1. AMERICAN LITERATURE and CULTURAL HISTORY 2 (1912-1945) LECTURE 1 1898: Spanish-American War American Industrial Revolution (1865-1915) Modern temper Social changes New technologies

2. IMPACT OF WORLD WAR ONE U.S. is a world power Sense of civilizations being destroyed The individual feels powerless America turns inward Back to normalcy, isolationism

3. Automobile-continual movement, lack of tradition, rootlessness Immigration: 1910: NYC 5 million, 40% first generation immigrants Great African-American Migration Technological achievements, telephone, electricity

4. ARTS, CULTURE Futurism, expressionism, post-impressionism, dadaism, imagism, surrealism 1930-1962: 7 authors receive Nobel Prize Icons: skyscraper, jazz, motion picture, charleston The Lost Generation Closing of the frontier

5. SURREALISM SALVADOR DALI RENÉ MAGRITTE

6. Prohibition Women’s suffrage Marxism: critique of bourgeois society (György Lukács, Walter Benjamin, Fredric Jameson) Freudianism Id, Ego, Superego Ambiguity, repression, sex-drive, dreams, Oedipus complex,

7. Jung: animus, anima, collective unconscious, archetypes Social thought: Turner, a representative of New History, as compared to the romantic nationalist Francis Parkman, George Bancroft, William Prescott Scientific history

8. Henry Adams: The Education of Henry Adams Law of history is like law of nature, movement from order to chaos, feeling is lost, feeling must be restored, man can find unity in chaos The Virgin (unity) and the Dynamo (multiplicity) A Letter to the American Teachers of History (1910) -entropy

9. William James: Pragmatism The meaning of ideas is their experimental consequences, truth is a relation between ideas and practical consequences, the truth of an idea is its cash value Thorsten Bevlen: The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899) conspicuous consumption, conspicuous waste George Santayana: Gentle Tradition

10. THE NEW POETRY Golden Age: Whitman, Dickinson 1912: Annus Mirabilis Rise of a vital and dynamic poetry Rebellion against old school poetry, against old styles Rejection of emotionalism, subjectivity, musicality

11. POETRY A MAGAZINE OF VERSE Established in Chicago Founder of magazine, ”principal organ of new poetry” Little Magazines: Dial (1840-44) (Margaret Fuller, Ralph W. Emerson) The Little Review (1914) The Criterion (1922-1939) T. S. Eliot The Fugitive (1922) Allen Tate, John Crowe Ransom

12. America’s cultural coming of age Artists respond to the sense of social breakdown International scene: Fiction: James Joyce: Ulysses, Marcel Proust: Remembrance of Things Past, Thomas Mann: Magic Mountain Painting: Pablo Picasso, Juan Gris, Marcel Duchamp Music: Stravinsky

13. MODERNISM IN THE AMERICAN SCENE General disillusionment with the social, political, religious, or artistic aspects and foundations Modernist work is made of fragments Long work: many fragments, short work: one fragment Emphasis is on the work itself, explanations, interpretations, summaries are not provided A modernist work is a quest for coherence Emphasis on the concrete sensory image

14. Feeling of dislocation, alienation, anxiety Experimentation with style and subject matter Make it new! (Ezra Pound) Expatriate movement (Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound) Existentialism: individual has the sole responsibility for his life

15. LECTURE 2: THE NEW ENGLANDERS Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869-1935) Brought up in Maine (Tilbury Town) 2 years at Harvard 1905: Theodore Roosevelt discovers his poems, takes a sinecure at a New York customs house Influenced by Whitman, Emerson 1922: Pulitzer Prize

16. Describes small town life Miniver Cheevy Luke Havergal Richard Cory

17. ROBERT FROST (1874-1963)

18. Considered a New England poet, but born in San Francisco Plain, colloquial, vernacular Straightforward syntax, simplicity of language A good gray poet, poet laureate Image of a pastoral poet The most successful non-farming farmer in American literature

19. Appears as a meditative sage Similarity to Hemingway (gruff and stoic spirits enduring against nature) Main features of his poetry: -understated lyric style -pastoral, rustic images -philosophical style, a verse philosopher -personal brand of humanism -deceptive simplicity

20. In what way is Frost considered Modernist? Reworking of traditional lyric forms General image of modernism: radical transformation of genres, artistic styles, cubism in painting, atonality in music, functionality in architecture His relationship to Modernism is distant

21. Father was a newspaperman, drifter, drinker Father died in 1885, family moves to Lawrence, Massachussetts Frost grew up in New England, attended Harvard, Dartmouth Bought a farm, experienced constant financial difficulties Discovered by Ezra Pound

22. Main works: A Boy’s Will ( London 1913) North of Boston (London 1914) First recognized in England, than appreciated in America 4 times Pulitzer Prize winner Yet, egocentric, vindictive

23. Main features of a poem: -writes itself -begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a lovesickness, a homesickness -tantalizing vagueness Poetic tools: sonnet, iambic line, blank verse

24. Poem is a momentary stay against confusion Poem is a revelation Main themes: life, death, work, hatred, friendship, nature—ultimate realities Nature, or pastoral poetry Uneasy melancholy, nature is not romanticized Influences: Emerson, Wordsworth

25. Categorization of works: Short lyric: ”Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” ”Fire and Ice,” ”The Road not Taken ” Longer meditative lyric: ”Mending Wall,” ”After Apple Picking,” ”Birches” Verse narrative: ”Death of a Hired Man”

26. LECTURE 3: THE IMAGISTS AND THEIR FOLLOWERS What is imagism?– a cultural, literary movement in the second decade of the 20th century in the U.S. and Britain Name taken from Des Imagistes Leading figure Ezra Pound T.S. Eliot, H.D. (Hilda Doolittle) Works published in Poetry

27. MAIN PRINCIPLES OF IMAGISM Clarity of expression through the use of precise images Direct treatment of the ”thing” Using words sparingly, only those needed for the presentation ”Compose in sequence of the musical phrase, not in the sequence of the metronome”

28. MAIN OBJECTIVES OF IMAGISM Precision in description New rthythms Essence of poetry is concentration Most important task: image construction ”It’s better to produce one image of a lifetime, than to produce voluminous works” Influenced by Japanese haiku

29. IMAGE: an intellectual and emotional complex in an instant of time ”In the Station of the Metro” The apparitions of these faces in the crowd Petals on a wet, black, bough (Pound) Arcok jelenése a tömegben, Szirmok, nedves, fekete ágon (Eörsi István) http://www.magyarulbabelben.net/works/en/Pound,_ Ezra-1885/In_a_Station_of_the_Metro/hu/30562- Egy_metr%C3%B3%C3%A1llom%C3%A1son

30. EZRA POUND (1885-1972)

31. Can the poet be separated from his poetry? One of the most controversial American poets Prime minister of poetry, Commanding general of modernism Poet, translator, literary leader, editor, innovator War criminal, fascist symphathiser Part of the Lost Generation 1945-1958: Committed to mental hospital for the criminally insane

32. EZRA POUND Main figure of modernism-to make poetry is to condense Vorticism: an improved version of imagism Vortex: a concentration point, the point of maximum energy, a starting point and a transfer point of ideas

33. EZRA POUND Main works: The Cantos (1925-1972) Masterpiece of experimental modernism Unfinished, an attempt at writing a modern Divine Comedy Experimental poetic biography The author projects himself, his readings, his life into the poem Main parts: ancient, Renaissance, modern U.S. history, oriental history Condemnation of modern society

34. Ideogrammatic poem: juxtaposition of several images, ideas, characters, historical events Multilingual: Greek, Latin, French, Italian phrases Leading figures Jefferson, Confucius, Condemnation of usury Image is speech, speech is image

35. THOMAS STEARNS ELIOT (1888-1965)

36. T.S. ELIOT The other major figure of modernism (Anglo-American) 1920-1950: literary dictator of the Anglo-American literary scene 1922: The Waste Land-published in Criterion(GB), Dial (US) Continuation of the Genteel Tradition Highly educated (Harvard, Sorbonne) Paleface and Redskin? Philip Rahv (drawing room fiction v. open air poems, Henry James v. Walt Whitman) Eliot: Paleface

37. CRITICISM ”Tradition and the Individual Talent” (1919)-great poetic tradition is not simply inherited, it has to be earned, the poet is a radical agent of culture No poet has his meaning alone Ulysses, Order and Myth” (Dial, 1923) In using the myth, in manipulating a continuous parallel between contemporaneity and antiquity, Mr. Joyce is pursuing a method which others must pursue after him. They will not be imitators, any more than the scientist who uses the discoveries of an Einstein in pursuing his own, independent, further investigations. It is simply a way of controlling, of ordering, of giving a shape and a significance to the immense panorama of futility and anarchy which is contemporary history.

38. THE WASTE LAND (1922) Expression of the disillusionment of the 1920s Decay, sterility, crisis of Western culture The poet’s individual crisis is reflected in the overall cultural crisis Nervous breakdown, desire to write a long poem

39. April is the cruellest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain

40. Loss of the influence of religion (a heap of broken images) Desire for a glorious past Loneliness, isolation due to selfishness Separation of love from sex, lack of feeling, emotions

41. WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS (1883- 1963) A doctor (MD) by profession Pediatrician Family (Father: English, Mother: grew up in Puerto Rico) The Read Wheelbarrow: So much depends on a red wheelbarrow Glazed with rainwater beside the white chickens Simple language, highly controlled form, very strong visual image-Imagistic poem

42. WALLACE STEVENS (1879-1955) Lawyer and poet Use of strong images, musicality Allusions to music and painting The Man with a Blue Guitar The Emperor of Ice-Cream Sunday Morning: Death is a mother of beauty

43. LECTURE 4 THE CHICAGO RENAISSANCE

44. CARL SANDBURG (1878-1967) Son of Swedish immigrant Popular and democratic poet 1920s 1930s, one of the best known poets Main theme: people of the American democracy Studied in college, joined the army during the Spanish- American War, war correspondent, journalist, worked for the Social Democratic Party The voice of America singing, a singing bard Guitar player, popular lecturer, The bibliography of all his works would be 400 pages long

45. POETRY He is part of the Chicago Renaissance A cultural movement representing the rise of Chicago as a cultural center of the nation: Architecture: Frank Lloyd Wright, Literature: Theodore Dreiser Trying to write briefly about Carl Sandurg is like picturing the Grand Canyon in one black and one white snapshot. The only American writer who distinguished himself in poetry, history, biography, fiction, and music

46. Free verse, without rhyme Sandburg’s definitions of poetry:Poetry is a pack- sack of invisible keepsakes. Poetry is a sky dark with a wild-duck migration. Poetry is the opening and closing of a door, leaving those who look through to guess about what is seen during a moment." A latter day Walt Whitman He put America on paper: "I am the people—the mob—the crowd—the mass. Did you know that all the work of the world is done through me?"

47. MAJOR POEMS Chicago Influence of Whitman Celebrates the city Provides a catalog of Chicago Fog: imagist influences Grass: Whitman (Leaves of Grass)

48. HISTORY ABRAHAM LINCOLN, The War Years 150 000 words longer than Shakespeare’s works altogether Preparation for 30 years, wrote it for 15 years Avoiding hero worship, separating man from the myth Received a Pulitzer Prize

49. VACHEL LINDSAY (1879-1931) Traveling bard Poetry as spoken art Patriotic tones, sense of national pride Parents: religous fundamentalists Studied to be a doctor, later to be an artist, trained as an orator Walked around America, trading poems for food and shelter

50. MAIN POEMS General Booth Enters into Heaven— Whitman’s influence, the poem is about the founder of the Salvation Army The Congo: racist images, but the poet is against racism In Praise of Johnny Appleseed:folk hero wondering accross American and planting apple trees

51. EDGAR LEE MASTERS (1868-1950) Best known from his Spoon River Anthology Over 200 free verse epitaphs: the dead commenting on their lives Sex, moral decay, hypocrisy in an imaginary midwestern town Worked as a lawyer, fascinated by Lincoln

52. SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY The dead as fornicators, adulterers, prostitutes, thieves, victims of botched abortions Knowing that childbirth would kill his wife, Henry Barker impregnated her out of hatred. The only feeling Benjamin Pantier inspired in his wife was sexual disgust. Old Henry Bennett died of overexertion in the bed of his young wife

53. LECTURE 5 The Fugitive Poets The Harlem Renaissance

54. SOUTHERN CULTURE IN GENERAL Contemporary views of Southern culture: ”almost as sterile, artistically, intellectually, culturally, as the Sahara Desert” H. L. Mencken Southern literature: oxymoron C. Vann Woodward: South is isolated from mainstream of Western culture

55. SOUTHERN CULTURE IN GENERAL Defeat in the Civil War The Lost Cause Moonlight and magnolia stereotype The Last Eden Segregation Racial strife, lynching Margaret Mitchell: Gone With The Wind (1936)

56. THE FUGITIVES A literary magazine: The Fugitive (1922-25) Develops around Vanderbilt University in Nashville TN Rejection of modernity, also named Southern Agrarians 1930: I’ll Take My Stand: The South and the Agrarian Tradition Condemnation of the North,Northeast

57. THE FUGITIVES The North lost essential values: art, religion, civilization Industrialization ruined humanity with an excessively materialistic spirit South: place for leisure, reflection, return to the old values Promotion of a virtuous, agrarian life

58. THE FUGITIVES Understanding Poetry Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren-close reading, only paying attention to the poem itself Leading figures of the movement: John Crowe Ransom Allen Tate Robert Penn Warren

59. JOHN CROWE RANSOM Professor at Vanderbilt University Leading figure of New Criticism Attention focused on the work of art (poem) itself any outside influence, economic, social impact is ignored Insists on formalism, (meter, rhyme) Poem: a logical structure having a local texture Close scrutiny, close study of literary text

60. ALLEN TATE Born and raised in Kentucky, border South Needs to determine whether Southerner or American Main view: Southern agrarian life has the same beauty, culture, and intelligence as the Classic Antiquity Wrote the biography of Confederate heroes Ode to the Confederate Dead

61. ”Turn your eyes to the immoderate past, Turn to the inscrutable infantry rising Demons out of the earth they will not last. Stonewall, Stonewall, and the sunken fields of hemp, Shiloh, Antietam, Malvern Hill, Bull Run. Lost in that orient of the thick and fast You will curse the setting sun.”

62. ROBERT PENN WARREN Born in Kentucky Lost one eye in an accident Main work: All The Kings Men: describing a populist governor in the South Main character: Willie Stark—(Huey P. Long)

63. HARLEM RENAISSANCE Mid 1920s-early 1930s Great Migration Cultural significance of Africa increases Harlem: Nigger Heaven (Carl Van Vechten) Blacks appear: stereotypical exotic primitives Increased black creativity, self-pride Celebration of black art, culture Pride in music: blues, jazz, folk tradition

64. LANGSTON HUGHES ”The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain” (1926) ”We younger Negro artists who create now intend to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame. If white people are pleased, we are glad. If they are not, it doesn’t matter. We know we are beautiful. And ugly too. The tom-tom cries and the tom-tom laughs. If colored people are pleased, we are glad, If they are not, their displeasure doesn’t matter either.”

65. LANGSTON HUGHES (1902-1967) Leading figure of the Harlem Renaissance Use of black vernacular, incorporation of African-American music Influenced by Whitman and Sandburg Celebration of black culture, history Widely travelled in Europe, Caribbean, Mexico Expresses the everyday life of blacks Self-emancipated black artist

66. LANGSTON HUGHES I, too, sing America. I am the darker brother. They send me to eat in the kitchen When company comes, But I laugh, And eat well, And grow strong. Tomorrow, I’ll be at the table When company comes. Nobody’ll dare Say to me, “Eat in the kitchen,” Then. Besides, They’ll see how beautiful I am And be ashamed— I, too, am America.

67. Weary blues Droning a drowsy syncopated tune, Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon, I heard a Negro play. Down on Lenox Avenue the other night By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light He did a lazy sway... He did a lazy sway... To the tune o’ those Weary Blues. With his ebony hands on each ivory key He made that poor piano moan with melody. O Blues! Swaying to and fro on his rickety stool He played that sad raggy tune like a musical fool. Sweet Blues! Coming from a black man’s soul. O Blues! In a deep song voice with a melancholy tone I heard that Negro sing, that old piano moan— “Ain’t got nobody in all this world, Ain’t got nobody but ma self. I’s gwine to quit ma frownin’ And put ma troubles on the shelf.”

68. Harlem What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore— And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over— like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags like a heavy load. Or does it explode?

69. MOTHER TO SON Well, son, I'll tell you: Life for me ain't been no crystal stair. It's had tacks in it, And splinters, And boards torn up, And places with no carpet on the floor -- Bare. But all the time I'se been a-climbin' on, And reachin' landin's, And turnin' corners, And sometimes goin' in the dark Where there ain't been no light. So boy, don't you turn back. Don't you set down on the steps 'Cause you finds it's kinder hard. Don't you fall now -- For I'se still goin', honey, I'se still climbin', And life for me ain't been no crystal stair.

70. THE NEGRO SPEAKS OF RIVERS I've known rivers: I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins. My soul has grown deep like the rivers. I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young. I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep. I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it. I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset. I've known rivers: Ancient, dusky rivers. My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

71. Countee Cullen: Heritage Claude McKay: If We Must Die

72. LECTURE 6: LITERARY DETERMINISM Forerunners: C. Darwin: The Origin of the Species (1859), Descent of Man (1870) Humans adapt to changing environmental conditions Challenge to traditional view of man, nature, social order Environment, social, economic forces determine human fate Pessimistic form of realism: naturalism

73. Foundations of naturalism A desire to describe the human condition as is Europe: Zola, Balzac, Dostoevsky, Ibsen, Tolstoy Industrial development, historical forces tend to overwhelm humans Social Darwinism American Industrial Revolution (1865-1915) Emergence of the underdog

74. STEPHEN CRANE (1871-1900) Environment can determine human fate, nature is not hostile, but indifferent 1893: Maggie, a Girl of the Streets: city as a place of sin, prostitution, crime, danger Maggie: had no choice, victim of environment Determinism appears 1895: The Red Badge of Courage Description of the horrors of war, the underdog’s view of war

75. FRANK NORRIS (1870-1902) Representative of a more radical naturalism 1903: The Responsibilities of the Novelist: to take sides in the major social issues of his period McTeague: (1899): a social and economic decline of a dentist Wheat trilogy: the struggle of farmers against the railroad 1901: The Octopus: the production of wheat in California 1903: The Pit: Wheat on the commodity exchange in Chicago The Wolf: not completed Farmers’ struggle against the Southern Pacific Railway America as the land of broken promises

76. JACK LONDON (1876-1916) Adventurous life, self-educated, alcohol problems, suicide Exceptional physical and intellectual strength Illegitimate son of a wandering fortune teller Sailor, dock worker, canning factory worker, prospector 1909: Martin Eden: autobiographical Man against nature: ”To Build a Fire” Call of the Wild, White Fang Influences: Social Darwinism, struggle for existence concept Belief in Anglo-Saxon superiority

77. THEODORE DREISER (1871-1945) ”Dreiser is marching alone” Never won Pulitzer or Nobel Prize Greatest pioneering naturalist Created an imaginary social landscape Major themes: money, sex, and power Sympathy with the underdog

78. THEODORE DREISER (1871-1945) A literary trailblazer, breaks away from the Genteel Tradition ”Shook the moral hipocrisy of the American mind” Attacks social taboos of the Gilded Age

79. THEODORE DREISER (1871-1945) Main themes: Societal differences, divisions between haves and have nots Inability to reach the American Dream The myth of success, of ”making it” Mechanistic determinism: ”the individual does not count much in the situation (…) we are moved about like chessmen (…) we have no control” Expresses the beauty of tragedy not of life

80. THEODORE DREISER (1871-1945) Style: Awkward, long sentences Clumsy but powerful Edmund Wilson: Dreiser writes so badly that it is almost impossible to read him “The long drizzle had begun. Pedestrians had turned up collars and trousers at the bottom. Hands were hidden in the pockets of the umbrella-less - umbrellas were up. The street looked like a sea of round, black-cloth roofs, twisting, bobbing, moving. Trucks and vans were rattling in a noisy line, and everywhere men were shielding themselves as best they could.” (Sister Carrie) Detailed descriptions of social, economic aspects, inclusion of scientific data and information, explaining human relationships, love by chemism

81. THEODORE DREISER (1871-1945) Born and raised in Indiana Father: German immigrant weaver, religious fanatic Dreiser: 12th of 13 children Moves to Chicago, becomes a journalist

82. THEODORE DREISER (1871-1945) Sister Carrie (1900) Publication was suppressed for obscenity Carrie Meeber: young country girl becomes a celebrated socialite of Chicago, mistress of George Hurstwood a bar owner, businessman Hurstwood is destroyed, Carrie flourishes and prospers Carrie: prototype of self-made woman Chicago: a giant magnet, a driving dynamo, a pulsating force Author merely reports, doesn’t punish his heroine

83. “When a girl leaves her home at eighteen, she does one of two things. Either she falls into saving hands and becomes better, or she rapidly assumes the cosmopolitan standard of virtue and becomes worse”

84. THEODORE DREISER (1871-1945) An American Tragedy (1925) A master piece Based on a real case: Chester Gillette’s murder of his pregnant girlfriend, Grace Brown Failure to reach the American Dream Main character: Clyde Griffiths, a bellhop, obsessed with making it Roberta Alden: poor factory girl, pregnant with his child Clyde: not a real tragic hero, a mental and moral coward, moral indifference Uncertainty of murder, victim of circumstances, literary determinism

85. “And then Clyde... swimming heavily, gloomily and darkly to shore. And the thought that, after all, he had not really killed her. No. no. Thank God for that. He had not. And yet... had he? Or, had he not?” Book Two, Chapter XLVII, p. 565.

86. THEODORE DREISER (1871-1945) An American Tragedy (1925) Structurel of novel Childhood and early youth Young adulthood, murder Trial, execution One of the greatest novels of the 1920s.

87. THEODORE DREISER (1871-1945) Trilogy of Desire The Financier (1912) The Titan (1914) The Stoic (posthumously published in 1947) Frank Cowperwood Expression of Social Darwinism: A natural born leader, the weak is crushed by the strong, the lobster kills the squid, things live on each other

88. “Cowperwood, who saw things in the large, could scarcely endure this minutae. He was but little interested in the affairs of bygone men and women, being so intensely engaged with the living present.” “Life is made for the strong. There is no mercy in it for the weak– none...Such is the tragedy of desire.”

89. LECTURE 7: WILLIAM FAULKNER (1897- 1962) To read Faulkner is to invite a mixed and troubled pleasure A southern artist, describing the Deep South and its moral decline A great figure of international modernism 1926-1962: 19 novels, 75 short stories

90. WILLIAM FAULKNER (1897-1962) Main themes: post-Civil War south Decadence, sin of slavery, dispossession of Indians Yoknapatawpha County Continuous experimentation of style

91. WILLIAM FAULKNER (1897-1962) Born is New Albany, MI Raised in Oxford MI Comes from a family of Confederate heroes from the Civil War Original name: Falkner (famous colonel) 1918: enlists in Canadian Flying Corps 1950: Nobel Prize in literature

92. WILLIAM FAULKNER (1897-1962) YOKNAPATAWPHA COUNTY Fashioned after Oxford MI, capital: Jefferson Faulkner was influenced by Balzac: Human Comedy Faulkner: sole owner, proprietor, area: 2400 square miles, 6,298 whites, 9,313 Negroes ”my own little postage stamp of native soil” Historically interlocked stories

93. WILLIAM FAULKNER (1897-1962) Present evils are caused by past evils Past evils: slavery, racism, disposession of natives Leading families: Sartoris, Compson, Benbow, McCaslin, Sutpen A semi-historical description of the county from 1800 until the Civil War Fallen eden, condemned by sin

94. WILLIAM FAULKNER (1897-1962) Key themes: Doom Degeneration Decline Decay Decadence Disease Disintegration

95. WILLIAM FAULKNER (1897-1962) Main focus: individual families Sartoris v. Snopes Old South v. Yankee invaders Carpetbaggers, business minded opportunists Southern chivalry, romance, yet twisted chivalry and twisted romance

96. WILLIAM FAULKNER (1897-1962) Authorial rhetoric, complex style, baroque sentences Headlong narrative technique: no beginning or entry, reader is thrown into the story Limited (juvenile) point of view, last hope of the South is the children, or childlike characters (Benjy) Multiple narration, telling the same story from a different point of view Fluidity of time, blurring of past and present (Benjy of The Sound and the Fury relives the past in the present) The past coexists with the present

97. Time is a fluid condition which has no existence except in the momentary avatars of individual people. There is no such thing as was — only is. WILLIAM FAULKNER, The Paris Review, spring 1956 There is that might-have-been which is the single rock we cling to above the maelstrom of unbearable reality. WILLIAM FAULKNER, Absalom, Absalom! Time is dead as long as it is being clicked off by little wheels; only when the clock stops does time come to life. WILLIAM FAULKNER, The Sound and the Fury

98. THE SOUND AND THE FURY (1929) Multiple point of view description of the decline of the Compson clan Maurice (Benjy): 33 year old mentally challenged Two other brothers: Quentin, Jason Dilsey: black housekeeper, Mammy stereotype, function of a Greek choir criticising the family Only Dilsey has a healthy attitude and mental strength

99. THE SOUND AND THE FURY (1929) Lack of critical and commercial success, published two weeks before Black Thursday By 1940s: Faulkner’s most respected novel A story of the doom and decline of a Southern family Life is […] is a Tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing (Shakespeare, Macbeth)

100. AS I LAY DYING (1930) Stream of consciousness novel A poor white family travels for 10 day to bury the mother Comic episodes, grotesque, horror elements Main theme: death Individuals are doomed to cellular existence, solitude, their isolation can never be broken

101. ABSALOM, ABSALOM (1936) The story of the Sutpen clan Incest Fratricide Parable of King David forced to kill his son

102. SHORT FICTION A Rose for Emily A murderous spinster, kills her lover Homer Barron, sleeps with the body, necrophilia Sartoris clan v. Yankee invaders Declining morals, ”iron grey fortitude” Dry September: lynching, suspected rape, protecting Southern woman’s honor from black man Red Leaves: Chickasaw Indians kill a black slave in honor of a fallen chief

103. Mr. Faulkner, what can a person do, if after reading your works three times does not understand them: Read it for the fourth time! ”Man is potentially great, and shall not only endure, he will prevail” (Nobel Prize acceptance speech)

104. ERSKINE CALDWELL (1903-1987) Po’ white thrash- dirt farmers, share croppers Tobacco Road (1932) (grotesque, horror elements) Intellectual, physical poverty, mental degeneration God’s Little Acre (1933) : lack of hope, cycle of poverty Fiction of poverty Kneel to the Rising Sun: lynching Influence of Hemingway, simple sentence structure, laconic, emotionless style Lack of taking sides, or analyzing the depicted events

105. LECTURE 8: F. SCOTT FITZGERALD (1896-1940) Icon of the Jazz Age Literary chronicler of the Roaring 20s Member of the Lost Generation Surrounded by myths and misconceptions: only published in the 20s, he was a screen writer for Hollywood

106. F. SCOTT FITZGERALD (1896-1940) Yet, he is immediately associated with the 20s Extravagant successes, tremendous failures Tends to focus on the life of the wealthy All of his characters are considered self- portraits in disguise

107. FITZGERALD AND ZELDA

108. F. SCOTT FITZGERALD (1896-1940) Distant cousin to Francis Scott Key Catholic family background, born in St. Paul MI 1911: Newman School-Catholic boarding school Studied at Princeton Yet, perpetual outsider, looking at the life of the wealthy from outside Zelda Sayre, southern belle from Alabama

109. F. SCOTT FITZGERALD (1896-1940) 1922: The Beautiful and the Damned Zelda suffers a nervous breakdown 1925: The Great Gatsby 1934: Tender is the Night 1940: The Last Tycoon (unfinished) 1947: Zelda after repeated hospitalization dies in a fire

110. F. SCOTT FITZGERALD (1896-1940) Malcolm Cowley: all his stories described a big dance to which he had been taken […] and as if at the same time he stood outside the ballroom, a little Midwestern boy, with his nose to the glass, wondering how much the ticket cost and who paid for the music

111. F. SCOTT FITZGERALD (1896-1940) A Romantic chronicler of a struggle for the American Dream An unceasing drive for individual success, upward mobility Double authorial vision, participant in the events, yet maintains an outsider’s point of view, a sense of detachment “I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.”

112. F. SCOTT FITZGERALD (1896-1940) This Side of Paradise Autobiographical novel As a result Fitzgerald gains Zelda’s hand Hero: A young egoist, Amory Blaine As a result of the book Fitzgerald becomes the spokesman of the Jazz Age

113. F. SCOTT FITZGERALD 1896-1940 This Side of Paradise (1920) Amory Blaine, from childhood until early 20s Attends St. Regis prep school, admitted to Princeton Volunteers for World War One Returns, falls in love with Rosalind, she refuses to marry him, goes on to marry Dawson Ryder, a son of a wealthy family Goes on a drinking binge

114. F. SCOTT FITZGERALD 1896-1940 A quest novel Character study Search for understanding one self Three relationships: Rosalind, Isabel,Eleanor Once again looking in from the outside

115. F. SCOTT FITZGERALD (1896-1940) The Great Gatsby Critical acclaim, but low sales Failure of the Jazz Age Catalogue of the 20s (jazz, alcohol, parties automobile, organized crime) Failure of the American Dream Failure of America

116. F. SCOTT FITZGERALD (1896-1940) The Great Gatsby Nick Carraway: narrator, outsider, commentator, passes judgment in an indirect manner Retrospective narration

117. F. SCOTT FITZGERALD (1896-1940) The Great Gatsby, symbolism The fresh green breast of the world The green light at Daisy’s dock Valley of the Ashes- waste land, physical desert, represents the spiritual desolation of modern society T. J. Eckleburg’s billboard-eyes of God Gatsby’s car: symbol of success, mobility, yet destruction East Egg, West Egg: reversal of the westward expansion, signifies moral decline East Egg: traditional aristocracy (Buchanans), West: noveau riches (Gatsby)

118. “In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars.” Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter – to-morrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther...and one fine morning- "... I became aware of the old island here that flowered once for Dutch sailors’ eyes — a fresh, green breast of the new world."

119. F. SCOTT FITZGERALD (1896-1940) Tender is the Night Line from Keats Richard Diver, a psychiatrist falls in love with a wealthy patient Inspired by Zelda’s mental problems

120. F. SCOTT FITZGERALD 1896-1940 Tender is the Night (1934) Dick Diver, a psychologist marries Nicole, mentally unstable woman, dedicates his life to save her, eventually Nicole leaves him Set in primarily in Europe, Switzerland, French Riviera Extravagant, turbulent life Clash between European and American values

121. F. SCOTT FITZGERALD (1896-1940) Short fiction Early stage 1920s, Flappers and Philosophers (1920), Tales of the Jazz Age (1922) Middle period with an authorial crisis early to mid 1930s Late period 1936-1940

122. ”So we beat on, boats against the current, born back ceaselessly into the past”

123. F. SCOTT FITZGERALD 1896-1940 This Side of Paradise (1920) Amory Blaine, from childhood until early 20s Attends St. Regis prep school, admitted to Princeton Volunteers for World War One Returns, falls in love with Rosalind, she refuses to marry him, goes on to marry Dawson Ryder, a son of a wealthy family Goes on a drinking binge

124. LECTURE 9: ERNEST HEMINGWAY (1899-1961) Family background: Father, doctor, mother: music teacher Father: hunter, fisherman, Hemingway did not attend college Reporter to the Kansas City Star Volunteered to World War One Ambulance driver, first romance,

125. ERNEST HEMINGWAY (1899-1961) Impact of the war: ”I was always embarrassed by the words sacred, glorious, and sacrifice and the expression in vain….I had seen nothing sacred, and the things that were glorious had no glory and the sacrifices were like the stockyards at Chicago” Disillusionment, alienation from mother, father’s suicide

126. ERNEST HEMINGWAY (1899-1961) Expatriate, member of the Lost Generation “grew up to find all Gods dead, all wars fought, all faiths in man shaken...." (This Side of Paradise). Gertrude Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, Correspondent in the Spanish Civil War Contributes to war effort aganist the Nazis 1953: suffers a plane crash in Africa 1961: commits suicide

127. “Going to another country doesn’t make any difference. I’ve tried all that. You can’t get away from yourself by moving from one place to another. There’s nothing to that.” “You're an expatriate. You've lost touch with the soil. You get precious. Fake European standards have ruined you. You drink yourself to death. You become obsessed with sex. You spend all your time talking, not working. You are an expatriate, see? You hang around cafes.”

128. ERNEST HEMINGWAY (1899-1961) Standard character: Nick Adams Man against the world, man loses, ”but man is not made for defeat, a man can be destroyed, but not defeated”

129. ERNEST HEMINGWAY (1899-1961) Who is Nick Adams? A young man encountering the evil, and brutality of the world, facing danger and violence Indian Camp Jake Barnes: The Sun Also Rises (1926) Frederick Henry Farewell to Arms (1929) Robert Jordan For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940) The Old Man and the Sea (1952)

130. THE SUN ALSO RISES Fiesta (1926) Jake Barnes: seeks a new beginning, American Adam, breaking with the past Suffers from a war injury (impotence) “You’re not a bad type,’ she said. ‘It’s a shame you are sick. We get on well. What’s the matter with you, anyway?’ ‘I got hurt in the war’ I said” ”living one’s life all the way up” (9) “I wanted to live deep and suck out the marrow of life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner and reduce it to its lowest terms.” (Thoreau)

131. THE SUN ALSO RISES Jake is a foreign correspondent in Paris Love of his life: Lady Brett Ashley, unconsummated love Aimless travel, hedonistic lifestyle From Paris to Northern Spain Compulsive mobility (on foot, by taxi, by bus) Only time of relative inner peace: fishing trip on the Irati river

132. In the Basque country the land all looks very rich and green and the houses and villages look well-off and clean… the houses in the villages had red tiled roofs, and then the road turned off and commenced to climb and we were going way up close along a hillside, with a valley below and hills stretched off back toward the sea. (10.4)

133. THE SUN ALSO RISES As soon as I baited up and dropped in again I hooked another and brought him in the same way. In a little while I had six. They were all about the same size. I laid them out, side by side, all their heads pointing the same way, and looked at them. They were beautifully colored and firm and hard from the cold water. It was a hot day so I slit them all and shucked out the insides, gills and all, and tossed them over across the river. I took the trout ashore, washed them in the cold, smoothly heavy water above the dam, and then picked some ferns and packed them all in the bag, three trout on a layer of ferns, then another layer of ferns, then three more trout, and then covered them with ferns. They looked nice in the ferns, and now the bag was bulky, and I put it in the shade of the tree. (12.29)

134. We stayed five days at Burguete and had good fishing. The nights were cold and the days were hot, and there was always a breeze even in the heat of the day. It was hot enough so that it felt good to wade in a cold stream, and then the sun dried you when you came out and sat on the bank. We found a stream with a pool deep enough to swim in. In the evenings we played three-handed bridge with a man named Harris, who has walked over from Saint Jean Pied de Port and was stopping at the inn for the fishing. He was pleasant and went with us twice to the Irati River. There was no word from Robert Cohn nor from Brett and Mike. (12.48)

135. The Fiesta: “Nobody ever lives their life all the way up except bullfighters.” “Somehow it was taken for granted that an American could not have afficion. He might simulate it, or confuse it with excitement, but he could not really have it,” Pedro Romero, young bullfighter seduces Brett Jake, a constant outsider:.: “The fiesta was going on outside in the night, but I was too sleepy for it to keep me awake”

136. Message: “The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break, it kills” Main themes: disillusionment, unrequited love, hedonism, aimless travel, dealing with trauma, male friendship ”Travelling is a fool’s paradise. He who travels to be amused, or to get somewhat, which he does not carry, travels away from himself and grows old even in youth among old things. He carries ruins to ruins”

137. HEMINGWAY’S STYLE ”keeping emotions at an arm’s length” Short sentences, concrete image, economical presentation Principle of the ice-berg only 1/8 is visible Suppressed emotions, simple sentences, frequent use of ”and”, lean, plain style

138. THE CODE HERO Disillusioned, wants to find meaning in a meaningless world Honesty, physical wounds, engaged in conflicts with the world "a man who lives correctly, following the ideals of honor, courage and endurance in a world that is sometimes chaotic, often stressful, and always painful.""a man who lives correctly, following the ideals of honor, courage and endurance in a world that is sometimes chaotic, often stressful, and always painful."

139. THE CODE HERO Own set of morals, honor, courage, endurance Never shows emotions Grace under pressure Constantly proves himself to retain his manhood

140. LECTURE 10:THE SOUTHERN WOMAN WRITER Myth of the southern belle Patriarchal society Against the code of southern chivalry Destruction of the myth of the south Southern gothic

141. THE IMAGE OF THE SOUTH Self-perception: a separate, homogeneous nation Part myth, part fact Cultural variety, remnants of French culture in Louisiana, Spanish heritage in Florida Southern chivalry, code of honor. Moonlight and magnolia Last Eden Benighted South William Taylor: The Cavalier and the Yankee

142. THE IMAGE OF THE SOUTH Southerners: descendants of English aristocracy, cavaliers (code of heroism, and chivalry) ancestors: Norman barons of William the Conqueror Gay, generous, cultured, and also as weak and vacillating, the Gentleman who was a doomed Aristocrat. Yankee: descendant of Puritan roundheads, lower level, peasant stock, ancestors: Britons, Saxons Industrious, ascetic, mercenary, hyprocritical

143. THE WOMAN WRITER Sandra Gilbert, Susan Gubar The Madwoman in the Attic: angel/monster stereotype Julia Kristeva: female creativity originates from the Imaginary, a pre-Oedipal stage, pre-gender stage, women are not constrained by patriarchy Luce Irigaray: women’s writing stems from repressed sexuality Elaine Showalter: women’s creativity originates from the wild zone—independent female space Helen Cixous: Ecriture feminine: woman is always in the position of the other, writes from that position as well, woman is outside the Symbolic Order Women’s writing is like honey, milk, ocean

144. EUDORA WELTY (1909-2001) Was born in Jackson, Mississipi Father: head of an insurance company She attended Mississippi State College for Women, later Columbia University Wrote for radio, society column of a newspaper 1931: Returns to Mississippi, starts writing 1936: Death of a Traveling Salesman-first short story

145. EUDORA WELTY Importance of location, similar to Faulkner The Curtain of Green, The Golden Apples Both novels take place in an imaginary southern town: Morgana Describes physically, mentally handicapped Satire, humor,description of folk life

146. EUDORA WELTY Worked for the Work Progress Administration Photographer A white writer in Jim Crow south: ”A Worn Path” Vivid prose to create images Influence of Chekhov, Faulkner, Jane Austen “As you have seen, I am a writer who came of a sheltered life,” she told her readers. “A sheltered life can be a daring life as well. For all serious daring starts from within.”

147. EUDORA WELTY Petrified Man (1939) Southern dialect, grotesque elements Women threatened by male aggression Petrified Man, part of a freak show, hiding as a convicted rapist

148. CARSON McCULLERS (1917-1967) Born in Columbus, GA Born as Lula Carson Smith She wanted to be a concert pianist Destructive marriage (alcoholism, sexual ambivalence) 1940: The Heart is a Lonely Hunter A deaf mute providing solace to lonely and isolated people of a southern town

149. CARSON McCULLERS Representative of the Southern Gothic Grotesque themes, delusional characters Forerunners: European gothic,Poe, Hawthorne Dark humor, strange behavior of characters Commentary on social issues Violence Southern settings Outsiders Slavery and race

150. MARGARET MITCHELL Born in Atlanta Family tragedies: fiancé, mother dies, moves home to run household Marries a former bootlegger 1936: Gone With The Wind 1949: Death in an accident.

151. GONE WITH THE WIND A rich repository of southern culture, history, lifestyle Omniscient narrator (has insight into the characters thoughts, emotions, histories Setting1861-1870s Georgia, Atlanta, Tara Protagonist:.Scarlett O’Hara, Rhett Butler, Ashley Wilkes, Melanie Wilkes Themes: changing Southern culture, overcoming adversity, the importance of land

152. GONE WITH THE WIND CHANGING SOUTHERN CULTURE Antebellum: chivalry, pride,southern belle, slavery, Moonlight and Magnolia myth After 1865: freedmen, destruction of land, destruction of the myth of the Old South, fear of northerners (carpetbaggers) and southern Union sympathizers (scalawags) OVERCOMING ADVERSITY: Scarlett rebuilds Tara THE IMPORTANCE OF LAND: ”Land is the only thing in the world that amounts to anything”

153. GONE WITH THE WIND MAIN THEMES Female power and intelligence Alcohol abuse Clash of past and future Prostitution The rise of the New South: industrialization, yet Black Codes, racial tension, the rise of the KKK

154. ELLEN GLASGOW (1873-1945) Aristocratic Virginia family background Rebellion against old Southern values Barren Ground (1925) Women rebel against patriarchal code Dorinda Oakley’s search for happiness and self Betrayed by men, excludes men from her life Women’s inner strength (vein of iron) Dorinda finds consolation in restoring uncultivated farmland to fertility and in a barren marriage

155. THE SOUTHERN WOMAN WRITER Limited by myths Attempt to break away from stereotypes Importance of land Gothic elements Influence of Faulkner

156. LECTURE 11: JOHN STEINBECK (1902- 1968) Associated with the Great Depression Represents America to the world Nobel Prize(1962) Fiction: naturalistic, romantic, social-realistic, mythic Grapes of Wrath: naturalistic East of Eden: Cain and Abel myth Describes the underdog, the have nots, the misfits, paisanos,

157. JOHN STEINBECK (1902-1968) Born in Salinas, Central California Father: government official, mother: school teacher Attended Stanford University (failed to graduate) Travels around California, odd jobs (ranchhand, fruit picker, seaman, brick layer) Salinas-Monterey region: microcosm for his stories

158. JOHN STEINBECK (1902-1968) 1937: Of Mice and Men 1939: The Grapes of Wrath 1944: Cannery Row 1952: East of Eden 1962: Travels with Charlie in Search of America

159. OF MICE AND MEN Genre: novella or novelette Rural tragedy George Milton: intelligent, Lennie Small: half- witted with gigantic strength Love of furry things, animals Quest for home, companionship Search for the American Dream (buying a farm) Lennie kills a woman, George shoots him to save him from lynching

160. OF MICE AND MEN Man’s hunger for land Search for independence ”The best laid plans o’ mice an’ men gang aft agley” Pessimistic message Unreachibility of the American Dream

161. THE GRAPES OF WRATH On the one hand: praise, Pulitzer Prize The Unce Tom’s Cabin of the Depression But banned for vulgarity Background: Okies leaving the Dust Bowl Epic travel west to reach California 13 people, Jim Casy and the Joad family

162. THE GRAPES OF WRATH Ma Joad: matriarch, earth mother Tom Joad: released from prison, prone to violence when sees injustice Jim Casy: itinerant preacher Rose of Sharon: pregnant, yearning for comfortable life Noah Joad: disfigured

163. THE GRAPES OF WRATH Biblical symbolism Jim Casy (Jesus Christ), 12 apostles Exodus story The psychological impact of the Depression Social commentary Description of poverty 30 chapters 14: actual story, 16: essays, sketches

164. THE GRAPES OF WRATH Julia Ward Howe: The Battle Hymn of the Republic Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord; He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored; He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword; His truth is marching on. Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! His truth is marching on.

165. THE GRAPES OF WRATH Main biblical team : exodus of Hebrews from Egypt to Canaan: Drought, journey, sojourn in California Drought, erosion: plagues of Egypt Banks, land agents, speculators: Pharaoh and other leading Egyptians California: Canaan Joad: Judah

166. THE GRAPES OF WRATH “and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.” “Muscles aching to work, minds aching to create - this is man.” Then I'll be all aroun' in the dark. I'll be ever'where - wherever you look. Wherever they's a fight so hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Wherever they's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there. If Casy knowed, why, I'll be in the way guys yell when they're mad an' - I'll be in the way kids laugh when they're hungry an' they know supper's ready. An' when our folks eat the stuff they raise an' live in the houses they build, why, I'll be there.”

167. EAST OF EDEN Masterpiece of his late career Autobiographical elements, Salinas childhood Story of Caine and Abel Adam and Eve banished out of Paradise to East of Eden Cain murders Abel Hamilton and Trask families

168. EAST OF EDEN Struggle between good and evil Inherentness of evil, yet it can be overcome Strife within the family The constant switching of the roles of Cain and Abel

169. LECTURE 12: THE WAR NOVEL James Jones Norman Mailer Irwin Shaw

170. WORLD WAR ONE A dividing line between 19th century America and modern America US participation: expression of high calling, messianic activism, ”making the world safer for democracy” Result: disillusionment, Lost Generation Hemingway: Farewell to Arms (1919) Mostly European genre (Remarque: All quiet on the western front)

171. WORLD WAR TWO Neutrality 1937-1941 Participation 1941-1945 War novel, mostly an American genre Forerunner: Civil War novels Stephen Crane: The Red Badge of Courage (1895) WW I novels: John Dos Passos, Dalton Trumbo

172. JAMES JONES From Here to Eternity (1951) National Book Award Robert Prewitt Bugler, refuses to box, blinded a sparring partner Description of army life, living life to the fullest Takes place in peace time Suffering SOB’s ”Even the worst SOB in the world has suffered”

173. FROM HERE TO ETERNITY Army vernacular Four letter words Gentlemen-rankers out on the spree, Damned from here to Eternity, God ha' mercy on such as we, Baa! Yah! Bah!

174. FROM HERE TO ETERNITY Robert E. Lee Prewitt stubborn, insists on principles Choice: boxing for his company, or being excluded from the community of soldiers Peace time pineapple army before the attack on Pearl Harbor War is the ultimate social and ideological conflict that is expressed in the personal dimension Problem of American masculinity

175. NORMAN MAILER (1923-2007) 1923: Child of a Russian immigrant family Harvard degree in natural science 6 marriages 150 000 USD in alimony 1944-46: Served at the Pacific Turbulent,scandalous life

176. NORMAN MAILER (1923-2007)

177. NORMAN MAILER 1960: stabbed his second wife 1969: campaign for mayor of New York Main issue: secession Exhibitionist, egotism, Fights with pro boxers

178. THE MAILER NOVEL 1948: The Naked and the Dead Very heavy social critique Combination of modernism with radicalism Interested not in battle scenes but the war’s impact on the individual and society Can the American Dream survive in the chaos of war? Existential nakedness and death, only 4 people die in the novel Chaos v. order Fascism v. liberalism, radicalism

179. THE NAKED AND THE DEAD Location: Asian island of Anopopei Heroes representing all ethnicities Wilson: Texan enjoying drink and women Goldstein, Roth: Jewish Sergeant Croft: brutal, tyrannical, psychopath Gallagher: Irish, antisemitic Martinez: Mexican Clash with Lt. Hearn over leading of the platoon Gen. Cummings: tyrannical control

180. THE NAKED AND THE DEAD “A nation fights well in proportion to the amount of men and materials it has. And the other equation is that the individual soldier in that army is a more effective soldier the poorer his standard of living has been in the past.” “Yeah, fighting a war to fix something works about as good as going to a whorehouse to get rid of a clap." “If punishment is at all proportionate to the offense, then power becomes watered. The only way you generate the proper attitude of awe and obedience is through immense and disproportionate power.” "Probably. The natural role of twentieth-century man is anxiety."

181. THE NAKED AND THE DEAD Main themes: Life before and during war Victims (Hearn, Martinez) and victimizers (Cummings, Croft) Realistic depiction of men at war Influence: John Dos Passos (camera eye, full panorama of the age, multiple frames) Hemingway (writer is the consciousness of the given age, connection between private lives and significant historical events)

182. IRWIN SHAW (1913-1984) ”I cringe when critics say I'm a master of the popular novel. What's an unpopular novel?” “Writing is like a contact sport, like football. You can get hurt, but you enjoy it.” "A writer is a human being. He has to live with a sense of honor."

183. IRWIN SHAW (1913-1984)

184. The Young Lions (1948) Three soldiers Christian Diestl: Austria, Michael Whitacre: US Noah Ackerman: US

185. THE YOUNG LIONS Main themes War as senseless destruction Microcosm of the army Lives disrupted by the war Reformation of the world is impossible without sacrifice

186. JOSEPH HELLER 1923-1999 Born and raised in Brooklyn Served in US Air Force during the war Instructor at Penn State, Yale University Black humor Influenced by Jones, Mailer Catch 22: war as institutionalized chaos

187. THE WAR NOVEL Focus in not necessarily on battles War’s impact on society and individual Parallel between war and personal crises Dehumanization, army as a machine War as chaos, peace as order

188. LECTURE 13: AFRICAN AMERICAN LITERATURE Beginnings: Phyllis Wheatley, first poet No individual style: imitates existing art forms Sonnet by Pope Slave narrative Paul Lawrence Dunbar: ”Sympathy,” caged bird syndrome

189. THE VOICE OF THE BLACK FEMALE Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960) -One of the leading figures of the Harlem Renaissance A self-conscious and collective expression of culture Trained as an anthropologist, studied in Barnard College, trained by Franz Boas Returns to the South, studies black folklore

190. Main works: Jonah Gourd Wine (1934) Mules and Men (1935) Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) Black woman as a mule of the world Janie Crawford, a female bildungsroman Logan Killicks, Joe Starks, Tea Cake (Vergible Woods)

191. But I am not tragically colored… I do not belong to the sobbing school of negrohood. (”How It Feels To Be Colored Me”) I have been in Sorrow’s kitchen and licked out all the pots. Then I have stood on the peaky mountain wrapped in rainbows, with a harp and sword in my hands (Dust Tracks on a Road)

192. THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men. Now, women forget all those things they don’t want to remember, and remember everything they don’t want to forget. The dream is the truth. Then they act and do things accordingly.

193. THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD [Janie] was stretched on her back beneath the pear tree soaking in the alto chant of the visiting bees, the gold of the sun and the panting breath of the breeze when the inaudible voice of it all came to her. She saw a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom; the thousand sister-calyxes arch to meet the love embrace and the ecstatic shiver of the tree from root to tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight. So this was a marriage! She had been summoned to behold a revelation. Then Janie felt a pain remorseless sweet that left her limp and languid.

194. THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD Joe:] "Somebody got to think for women and chillun and chickens and cows. I god, they sho don’t think none theirselves.„ Janie when Joe implies she is old:] "Naw, Ah ain’t no young gal no mo’ but den Ah ain’t no old woman neither. Ah reckon Ah looks mah age too. But Ah’m uh woman every inch of me, and Ah know it. Dat’s uh whole lot more’n you kin say. You big-bellies round here and put out a lot of brag, but ‘tain’t nothin’ to it but yo’ big voice. Humph! Talkin’ ‘bout me lookin’ old! When you pull down yo’ britches, you look lak de change uh life." (7.22)

195. ALICE WALKER (1944- Womanist, The Color Purple (1982) Epistolary novel Celie’s bildungsroman, illiterate black female evolves into a successful businesswoman The triple bind of opression (race, gender, class) In Search of our Mother’s Gardens (1983)

196. RICHARD WRIGHT 1908-1960 Father abandoned the family when Richard was 5 Raised by relatives, family moved 20 times Grandmother: religious fundamentalist Extreme poverty, interrupted education

197. RICHARD WRIGHT Move to Chicago Participates in the WPA Writers’ Project (writer of guidebooks, director of Federal Negro Theater) Exposed to Marxist theory, joins Communist Party in 1932 Influenced by James T. Farrell, author of the Studs Lonigan trilogy about Irish workers

198. RICHARD WRIGHT 1945: Black Boy-autobiographical novel 1947: Moves to France Influenced by: Marxism, Post-Colonial theories Wright converted the American Negro impulse toward self-annihilation and going underground into a will to confront the world and throw the findings unashamedly into the guilty conscience of America-Ralph Ellison

199. NATIVE SON (1940) Bigger Thomas (Uncle Tom, ”Nigger”) The impact or racism on society Bigger as a product of racism Poverty, lack of education Self-hatred (Psychology of racism, being exposed to race hatred turns to hatred of the self) Alienation from family Alienation from religion Alienation from black community

200. NATIVE SON (1940) Effect of racism on whites Britten: cannot imagine that a black man can design an intricate crime Daltons: make money on blacks, keep them in poverty, yet donate to black causes Jan: good intentions, misguided results

201. NATIVE SON (1940) Blindness: Literal: Mrs. Dalton Figurative: EVERYBODY! Mother (Ma) Mr Dalton Jan Britten Mary Bessie

202. NATIVE SON (1940) Thus were the rhythms of his life: indifference and violence, periods of abstract brooding and periods of intense desire, moments of silence, moments of anger Rich white people liked Negroes better than they did poor whites Only fear and emptiness Made him conscious of every square inch of skin on this black body

203. NATIVE SON (1940) He tightened with hate He had murdered and created a new life I can’t take on myself the blame for what one hundred million people have done For the first time in his life, the white man became a human being to him Just a scared colored boy from Mississippi

204. NATIVE SON (1940) Additional themes: Madness Territory Brutality Poverty Being trapped Skin Cross (Jesus, KKK)

205. NATIVE SON (1940) Native Son: Bigger is part of America Demands a share of the American Dream His shame is America’s shame Yet a criminal, a double murderer Acts as a stereotype (brute negro) Mitigating circumstances (?) Victim or perpetrator? Hero or anti-hero? Genre: crime story, psychological novel

206. RALPH ELLISON (1914-1994) Shadow and Act The purpose of the stereotype is not so much to crush the black man, but console the white man Invisible Man (1952) Existential novel Culture as a source of identity Alienation of a southern Black living in NY Importance of Jazz Juneteenth (1999)