Three Famous Proponents of Modernism

This question was a tough assignment. Going to the timeline and looking at the characteristics of Modernism was the first logical step. However, in order to get full credit for the question you probably needed to dig a little deeper. Doing so would have helped you feel less "at sea" about these authors and their illustration of Modernist themes.

If I were matching up the themes /ideas from the American Literature Timeline with the writers, I would do it this way:

• Faulkner--regionalism and local color (about the oddities of the South after the Civil War; he is actually a Southern Gothic writer)
• Hemingway--alienation of the self (Nick is part of the Lost Generation," damaged and disillusioned by the horrors of WWI)
• Fitzgerald--the Jazz Age (he is "King" of the Jazz Age and is credited with coining the term)

Partly, my ability to match these writers and ideas is because I have read many novels and stories by all three of them. However, probably a quick look at Wikipedia woud have hinted at these match-ups--always a good idea to get some information. Writing DQ answers is hardly like writing a reasearch paper in one respect: you do not need to have prestigiousl scholarly sources for your information. General non-scholarly sources work well to give you quick insights. HOWEVER, writing DQ answers IS like a research paper in another respect: YOU MUST cite the sources where you get your information. This necessity for including a citation is important; whether you borrow an idea or quote word-for-word, YOU MUST tell author, title, and URL (or other publication information if you looked in a book...).

Now a little bit about these authors. Information such as this would have helped you think about and write about the stories we read.

William Faulkner is the most important Southern writer in the first half of the 20^th century. Faulkner equals the South with all of its idiosyncracies—the racism, the exaggerated sense of propriety, allowing even murder to go unpunished, the strong sense of family, the overbearing male authority figure. You see these characteristics clearly in “A Rose for Emily.” Faulkner was also intrigued by insanity; several of his major characters are insane. All of his work takes place in a fictional county, Yoknapatawpha County, in Mississippi; Jefferson is the county seat of that county. All the families appear and re-appear—the Griersons, the Sartorises, as well as others not in our story.

Ernest Hemingway is the most important member of the “Lost Generation.” Disillusioned by the horrific suffering he witnessed as an ambulance driver in WWI (attending the virtual class could have helped you here…), Hemingway lost his own way. Nick Adams is a somewhat auto-biographical character. Hopkins in our story is a war buddy who was killed in some battle or other. All of you picked up on how sad and disillusioned Nick is; but few made the connection to the war. Nick (and Hemingway) suffered from what today is called PTSD (post-tramatic stress disorder). Hemingway’s mantra was “grace under pressure.” When his own health failed and he could no longer live “gracefully,” he committed suicide.

Frances Scott Key Fitzgerald wrote about the Jazz Age and lived its ways to the fullest; he was the 1920s party animal. He earned a good bit of money from his writing for popular magazines, but not enough to support his extravagant lifestyle. Many of you may have read The Great Gatsby in high school. That book and the story you read both encapsulate longing for enough wealth to live without thinking about money. The Jazz-Age living broke both Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda. She had a mental breakdown and spent most of her adult life in mental institutions; he ended up with a serious alcohol addiction and broke in Hollywood trying to be a screen writer and died there of a heart attack.

We could not look at this period of the early 20^th century and not look at these writers. Their stories are more difficult to read than many of the other things on our reading list, but I wanted you to have a sense of what their work is like as you move through this course.

I also wanted you to think about the characteristics of Modernism as a philosophical and artistic movement in American culture. That experiment was moderately successful; I think most of you felt too stretched by that requirement. What I was asking you to do was to take the “definition” of Modernism and apply it to the stories you read with an overlay of similarities and differences. You all did definition papers as well as comparison/contrast papers in ENGL 1110, . . .remember?

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First image is a book cover. The hardcover book was written as a guide to the Corcoran Gallery of Art’s presentation of the groundbreaking exhibition Modernism: Designing a New World: 1914-1939, Essential Modernism brings into focus the foundation and meaning of Modernism- the defining movement of twentieth-century art, design and culture. 88 pages, 100 color Illustrations.

Second image found at http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.smvblog.com/smv_lit_society/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/386614810_47e4f521cc.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.smvblog.com/smv_lit_society/%3Fp%3D98&usg=__8HO36HzT8PS-H6X6f5FZlidPh2s=&h=400&w=500&sz=174&hl=en&start=7&sig2=i--yf9FbKouoOSIlADdhMg&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=gOV9qzVXsqh7sM:&tbnh=104&tbnw=130&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dsouthern%2Bgothic%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26sa%3DN%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26tbs%3Disch:1&ei=Bq4XTIH5GJe5nAeaqMCsCg

Third image is a magazine cover by John Held, artist associated with the Jazz Age. Found at

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://collectableivy.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/charleston1.jpg&imgrefurl=http://collectableivy.wordpress.com/2009/05/14/famous-illustrators-john-held-jr/&h=450&w=356&sz=39&tbnid=q7s46ZKomGGYmM:&tbnh=127&tbnw=100&prev=/images%3Fq%3DJOhn%2BHeld&usg=__1lyaEd770_Sg80UxJ6cibL7skSU=&sa=X&ei=wZ4XTIrhMoXonQee0_iqCg&ved=0CDIQ9QEwBA