Literature 5A: American Literature, 1917 to the present
Week 1: Modernism in Art and Literature
Learning goals:
- Have a working sense of what modernism in art and literature is
- Can apply knowledge of modernism to their reading of modernist poetry (i.e. can point
out modernist elements in a poem)
- Can illustrate, with reference to and close analysis of examples, why the poems
discussed are modernist
Literary modernism, what makes art modernist?
Break with traditional ways of writing, which means that guiding structures and
principles that helped define consciousness are no longer present.
Darker picture of ‘a culture in disarray’.
Non-chronological, fragmented, poetic forms.
Individualism instead of the collective, experimentation, absurdity, symbolism.
Rejection of Enlightenment thinking.
Art was to be included in everyday life and accessible for everybody.
Victory of the U.S. in WWI led to the beginning of American art as distinct and
autonomous from European taste.
Reflection of American life in the 20th century -> quickly industrializing world and
hastened pace of life. This utopian thinking ended with the Great Depression.
E.E. Cummings
‘In Just-’ (1923)
Modernist, because it is in a non-traditional form. It does not follow traditional rules but it is a
scrabbled text. The effect is that the style is original and inventive. It causes the reader to
emphasize almost every word.
‘next to of course god america i’ (1926)
The theme is patriotism of the U.S. The speaker would probably be a public figure in a
position of power. The speaker speaks the truth, but realizes the truth is not benefiting the
common feeling as it should be in their eyes. Cummings’ opinion is presumably a feeling of
Week 1: Modernism in Art and Literature
Learning goals:
- Have a working sense of what modernism in art and literature is
- Can apply knowledge of modernism to their reading of modernist poetry (i.e. can point
out modernist elements in a poem)
- Can illustrate, with reference to and close analysis of examples, why the poems
discussed are modernist
Literary modernism, what makes art modernist?
Break with traditional ways of writing, which means that guiding structures and
principles that helped define consciousness are no longer present.
Darker picture of ‘a culture in disarray’.
Non-chronological, fragmented, poetic forms.
Individualism instead of the collective, experimentation, absurdity, symbolism.
Rejection of Enlightenment thinking.
Art was to be included in everyday life and accessible for everybody.
Victory of the U.S. in WWI led to the beginning of American art as distinct and
autonomous from European taste.
Reflection of American life in the 20th century -> quickly industrializing world and
hastened pace of life. This utopian thinking ended with the Great Depression.
E.E. Cummings
‘In Just-’ (1923)
Modernist, because it is in a non-traditional form. It does not follow traditional rules but it is a
scrabbled text. The effect is that the style is original and inventive. It causes the reader to
emphasize almost every word.
‘next to of course god america i’ (1926)
The theme is patriotism of the U.S. The speaker would probably be a public figure in a
position of power. The speaker speaks the truth, but realizes the truth is not benefiting the
common feeling as it should be in their eyes. Cummings’ opinion is presumably a feeling of
