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

Unit 5
Literary Focus Essays

Collection 11: Symbolism and Imagism
Collection 12: Modernism
Collection 13: The Harlem Renaissance


New Poetic Movements: Reactions to Tradition
• 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.


• In the early twentieth century, Americans awoke
to a sense that their own national culture had
come of age.
• This sense was reflected in the
poetry, painting, music, dance,
even the new architecture of
the skyscraper.
• 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.

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:
• 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

Like the Romantics, symbolists

• stressed the importance of ideas
and feelings.

• emphasized the
independence of the
individual.

• 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

Imagism: “The Exact Word”
Writers Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot used symbolist
techniques as the foundation for imagism, the
school of thought that flourished from 1912-1917.
• Imagists believed that poetry can be made
purer by concentration on precise
images alone.
• They took on the role of reformers,
planning to rid poetry of prettiness,
sentimentality, and artificiality.
• They concentrated on the power of the image
to communicate feeling and thought.

Imagism: “The Exact Word”
The imagists issued a manifesto, or public
declaration:

1 They proposed to use the “language of common
speech.”
Imagists believed poetry could be made purer
2 by concentration on the precise, calling for “the
exact word, not merely the decorative word.”

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

A New Poetic Order
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


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?

[End of Section]


Characteristics of Modern American Fiction
• 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

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

Breakdown of Beliefs
• People began to distrust
societal institutions.
• They began to question
the cultural, Puritan-based
traditions that had once
guided American life.
• Writers responded to this
period of change by
breaking with literary
tradition.

Facing Reality
Modernist writers believed in
facing reality:
• Ernest Hemingway faced
the shattering realities of war.
• F. Scott Fitzgerald faced
the realities behind the
crumbling American Dream.
• William Faulkner faced the
realities of an increasingly
unfamiliar world.

Facing Reality
In his novels and short stories, Ernest
Hemingway deals frankly with the shattering
realities of war.
• His characters find
themselves in an
unpredictable, chaotic world.
• His characters respond to life’s
ambiguities by turning to their
own sense of honor and dignity.

Facing Reality
F. Scott Fitzgerald captures glittering life of the
Jazz Age—the booming decade between World
War I and the Great Depression.
• Novels such as
The Great Gatsby showcase
beautiful and wealthy

The Granger Collection, New York
characters . . . who are also
unhappy.
• Materialism and the pursuit of
pleasure, according to
Fitzgerald, were rampant.

The Great Gatsby
• Wealth and pleasure
have become the point
of living for many.
• Portrays the height of
the “Jazz Age.”
• Gatsby believes in the
American Dream, but it
no longer exists.

Facing Reality
William Faulkner used a bold new style to
describe an increasingly unfamiliar world.
• He experimented with multiple
points of view, disjointed sentences,
and complex sentences.

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

Stream of Consciousness Narrative Technique
• Reflects interest in the
study of the unconscious
mind, made popular by
Sigmund Freud.

• Attempts to reflect the
chaotic and sometimes
confusing activities of the
human psyche. Sigmund
Freud

Modernist writers believed in facing reality by
probing the uncertainties of the modern world.
Ernest F. Scott William
Hemingway Fitzgerald Faulkner

The Granger Collection, New York
Bare-bones truth Dazzling style Stream of
consciousness


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.

[End of Section]


Influences on American Culture
• 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.

Harlem Comes to Life

• 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

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.

Jazz Age
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.
• African art influences
modernist painters.

Jazz—music with roots in African rhythms,
European harmonies, American gospel sounds, and
the work songs of plantation workers.
• Gained popularity in the 1920s
• Some jazz clubs, such as
Harlem’s Cotton Club, had
racist policies
• Famous jazz musicians:
Louis Armstrong, Duke
Ellington, and Ethel Waters
Louis Armstrong performing

The African American Voice
• Harlem Renaissance artists focused on African
American experiences
• Rhythm of poetry was
based on spirituals and
jazz; poetic lyrics based
on blues and street talk.
• 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 Renaissance
By 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]

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

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