1The Modern Period: WWI to WWIIModernism began in Germany in the 1890s, spread worldwide, and ended in the early 1940s. It was the consequence of the transformation of society brought about by industrialism and technology in the course of the 19th century. The essence of modernism was a break with the past, and the literature of the early 20th century mirrored a somber mood of uncertainty. American Modernism: PoetryT S Eliot (1888-1965) was a poet, playwright and literary critic.In 1915 he published The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock.In 1922, he published his great work, The Waste Land, which catches precisely the state of culture and society after WWI and graphically illustrates the spiritual poverty of the West of the time. The Waste Land shows the search for regeneration by people who live in a chaotic world. It has been regarded as a central text of modernism. The New England poets (“新英格兰诗人”): Robinson and Frost were modern in their themes about the wasted, blighted, or impoverished lives, but not modern in their technique. Eldwin Arlington Robinson (1860-1935) New England Poet (from Maine 缅因州)Robinson was a transitional poet between the centuries. His fascination with the interior drama of human defeat earned him a reputation as a pessimist poet. Robert Frost (1874-1963) New England Poet (from New Hampshire 新罕布什尔州)Frost is liked by the Americans because the subject and the landscape of his poems are forever New England and his simplicity never fails to reveal some profound truth.His representative poetry collections include Boys Will (1913), North of Boston (1914), Mountain interval (1916), New Hampshire (1923), West-Running Brook (1928).Imagism (1912-1922) 意象派 诗歌Imagism appeared as a reaction to the traditional English poetics but served to meet the need of expressing the temper of the age. 1. It records the momentary impressions; 2. The means to express the momentary impressions is through the use of one dominant image or a quick succession of images to capture an emotion, for freeze on moment in time. 3. It is written in free verse with as few words as possible. The leader is Ezra Pound (1885-1972). Others include William Sandburg, Amy Lowell and Hilda. D. Doolittle.American Modernism: Novels“The Lost Generation”The term “Lost Generation” was first used by Gertrude Stein (1874-1946). It includes Hemingway, Fitzgerald and Faulkner, TS Eliot, ect., who were caught in the war and painted the 2post-war Western world as a wasteland, lifeless and hopeless. They are also called “Waste Land Painters” with TS Eliots The Waste Land as the manifesto. They indulged in hedonism and lived in Europe in order to make their life less unbearable.Sherwood Anderson (18761941)Winesburg, Ohio (full title: Winesburg, Ohio: A Group of Tales of Ohio Small-Town Life俄亥俄州的温斯堡镇或小镇畸人) is a 1919 short story cycle, dealing with peoples alienation, loneliness and psychological problems in a transforming age.William Faulkner (1897-1962)- awarded a Nobel Prize, American SouthYoknapatawpha Country (约克纳帕塔法), imprisonment in the past His representative novels include The Sound and the Fury喧嚣与骚动, As I Lay Dying我弥留之际, Absalom, Absalom押沙龙, 押沙龙, Light in August八月之光, Go Down, Moses (1942)去吧，摩西.Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) awarded the Nobel Prize He is characterized by his “telegraphic language”, (The use of short, simple and conventional word), “Code hero” and “grace under pressure” or “despairing courage” (重压下的风度).His representative novels include: The Sun Also Rises (太阳照样升起1926),A Farewell to Arms (永别了，武器 1929), For Whom the Bell Tolls(丧钟为谁而鸣1940), The Old Man and the Sea (老人与海 1952).What is Hemingway Hero: “the code hero”?The typical Hemingways hero one, who wounded but strong, destroyed but not defeated. He struggle alone and holds it firm that he plays well in front of ruin and death.F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940)Singer of Jazz Age, “Dollar Decade”, 1920s What is Jazz Age?To many, WWI was a tragic failure of old values, of old politics, of old ideas. The social mood was often one of confusion and despair. Yet, on the surface the mood in America during the 1920s did not seem desperate. Instead, Americans entered a decade of prosperity and exhibitionism. Fads swept the nation. F Scott Fitzgerald portrays the Jazz Age as a generation of “the beautiful and damned”, drowning in their pleasures.This Side of Paradise (人间天堂1920) is his first novel.The Great Gatsby (了不起的盖茨比1925) is his masterpiece, in which the “incorruptible dream” is “smashed into pieces by the relentless reality.” Gatsbys failure predicts to a great extent the end of the American dream. American dream means that in America one might hope to satisfy every material desire and thereby achieve happiness.3John Steinbeck (1902-68) and The Great DepressionThe Grapes of Wrath (愤怒的葡萄1939) recounts the odyssey of a family of Oklahoma migrant farmers who make their way to California in search of a living.