tolls, A Moveable Feast, To Have and Not to Have
Ezra Pound- The Cantos, Make it New, Cathay, The Spirit of Romance
E. E. Cummings- "A Total Stranger One Black Day", "I Carry Your Heart With Me," "I Shall Imagine Life," "Love is More Thicker Than Forget," "Silence," "Humanity I Love You"
William Carlos Williams- " The Red Wheelbarrow," "This is Just to Say," A Sort of A Song," Danse Russe," "Dawn," "Complete Destruction"
John Dos Passos- Manhattan Transfer, The 42nd Parallel, The Big Money, District of Columbia,
Hilda Doolittle- Heat, "Sea Rose," "The Mysteries Remain," "Helen," "Pear Tree," "Oread," "Sheltered Garden"
John Steinbeck- The Grapes of Wrath, The Turtle, Tortilla Flat
James Thurber- The Night the Ghost Got In, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, Many Moons, The 13 Clocks, The Thurber Carnival, My Life and Hard Times, The Wonderful O, My World and Welcome to It, The Years with Ross
Carl Sandburg- Chicago, Grass, Fog, Arithmetic, At a Window, Autumn Movement, A Father to His Son
Robert Frost- Birches, The Road Not Taken, Stopping By the Woods on a Snowy Evening, Fire and Ice, Nothing Gold Can Stay, Acquainted with the Night, A Late Walk, A Question
Countee Cullen- Incident, A Brown Girl Dead, The Wise, Fruit of the Flower, Heritage, For a Poet, From the Dark Tower
Langston Hughes- The Negro Speaks of Rivers, Dreams, as I Grew Older, Mother to Son, I Too, April Rain Song, Cross, Let America Be America Again.