The Birth of American
Modernism
(1910-1930)
Introduction to Modernism
CA Standard: LRA 3.5 c Analyze recognized
works of American literature representing
a variety of genres and traditions.
Objectives:
1. Review American literary movements of
the 18th and 19th Centuries.
2. Define Modernism and explain its causes.
Genealogy of Ideas
Colonialism & the
Revolutionary Period
(Beginnings-1800)
Puritan Morality

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


Total Depravity
Unconditional Election
Limited Atonement
Irresistible Grace
Perseverance of the Saints
Enlightenment
 Science begins to question
religious authority (Truth
discovered through reason rather
than faith)
American Revolution
 America as the “birth of an idea”,
Alexis de Tocqueville.
 Democracy of individual freedoms
(freedom from the bourgeois or
ruling classes, and/or royalty).
Genealogy of Ideas
Romanticism &
Transcendentalism
(1800-1860)
 Birth of an American Literary
Identity separate from Europe
 A reaction to Enlightenment (Truth
through reason).
 Romantics found truth through the
beauty of nature, death.
 The principle of God (as essence)
is felt through nature.
 Transcendentalism is a reaction to
formalized religion representing a
form of spirituality.
 Transcendentalism involves the
ability to transcend physical
principles for a higher spiritual
plane.
 Transcendentalism is based on an
idea of basic human goodness
underlying all people as opposed
to Puritan Calvinism. (Emerson).
 Transcendentalism based on
Calvinism explores the darker
sides of romantic issues such as
death or human suffering (Poe).
Genealogy of Ideas
Realism and
Regionalism
(1860-1910)
 The Civil War (testing the
nationality of the Constitution)
 Romantic/Transcendental ideas
are displaced by realism
(depictions of everyday life).
 The development of regional
literature in the local vernacular
(rather than “formal” English).
 Issues of inequality become
prominent.
 The rise of industrialism.
Genealogy of Ideas
American Modernism
(1910-1945)
 WWI— “A brutal assault on the
orderly civilization of the
nineteenth century” (Lathbury,
2006, p. 7).
 WWI– Meaningless violence to
many Americans
 Mechanistic—first sight of the
technology of killing (without
seeing the face of the enemy)
 Belief in human reason shaken.
 Multiple perspectives on the
traditional:
 Picasso
 Arnold Schoenberg
 T.S. Eliot, William Faulkner,
James Joyce, & e. e. cummings
 Abandonment of convention
 The Roaring Twenties (Jazz
Rhythms . . .
 The Great Depression
 The Harlem Renaissance
“World War I . . . destroyed faith in progress,
but it did more than that—it made clear to
perceptive thinkers . . . that violence
prowled underneath man’s apparent
harmony and rationality.”
--William E. Leuchtenburg, The Perils of
Prosperity
What is American Modernism?
A cultural movement marked by cynicism
and disillusionment that was that was
influenced by historical events at the birth
of the 20th Century beginning with World
War I.
Subversion of Social
Norms/Cultural Sureties
Subversion: is rebel, overthrow,
or undermine something.
• Women were given the right
to vote in 1920.
• Hemlines raised; Margaret
Sanger introduces the idea
of birth control.
• Karl Marx’s ideas flourish; the
Bolshevik Revolution
overthrows Russia’s czarist
government and establishes
the Soviet Union.
• Writers begin to explore
these new ideas.
Theme of Alienation
Alienation: the feeling of being
turned away or rejected.
• Sense of alienation in
literature:
– The archetypal
character belongs to a
“lost generation”
(Gertrude Stein)
– The antihero suffers from
a “dissociation of
sensibility”—separation
of thought from feeling
(T. S. Eliot)
– American Dream as “a
Dream deferred”
– (Langston Hughes).
Valorization of the Antihero
• The antihero
Demonstrates the
uncertainty felt by
individuals living in this
era.
• Examples include Jay
Gatsby in The Great
Gatsby, Lt. Henry in A
Farewell to Arms
Urbanscapes
• Life in the city differs
from life on the
farm; writers began
to explore city life.
• Conflicts begin to
center on society.
Summary
Modernism can be defined as _______.
Its attitude __________________. It was a
result of ___________________.
Features of __________ include
________, _______, _________ and
____________.