1. 1910-1945

2.  New and innovative  In literature,  In Painting  In Music  And other arts

3.  Disillusionment with traditions that seemed to become no longer true or relatable

4.  Major changes in American life developed in an era filled with turbulence and trials  EXAMPLES?

5.  Onset of WWI (called the Great War or War to end all wars) “turning point in American life, marking a loss of innocence and a strong disillusionment with tradition”  Prohibition  Nineteenth Amendment  Great Migration  Immigration Act  Great Depression

6.  Fire at Triangle Shirtwaist company  Sinking of the Titanic  Influenza epidemic killed about 500,000 people in the US; 30 million worldwide  Fixing of the World Series in 1919

7.  Development of the automobile  Assembly line  Radio  Movies  Advertising  Air travel  Explosion of popular heroes: Babe Ruth Charles Lindbergh

8.  bold experimentation  wholesale rejection of traditional themes and styles.

9.  Emphasis on bold experimentation in style and form: reflected the separations of society  Rejection of traditional themes/subjects  Sense of disillusionment and loss of faith in American Dream  Rejection of the ideal of a hero as infallible in favor of a hero who is flaws and disillusioned but shows grace under pressure  Interest in the workings of the mind; expressed through new ways of telling story (stream of consciousness)

10.  Modernist literature often conveys fragmentation  abrupt shifts in perspective, voice, and tone  obscure symbols and images rather than clear statements of meaning

11.  F Scott Fitzgerald  Ernest Hemingway  John Steinbeck  T. S. Eliot (poet)  Sherwood Anderson,  Claude McKay (poet)  Katherine Anne Porter  Robert Frost (poet)  Eugene O’Neill (playwright)

12.  Order, sequence, and unity did not seem to the modernists to convey reality.  Instead, they emphasized discontinuity, discordance, and fragmentation as more representative of the modern experience.  Faced with making sense of fragments and intuiting connections left unstated, the reader of a modernist work is often said to participate in the creative work of making the poem or story, him or herself  Therefore it was not widely popular, called for more work by the reader (Norton Anthology of American Literature)

13.  Many modernists left the US to write abroad  Particularly settled in France  Called ex-patriots (ex-pats)  Continued to write about American themes  Believed European climate was more conducive to their writing