Blog #17

Two birds with one stone! 


Unit 5
Great War was a transitional era for many writers. Old ideals became obsolete as war raged on. Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell To Arms says "Words such as glory, honor, courage, or hallow were obscene" (825). The Great Depression captured the minds of many writers and captured the grimness and despair in their novels. Such as John Steinbeck, who wrote about the uncertainty of the times. Literature eventually changed towards economic use, such as mass media which made luxuries a "must have". Mass production efficiently produced Americans' necessities which homogenized American culture. Sinclair Lewis and other writers were alienated by this and criticized what they saw. Writers were also influenced by some new ideas of the time, such as those of Albert Einstein and Karl Marx.

New forms of poetry soon appeared on the bookshelves of many Americans. Such as those of Arlington Robinson who drew psychological portraits of characters. He was the forerunner of the modernist movement. Modernism itself focused on the individual. Imagism is the opposite of objectivism. It's just to present an image and uses strictly free verse. Objectivism allows the object to speak for itself. Ernest Hemmingway composed short stories with no beginnings or endings, leaving the reader hanging. The pioneer of short stories.

The Harlem Renaissance saw a unique audience of writers for their time: the African American population. They fused their own folk culture with that of American culture, giving unique forms of expression. It ended short because of the Great Depression.

Journalism as literature came to be from writers who learned their crafts by writing for magazines and newspapers. It helped develop their skill and give them a clear prose to use short sentences and short paragraphs. Magazines also helped writers such as Dorothy Parker.

Unit 6 
Wars are subject to writings because of their very nature, in my opinion. The Holocaust during WWII was written about by it's lucky survivors who shared the horrors of the time. The Cold War saw the rise of science fiction because of the uncertainty of things continued the way they did. Tim O'Brien reflected literature of the time with conflicts. And according to John Updike "an old world is collpsing and a new world arising." Which marks the transition into a modern era.

Many writers struggled with the very idea of the American dream but later on it turned shallow and narrowed it's ideals. "beatniks" protested this shallowness of American society, being turned into a consumer society.
The best writings occurred American theater which prompted a revive across America and Europe. Death of  a Salesman by Miller was so provocative that Hollywood wanted to depict the life of a salesman as careless. Post-modern style began questioning authority, conventional values, and the nature of reality.

The last 30 years saw a large overflow of writers of various backgrounds and not just by those who were purely of European descent. Writers now focus on different aspects of American life. Literature will continue to grow as writers continue to write.