Warm-up –Answer these Essential Questions
1. Explain the style of the
Postmodernist time period in
literature.
2. Name the genres of the
Postmodernists.
3. What was happening in the U.S.
during this period?
4. Name some works from this period.
5. Name some authors from this
period.
Time Periods of Literature
Lesson 42
Postmodernism
1946-Present
Georgia Performance Standard
• ELAALRL3: The student deepens
understanding of literary works by
relating them to their contemporary
context or historical background, as well
as to works from other time periods.
b. The student relates a literary work to
the characteristics of the literary time
period or historical setting:
– v. Postmodernism
Genre & Style of the Postmodernism Period
Historical Context of Modernism
• post World War II (WWII) prosperity
• dawn of the nuclear age & Cold War with Soviet
Union
• Korean War and Vietnam War
• civil Rights protests/riots/gains
• women’s Liberation Movement
• watergate scandal
• explosive suburban growth because of
automobiles
• media culture interprets values
• people beginning a new century and a new
millennium
Notable Writers
• Flannery O’Connor
• John Updike (b.1932)
• Robert Lowell (1917-1977)
• Theodore Roethke (1908-1963)
• Robert Penn Warren (1905-1989)
• Arthur Miller – Playwright (The
Crucible)
• Others
Rainbow of Writers
• African American – Rita Dove (Poet), Toni
Morrison, Alice Walker
• Native American – N. Scot Momaday
(Essayist), Joy Harjo,
• Asian American – Maxine Hong Kingston
(Chinese), Naoomi Shibab (Arab American)
• Latino – Martin Espada (lawyer)
• Julia Alvarez was born in NY, raised in
Dominican Republic, and came back to US at
ten years old.
These and others prove that American’s
strength lies in its diversity.
Truman Capote (1924-1984)
•Wrote short
stories, novels, and
screenplays
•Novel: In Cold
Blood (fictional novel
based on a real
event – He called it
a nonfiction novel,
though.)
•Novella: Breakfast
at Tiffany’s
J.D. Salinger (1902-1968)
• Novel: Catcher in the
Rye
• themes of teenage
confusion, angst,
sexuality, alienation,
and rebellion
• The novel's protagonist
and antihero, Holden
Caulfield, has become
an icon for teenage
rebellion.
Alex Haley (1921-1992)
• ghostwriter for
The Autobiography
of Malcolm X
(1965)
• wrote Roots and
won Pulitzer Prize
and National Book
Award for it
• There is some
controversy that
parts of Roots are
inaccurate.
A. R. Ammons (1926-2001)
• He had worked as an
elementary school
principal, a real estate
salesman, an editor, and
an executive in his
father's biological glass
company before he began
teaching at Cornell
University in 1964.
• Wrote the book-length
poem, Garbage (1993),
which won the National
Book Award and the
Library of Congress'
Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt
National Prize for Poetry
A few lines from Garbage…
garbage has to be the poem of our time because
garbage is spiritual, believable enough
to get our attention, getting in the way, piling
up, stinking, turning brooks brownish and
creamy white: what else deflects us from the
errors of our illusionary ways…
A few more lines from Garbage…
…here the driver knows
where the consummations gather, where the disposal
flows out of form, where the last translations
cast away their immutable bits and scraps,
flits of steel, shivers of bottle and tumbler,
here is the gateway to beginning, here the portal
of renewing change…
Toni Morrison
Nobel Prize for Literature 1993
Click on picture to start video segment (5:11) Toni Morrison on the Purpose
of African American Literature
Carson McCullers
• born and raised in
Columbus, Georgia
• married and moved
at 17
• hard life because
of physical
problems that
started in her 30’s
Rachel Carson
• wrote the book,
Silent Spring,
which spurred the
environmental
protection
movement
Click on black area to start video segment (1:56) Rachel Carson
Georgia Performance Standard
• ELAALRL3: The student deepens
understanding of literary works by
relating them to their contemporary
context or historical background, as well
as to works from other time periods.
b. The student relates a literary work to
the characteristics of the literary time
period or historical setting:
– v. Postmodernism
Warm-up –Answer these Essential Questions
1. Explain the style of the Postmodernist
time period in literature.
2. Name the genres of the
Postmodernists.
3. What was happening in the U.S.
during this period?
4. Name some works from this period.
5. Name some authors from this period.
1. Explain the style of the Postmodernist
time period in literature.
•mixing of fantasy with nonfiction; blurs
lines of reality for reader
•present tense
•no heroes, then later, antiheroes
•Social issues as writers align with feminist
& ethnic groups
•usually humorless
•concern with individual in isolation
•magic realism
2. Name the genres of the Postmodernists.
narratives,
essays,
poems,
short
stories,
novels
3. What was happening in the U.S. during
this period?
• Post World War II (WWII) prosperity
• Dawn of the nuclear age & Cold War with
Soviet Union
• Korean War and Vietnam War
• Civil Rights protests/riots/gains
• Women’s Liberation Movement
• Watergate scandal
• Explosive suburban growth because of
automobiles
• media culture interprets values
• People beginning a new century and a new
millennium
4. Name some works from this period.
Possibly…
• In Cold Blood
• Silent Spring
• The Crucible
• The Color Purple
• Garbage
• Roots
• The Autobiography of Malcolm X
• Catcher in the Rye
• Breakfast at Tiffany’s
5. Name some authors from this period.
• Possible answers: Carson McCullers, John
Updike, Flannery O’Connor, Truman
Capote, Scott Momaday, Barry Lopez,
Theodore Roethke, Elizabeth Bishop,
A.R. Ammons, Rita Dove, Maxine Hong
Kingston, Martin Espada, J.D. Sallinger,
Alex Haley, Rachel Carson, Flannery
O’Connor, Robert Lowell, Robert Penn
Warren, Arthur Miller, Toni Morrison,
etc.
We have studied all of these time periods below.
Which one is most appealing to you and why?
Write a paragraph with a topic sentence
supporting details, and concluding sentence.
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Native American
Colonial/Revolutionary/National
Romanticism
Transcendentalism
Realism
Naturalism
Modernism (including Harlem Renaissance)
Postmodernism