The American Modernism (1914 - 1945)

1. The American Modernism (1914 - 1945)

2. Part One: Introduction I. The background of producing modernism • Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species (1859) radically altered the nineteenth century romantic view that nature, especially human nature, was benign. • The work of Marx, and Freud, as well as other great intellectual explorers and rebels had mounted an assault against orthodox religious faith that lasted into the twentieth century. • World War I in particular deepened doubt and reauthorized disillusionment. • Another source of disillusionment was the rapid transformation of American society that accelerated with World War I.

3. II. Modernism? Modernism is a cultural movementthat generally includes the progressive artand architecture, design, literature, music, dance, painting and other visual arts which emerged in the beginning of the 20th century , particularly in the years following World War I.

4. Modernism in literature is not easily summarized, but the key elements are experimentation, anti-realism, individualism and a stress on the intellect rather than emotive aspects. • The work of Modernist writers is characterized by showing the disenchantment, dislocation, and alienation of men in the world (a reaction to the violent upheaval known as the Modern Age.)

5. Modernism • Uncertainty, disillusionment (expatriates), fragmentation • Often omitted exposition, transitions, resolutions • Stretched boundaries, outside the box/experimentation • Stream of consciousness

6. III. The Schools of American Modernism: • Modern poetry: experiments in form (Imagism) • Prose Writing: modern realism (the Lost Generation) • Novels of Social Awareness • The Harlem Renaissance • New Criticism • The 20th Century American Drama

7. Part Two: Modern poetry: experiments in form (Imagism)

8. I. Imagism: • It is a Movement in U.S. and English poetry characterized by the use of concrete language and figures of speech, modern subject matter, metrical freedom, and avoidance of romantic or mystical themes, aiming at clarity of expression through the use of precise visual images. • Initially led by Ezra Pound, then Amy Lowell, and others. • The Imagist manifesto came out in 1912 showed three Imagist poetic principles: direct treatment of the “thing (no fuss, frill, or ornament）, exclusion of superfluous words precision and economy of expression, the rhythm of the musical phrase rather than the sequence of a metronome free verse form and music）.

9. There existed great influence of Chinese poetry on the Imagist movement. Imagists found value in Chinese poetry was because Chinese poetry is, by virtue of the ideographic and pictographic nature of the Chinese language, essentially imagistic poetry. • Also influenced by Japanese Haiku

10. II. The Major Representatives of the Modern Poetry: • Ezra Pound (1885- 1972) • T.S.Eliot (1888 - 1965) • Wallace Stevens (1879 - 1955) • William Carlos Williams (1883 - 1963) • Robert Frost (1874 - 1963) • E.E.Cummings (1894 - 1963)

11. A Chinese imagistic poetry: Autumn Evening crows perch on old trees wreathed with withered vine, Water of a stream flows by a family cottage near a tiny bridge. A lean horse walks on an ancient road in western breeze, The sun is setting in the west, The heart-broken one is at the end of the Earth. 《天净沙·秋思》 马致远 枯藤、老树、昏鸦，小桥、流水、人家， 古道、西风、瘦马，夕阳西下，断肠人在天涯。

12. “In a Station of the Metro” The apparition of these faces in the crowd; Petals on a wet, black bough. 人群中幽然浮现的一张张脸庞， 黝黑的湿树枝上的一片片花瓣。

13. About the poem: • The “Metro” is the underground railway of Paris. • The word “apparition”, with its double meaning, binds the two aspects of the observation together: • Apparition meaning “appearance”, in the sense of something which appears, or shows up; something which can be clearly observed. • Apparition meaning something which seems real but perhaps is not real; something ghostly which cannot be clearly observed.

14. The poem is an observation by the poet of the human faces seen in a Paris subway station. It looks to be a modern adoption of the Japanese haiku. • He tries to render exactly his observation of human faces seen in an underground railway station. He sees the faces, turned variously toward light and darkness, like flower petals which are half absorbed by, half resisting, the wet, dark texture of a bough. • Repeating it, you can have a colorful picture, also you can feel the beauty of music through its repetition of different vowels and consonants • Feeling of wistfulness, ambiguity; sense of touch and sight

15. Fan-Piece, For Her Imperial Lord O fan of white silk,clear as frost on the grass-blade,You also are laid aside. Ezra Pound

16. Apostrophe: directly addressing the fan • Imagery: frost on grass-blade (contrast) • Metaphor: she is the fan-piece • Theme: feeling unwanted; fleeting feelings