collection 11,12,13 symbolism and imagism, modernism and the harlem renaissance

Collection 11: Symbolism and Imagism

Collection 12: Modernism

Collection 13: The Harlem Renaissance

Unit 5Literary Focus Essays


• In the face of industrialization, American symbolists rebel against the Romantics’ focus on nature as a source of solace.

• Imagism brings precision and concreteness to poetry in place of prettiness and decoration.

• Free verse overrides traditional poetic forms, which have set rhyme schemes and meters.

New Poetic Movements: Reactions to Tradition

• This sense was reflected in the poetry, painting, music, dance, even the new architecture of the skyscraper.

• In the early twentieth century, Americans awoke to a sense that their own national culture had come of age.

• Ironically, American poets found their new inspiration in Paris rather than their homeland.


• Learning from French symbolist poets, Americans were able to produce a new type of poetry.

• tried to portray emotional effects suggested by objects

• eliminated “dull and meaningless” symbols

• emphasized use of personal symbols to suggest ideas, emotions, and moods

• argued that imagination is more reliable than reason


Symbolism: The Search for a New Reality

Symbolism is a form of expression in which artists rearranged the world of appearances, seeking to depict a different, more truthful version of reality:

• stressed the importance of ideas and feelings.

• emphasized the independence of the individual.

Like the Romantics, symbolists

• made a great stand against mechanization.



Unlike the Romantics, the symbolists could find no solace or spiritual renewal in nature because they believed that

• science had stripped nature of its mystery

• the modern world suffered increased poverty, violence, and conflict in spite of advances in science and technology



Writers Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot used symbolist techniques as the foundation for imagism, the school of thought that flourished from 1912-1917.

• They concentrated on the power of the image to communicate feeling and thought.

• They took on the role of reformers, planning to rid poetry of prettiness, sentimentality, and artificiality.


Imagism: “The Exact Word”

• Imagists believed that poetry can be made purer by concentration on precise images alone.

The imagists issued a manifesto, or public declaration:

They proposed to use the “language of common speech.”

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Imagists believed poetry could be made purer by concentration on the precise, calling for “the exact word, not merely the decorative word.”

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3 They called for poetry to be “hard and clear, never blurred or indefinite.”

Imagism: “The Exact Word”

Ezra Pound said Walt Whitman “broke new wood” as the first American practitioner of free verse, a poetry free of rhyming and metrical patterns.

• Most Americans think of imagism as the school of free verse.

• The imagist movement was also an invitation to a new way of seeing and experiencing the world.


Walt Whitman

A New Poetic Order

Although imagism was a short-lived movement, it gave rise to some of our greatest poets.

T. S. Eliot Robert Frost


A New Poetic Order

Ask Yourself

1. Why do you think the symbolists’ focus on individualism was so appealing to American poets?

2. How did the imagists change poetry?

3. New generations often reject established ideas about poetry. Why do you think that is?

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• Sense of disillusionment and a loss of faith in the American dream

• Rejection of sentimentality and artificiality in favor of capturing reality

• Emphasis on bold experimentation in style and form, reflecting the fragmentation of society

• Interest in the individual and the inner workings of the human mind

Characteristics of Modern American Fiction


The violence of World War I and the devastation of the Great Depression severely damaged the idealism of many Americans.


Breakdown of Beliefs


• Writers responded to this period of change by breaking with literary tradition.

• They began to question the cultural, Puritan-based traditions that had once guided American life.

• People began to distrust societal institutions.

Breakdown of Beliefs


Facing Reality

• Ernest Hemingway faced the shattering realities of war.

Modernist writers believed in facing reality:

• F. Scott Fitzgerald facedthe realities behind the crumbling American Dream.

• William Faulkner faced the realities of an increasingly unfamiliar world.

In his novels and short stories, Ernest Hemingway deals frankly with the shattering realities of war.

• His characters respond to life’s ambiguities by turning to their own sense of honor and dignity.

• His characters find themselves in an unpredictable, chaotic world.


Facing Reality

F. Scott Fitzgerald captures glittering life of the Jazz Age—the booming decade between World War I and the Great Depression.

• Materialism and the pursuit of pleasure, according to Fitzgerald, were rampant.

• Novels such as The Great Gatsby showcase beautiful and wealthy characters . . . who are also unhappy.


Facing Reality

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William Faulkner used a bold new style to describe an increasingly unfamiliar world.

• Many of his books employ a stream-of-consciousness narrative technique.

• He experimented with multiple points of view, disjointed sentences, and complex sentences.


Facing Reality

Modernist writers believed in facing reality by probing the uncertainties of the modern world.


Ernest Hemingway

F. Scott Fitzgerald

William Faulkner

Bare-bones truth Dazzling style Stream of consciousness

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Ask Yourself

1. How did world events lead to disillusionment with traditional beliefs and values?

2. Explain how the work of one of the writers described above addresses the uncertainties of the modern world.

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• African American talent in music, writing, and art was introduced to mainstream America.

• Autobiographies provided firsthand accounts of the black experience.

• Dialects of African American vernacular speech enriched the English language.

• African Americans were recognized and celebrated for contributions to American culture.

Influences on American Culture


• After World War I, large numbers of African Americans of all ages and walks of life migrated to northern cities.

• Artists, singers, writers, musicians, and other professionals congregated in Harlem, New York.

Harlem Comes to Life

Harlem


Harlem Comes to Life

New York City’s Harlem neighborhood was the center of an explosion of African American poetry, prose, music, dance, drama, and art after WWI.

Mainstream America was developing a new respect for African American contributions to art and culture.


This new appreciation for black artistic talent grew with the music echoing from New Orleans, Memphis, and Chicago.

• Blues and jazz became popular music.

• An all-black Broadway show opened.


Jazz Age

• African art influences modernist painters.

The African American Voice

• Rhythm of poetry was based on spirituals and jazz; poetic lyrics based on blues and street talk.

• Harlem Renaissance artists focused on African American experiences

• Prominent poets: James Weldon Johnson, Claude McKay, Langston Hughes, and Countee Cullen Langston Hughes


The African American Voice

• Writers Claude McKay and Countee Cullen continued to write in standard English.

• Other important Harlem writers, such as Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston, drew on the African oral tradition.


• Common dialect, the blues, folk tales, spirituals, and work songs inspired their works.

African American Autobiography

• Autobiography became the preferred genre for some African American writers.

• Tradition began with slave narratives, including narratives by Olaudah Equiano, Harriet Jacobs, and Frederick Douglass.


• In the years following the Harlem Renaissance, autobiography became more and more popular.

Decline of the Harlem RenaissanceBy the early 1930s, the Great Depression had depleted the funds that supported African American writers, institutions, and publications.

But, the foundation was laid for future writers to make their feelings part of the American experience.


Ask Yourself

1. How did the Harlem Renaissance help African Americans become more accepted in American society?

2. What are some themes and characteristics of the Harlem Renaissance?

[End of Section]


The End

collection 11,12,13 symbolism and imagism, modernism and the harlem renaissance

Education

new type of poetry

new realitysymbolism

new realitylike

new realityunlike

rid poetry of prettiness

walt whitman broke new

american poets

exact wordthe imagists