2012-3-19 1
Chapter Ⅴ
20th Century Literature
2012-3-19 2
1,Historical background,
? The growth of mass-circulation periodicals
created a rich market place for popular writers,
? WWI stands as a great dividing line between
the 19th century and contemporary America,
? A sense of the failure of political leaders and a
belief in the futility of hope dominated,
2012-3-19 3
2,An Outline of 20th Century
American Literature
?,The Lost Generation” writers were devoid of
faith and alienated from a civilization,After the
WWI,a group of new American dramatists
emerged,
? During 1920s and 1930s,appeared,Harlem
Renaissance”,a burst of literary achievement
by Negro artists,
? After WWⅡ,a new generation of American
authors wrote in the skeptical,ironic tone,
? In the 1960s and 70s,they turned increasingly
to experimental techniques,
2012-3-19 4
3,Imagism,
? The term imagism was invented by an American poet,
Ezra Pound,who was living in London and closely
associated with a small group of friends who were the first
imagists,
? As a literary movement,imagism lasted only a few years,
but it was widely discussed,ridiculed,and parodied,and
it had an important role in the development of open form
poetry,
? The imagists were trying to create poetry that was,as it
was expressed by another of their founders,T.E,Hulme,
“a moment of discovery or awareness,created by
effective metaphor which provides the sharp,intuitive
insight that is the essence of life.”
2012-3-19 5
4,American poets in 20th
century,
? Ezra Pound
? Robert Frost
? Carl Sandburg
? T,S,Eliot
2012-3-19 6
4,1 Ezra Pound,
“In a Station of the Metro”,
? This poem by Ezra Pound is perhaps the
most famous of the imagist poems,
Pound used it as an example of what he
meant by imagism in his introduction to
the first collection of his friends’ poems,
It is a description of people in the Paris
subway on a rainy,dark night,
2012-3-19 7
4.2 Robert Frost ( 1874—1963)
? Member of a New England family,Frost was born in San
Francisco and taken at the age of ten to the New England
farm country with which his poetry is identified,
? A short period at Harvard was followed by further work,
making shoes,editing a country newspaper,teaching
school,and finally farming,
? This background of craftsmanship and husbandry had its
effect upon his poetry in more than the choice of subjects,
for he demanded that his verse be as simple and honest
as an axe or hoe,
? After a long period of farming,he moved to England
(1912—1915),where he published his first book of poems,
A Boy’s Will (1913),
2012-3-19 8
Robert Frost:,The Road Not Taken”
? Published in Mountain Interval (1916),
The poet tells how the course of his life
was determined when he came upon two
roads that diverged in a wood,Forced to
choose,he,took the one less traveled
by,/And that has made all the difference.”
2012-3-19 9
Robert Frost,
“Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”
(1923)
? 1,What kind of,promises” do you think
the speaker had in mind?
? 2,Critics have argued over whether or
not the dark woods in this poem are a
symbol of death,What would be your
answer,and how would you support it?
2012-3-19 10
4.3 Carl Sandburg:,Fog” (1916)
? One of the classic American poems from
the first years of modernist
experimentation is Call Sandburg’s,Fog.”
It compares the fog’s drift over the city to
a cat entering silently to sit for a moment
and look down at the scene,Sandburg
doesn’t use the words like or as,so we
are aware that the poem is a metaphor,
2012-3-19 11
4.4 T,S,Eliot,(1888-1965)
?,The Love Song of J,Alfred Prufrock” (1917)
? first published in Poetry (June 1915) and
collected in Prufrock and Other Observations
(1917),
? In the form of a dramatic monologue it
presents with irony and pathos the musings of
an aging young man,uncertain,uneasy,and
unable to commit himself to the love he desires
or to life at all,a figure representative of
frustrations in modern life and of the aridity of a
sterile upper-class culture,
2012-3-19 12
5,American novels in 20th century
? 5.1 F,Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940),
? He was a mot representative figure of 1920s,
the Jazz Age,
? He was mirror of the exciting age in almost
every way,
? His fictional world is the best embodiment of
the spirit of the Jazz Age,
? Gatsby’s failure magnifies to a great extent the
end of the American Dream,
2012-3-19 13
5.2 Ernest Hemingway,
? A Nobel Prize winner for literature,
? He wrote about the emptiness of
modern life,a nightmare of darkness,
blood,confusion and treachery,
2012-3-19 14
Heminway’s,Iceberg Theory”,
?,The dignity of movement of an iceberg
is due to only one-eighth of it being
above water.”
? Seeming simple and natural,
Hemingway’s style is actually polished
and tightly controlled,but highly
suggestive and connotative,
2012-3-19 15
5.3 John Steinbeck,
? The foremost novelist of the American
Depression of the 1930s,
? He showed great sympathy for the
migrant workers and the down-trodden,
? His major works,Of Mice and Men,The
Grapes of Wrath,
? He was awarded Pulitzer Prize in 1940
and,in 1962,a Nobel Prize for literature,
2012-3-19 16
5.4 William Faulkner,
? He was awarded Nobel Prize for Literature in 1950,
? His novels have an imaginary setting,the county of
Yoknapatawpha,
? Faulkner began his literary career as a poet rather than a
fiction writer,
? His verbal innovations and the labyrinthine organization of
his novels make him difficult to read,but his popularity
continues to grow,
? Today he is considered by many to be the greatest writer
of fiction that the U/S has yet produced,
2012-3-19 17
Faulkner:,A Rose for Emily”
? Questions,
? 1,How and why does Faulkner’s story depart
from straightforward chronological storytelling?
? 2,Can you reconstruct from the author’s
flashbacks a chronological sequence of events?
? 3,How essential to the story is Faulkner’s
treatment of tradition and the Old South?
Chapter Ⅴ
20th Century Literature
2012-3-19 2
1,Historical background,
? The growth of mass-circulation periodicals
created a rich market place for popular writers,
? WWI stands as a great dividing line between
the 19th century and contemporary America,
? A sense of the failure of political leaders and a
belief in the futility of hope dominated,
2012-3-19 3
2,An Outline of 20th Century
American Literature
?,The Lost Generation” writers were devoid of
faith and alienated from a civilization,After the
WWI,a group of new American dramatists
emerged,
? During 1920s and 1930s,appeared,Harlem
Renaissance”,a burst of literary achievement
by Negro artists,
? After WWⅡ,a new generation of American
authors wrote in the skeptical,ironic tone,
? In the 1960s and 70s,they turned increasingly
to experimental techniques,
2012-3-19 4
3,Imagism,
? The term imagism was invented by an American poet,
Ezra Pound,who was living in London and closely
associated with a small group of friends who were the first
imagists,
? As a literary movement,imagism lasted only a few years,
but it was widely discussed,ridiculed,and parodied,and
it had an important role in the development of open form
poetry,
? The imagists were trying to create poetry that was,as it
was expressed by another of their founders,T.E,Hulme,
“a moment of discovery or awareness,created by
effective metaphor which provides the sharp,intuitive
insight that is the essence of life.”
2012-3-19 5
4,American poets in 20th
century,
? Ezra Pound
? Robert Frost
? Carl Sandburg
? T,S,Eliot
2012-3-19 6
4,1 Ezra Pound,
“In a Station of the Metro”,
? This poem by Ezra Pound is perhaps the
most famous of the imagist poems,
Pound used it as an example of what he
meant by imagism in his introduction to
the first collection of his friends’ poems,
It is a description of people in the Paris
subway on a rainy,dark night,
2012-3-19 7
4.2 Robert Frost ( 1874—1963)
? Member of a New England family,Frost was born in San
Francisco and taken at the age of ten to the New England
farm country with which his poetry is identified,
? A short period at Harvard was followed by further work,
making shoes,editing a country newspaper,teaching
school,and finally farming,
? This background of craftsmanship and husbandry had its
effect upon his poetry in more than the choice of subjects,
for he demanded that his verse be as simple and honest
as an axe or hoe,
? After a long period of farming,he moved to England
(1912—1915),where he published his first book of poems,
A Boy’s Will (1913),
2012-3-19 8
Robert Frost:,The Road Not Taken”
? Published in Mountain Interval (1916),
The poet tells how the course of his life
was determined when he came upon two
roads that diverged in a wood,Forced to
choose,he,took the one less traveled
by,/And that has made all the difference.”
2012-3-19 9
Robert Frost,
“Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”
(1923)
? 1,What kind of,promises” do you think
the speaker had in mind?
? 2,Critics have argued over whether or
not the dark woods in this poem are a
symbol of death,What would be your
answer,and how would you support it?
2012-3-19 10
4.3 Carl Sandburg:,Fog” (1916)
? One of the classic American poems from
the first years of modernist
experimentation is Call Sandburg’s,Fog.”
It compares the fog’s drift over the city to
a cat entering silently to sit for a moment
and look down at the scene,Sandburg
doesn’t use the words like or as,so we
are aware that the poem is a metaphor,
2012-3-19 11
4.4 T,S,Eliot,(1888-1965)
?,The Love Song of J,Alfred Prufrock” (1917)
? first published in Poetry (June 1915) and
collected in Prufrock and Other Observations
(1917),
? In the form of a dramatic monologue it
presents with irony and pathos the musings of
an aging young man,uncertain,uneasy,and
unable to commit himself to the love he desires
or to life at all,a figure representative of
frustrations in modern life and of the aridity of a
sterile upper-class culture,
2012-3-19 12
5,American novels in 20th century
? 5.1 F,Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940),
? He was a mot representative figure of 1920s,
the Jazz Age,
? He was mirror of the exciting age in almost
every way,
? His fictional world is the best embodiment of
the spirit of the Jazz Age,
? Gatsby’s failure magnifies to a great extent the
end of the American Dream,
2012-3-19 13
5.2 Ernest Hemingway,
? A Nobel Prize winner for literature,
? He wrote about the emptiness of
modern life,a nightmare of darkness,
blood,confusion and treachery,
2012-3-19 14
Heminway’s,Iceberg Theory”,
?,The dignity of movement of an iceberg
is due to only one-eighth of it being
above water.”
? Seeming simple and natural,
Hemingway’s style is actually polished
and tightly controlled,but highly
suggestive and connotative,
2012-3-19 15
5.3 John Steinbeck,
? The foremost novelist of the American
Depression of the 1930s,
? He showed great sympathy for the
migrant workers and the down-trodden,
? His major works,Of Mice and Men,The
Grapes of Wrath,
? He was awarded Pulitzer Prize in 1940
and,in 1962,a Nobel Prize for literature,
2012-3-19 16
5.4 William Faulkner,
? He was awarded Nobel Prize for Literature in 1950,
? His novels have an imaginary setting,the county of
Yoknapatawpha,
? Faulkner began his literary career as a poet rather than a
fiction writer,
? His verbal innovations and the labyrinthine organization of
his novels make him difficult to read,but his popularity
continues to grow,
? Today he is considered by many to be the greatest writer
of fiction that the U/S has yet produced,
2012-3-19 17
Faulkner:,A Rose for Emily”
? Questions,
? 1,How and why does Faulkner’s story depart
from straightforward chronological storytelling?
? 2,Can you reconstruct from the author’s
flashbacks a chronological sequence of events?
? 3,How essential to the story is Faulkner’s
treatment of tradition and the Old South?
