American Literature (1880-1940) Context

Which of Crane's short stories tackled post-slavery race relations?

'A Dark Brown Dog' (1901). In this story, a young boy brings a dog home. The dog is mistreated, abused both by the young child, who is unsure how to show affection, and especially the boy's family. The dog tragically does not resist when it is beaten, and immediately shows renewed affection every time its ordeal is over. Finally, one night the boy's father is in a rage and decides to throw the dog out of the window to its death.

What poem captured Hughes' optimistic vision of race politics in America?

'I, Too' (1932), in which Hughes states "They'll see how beautiful I am/And be ashamed -/I, too, am America".

What policy did most Americans favour in relation to WW2?

'Isolationism'

Which work exemplified the way that America had been deluding itself in the 1920s?

'The Great Gatsby' (1925).

When was 'The Jungle' written and who wrote it?

'The Jungle', by Upton Sinclair, was written in 1906.

When was 'The Passing of Grandison' written?

'The Passing of Grandison' by Charles W Chestnutt was written in 1899.

When did puritans first arrive in America?

1620

Roughly when was the period of American Romanticism in literature?

1820-1860

When was the American Civil War?

1861-65

What statement of Benjamin Franklin's again contrasted with Puritan ideas?

18th century statesman Benjamin Franklin emphasised prosperity for its own sake and stressed the obvious material benefits of worldly success. He wrote "Early to Bed, and Early to Rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise", implying that such enterprising and sensible behaviour would result in a 'goodness' that had nothing to do with god's grace.

In which year did the USA join WW1?

1917

What political feature did realism, regionalism and naturalism all bring to American literature?

A powerful sense of irony and a strong commitment to social justice.

When was most literature about the war written?

After it was completed.

In which other work does Hemingway demonstrate this?

All of the characters in 'The Sun Also Rises' (1926) have been hurt by WW1. Narrator Jake Barnes was wounded in the groin and is unable to make love to Brett and struggles throughout the novel to define himself as a worthy creative person.

What was the first fully-fledged US literary movement?

American Romanticism

Which text portrays this image of America as a new land?

Arthur Barlowe's 'The First Voyage Made to the Coasts of America' (1589) describes the impossibly plentiful lands of America not equalled anywhere in Europe.

How did American authors treat the subject of slavery?

As a moral issue of both race and class by insisting that black people were human individuals harmed by an oppressive system.

What was one migratory consequence of the Civil War?

At the end of the Civil War, more people moved west.

What did interest in their character's psychological states lead some modernists to do?

Begin to experiment with stream of consciousness, a form of writing which tried to record the inner processes of thinking and feeling.

What were two prominent competing works on how to achieve racial equality?

Booker T. Washington supported practical and gradual advancement for his race in his autobiography 'Up From Slavery' (1901), whilst W.E.B. DuBois more radically contended in his essay collection 'The Souls of Black Folk' (1903) that 'the problem of the 20th century is the problem of the color-line' and demanded the same civil rights for black Americans as those enjoyed by white Americans.

When did realism become dominant?

By 1900.

What was the situation by the 1880s?

By the 1880s, psychological and social realism were competing with Romanticism in the novel.

When did writers recognise that America had run out of west?

By the 1890s, writers recognised that America had 'run out of west' and would need to seek meaning not in a geographical fable, but in the existing small towns and cities of America.

Give an example of this.

Clifford Odets' play 'Waiting for Lefty', 1935, focuses on a meeting to organise a taxi drivers' strike

What did such thinking tend to do?

Confuse material and spiritual worth, and later American writers would repeatedly return to this confusion as a fundamental difficulty in American experience.

What did they seek to do?

Construct a "shining city on a cill", a community that symbolised their closeness to God.

Which poem exemplifies the two goals of the Harlem Renaissance: 1) to emphasise the African-American experience and 2) to claim black writers' rightful place as participants in national culture?

Countee Cullen's sonnet 'Yet Do I Marvel' (1925) simultaneously illustrates Cullen's concern with the plight of the talented African-American in a racist society and, in the poem's form, diction and allusions to classical mythology, his desire to belong to an international literary tradition.

In what way is Dos Passos experimental?

Criticising capitalism and arguing for serious social change, Dos Passos blends fiction and non-fiction, mixing excerpts from newspapers, radio programmes, popular songs and public documents with more conventional depictions of fictional characters.

Which classical references does Cullen significantly make?

Cullen references Tantalus, who was offered food which disappeared before he could eat it, and Sisyphus, who was forced to push a boulder to the crest of a hill, but every time he reached the top the stone rolled to the bottom and he had to push it up again.

Which other authors were affiliated with communism?

Dorothy Parker declared herself a communist, while Dos Passos wrote for the American Communist journal 'The New Masses'.

Which book of poems challenged gender roles?

Dorothy Parker's book of verse 'Enough Rope' became a bestseller in 1926, capturing the spirit of the age in the jazzy rhythms and irreverence of such poems as 'General Review of the Sex Situation'.

Which other author also experimented with spare and powerful language?

Ernest Hemingway also developed a modernist voice with spare and powerful prose, emphasising simple verbs and nouns in sentences with few adjectives or dependent clauses.

How is a meeting with a native American man described?

European settlers "gave him a shirt, a hat, and some other things, and made him taste of our wine, and our meat, which he liked very well".

What examples are there of naturalist authors?

Frank Norris, Jack London and Upton Sinclair wrote about characters who generally struggled in vain against their environment and human limitations.

When did FDR assume office and under what promise?

Franklin Delano Roosevelt assumed office in 1933 after promising to offer the people a 'New Deal'.

Which writer of this period was a strong supporter of feminism?

Garland Hamlin.

In what way are Hemingway's subjects and themes daring?

He depicts the lives of men and women threatened by war and violence.

In what way was the poetry of Cummings experimental?

He played with capitalisation and word spacing which in their very appearance on the page strike readers as unusual and modern.

What linguistic feature of Hemingway's writing also shocked some readers?

Hemingway did not hesitate to use frank and colloquial language natural to his characters, even if it might offend some readers, as indeed it did. In 'A Farewell to Arms' one soldier says to another "Jesus Christ, ain't this a goddam war".

Which author, in contrast to Emmerson, explored the human capacity for interpretation, questioned the notion of fixed meaning and revealed an interest in human imperfection and moral confusion?

Herman Melville in works such as Moby Dick and Billy Budd. Moby-Dick emphasized the perils of individual obsession by telling the tale of Captain Ahab's single-minded quest to kill a white whale, Moby Dick, which had destroyed Ahab's original ship and caused him to lose one of his legs.

What is an example of the stream of consciousness tradition?

Hilda Doolittle's HERmione.

Which text explores this western promise?

Huckleberry Finn (1884), in which Mark Twain looks ironically at the promise of the American West.

Where does Faulkner go even deeper into what has corrupted the South?

In 'Go Down, Moses' (1941), it is not the Civil War or even slavery that has corrupted the south, but rather the illusion of land ownership. Through Isaac McCaslin's struggle to define himself individually and in terms of his family history, Faulkner reveals how no one can own the land, not even the Native Americans. Faulkner thus suggests a complex betrayal, a corruption at the heart of the American experience which occurred when European settlers made nature into a commodity.

Where did Emerson argue this?

In 1841, Emerson published his essay "Self-Reliance," which urges readers to think for themselves and reject the mass conformity and mediocrity taking root in American life.

What work of Anderson's heralded the new socially critical literature of the age?

In 1919, Sherwood Anderson heralded the new socially critical literature of the age with 'Winesburg, Ohio'

What was the Puritan attitude to sin?

Influenced by Calvinist and other Reformation thought, Puritans were not surprised by sin as the 'fall' of Adam and Eve meant that every human being afterwards was sinful and deserved damnation. Puritans believed in an omniscient God, so believed it was impossible to hide sins. They believed a select few would be chosen to go to heaven so were fanatical about strict adherence to religion and identifying signs that 'God was on their side'. Biblical knowledge was a prerequisite, so the population was highly literate.

How did the Great Depression of the 1930s affect literature?

It made literature more political for nearly everyone. The Great Depression was so devastating that bootleg whisky, flappers and jazz could no longer mask the more serious issues at the heart of the American experience.

What characterised the realist movement?

It sought to portray American life as it actually was and social criticism thus became a prominent feature.

In what ways was 'Winesburg, Ohio' (1919) bold?

It was a bold examination of a small midwestern town in which the characters struggle to overcome personal and social limitations. His explicit treatment of sexuality seemed especially contemporary, even shocking, while his psychological insight was highly modern, presenting people as shaped by unconscious urges and the repression of their desires.

Which other writer was very much part of the regionalist movement?

Kate Chopin emphasised the experiences of women who lived in cosmopolitan New Orleans and in the more rural areas of Louisiana, capturing attitudes and speech which reflected the influence of early French settlers in these areas

Who became known as 'the bard of Harlem' in the 1930s?

Langston Hughes, drawn on the oral traditions and distinctive experiences of African-American culture.

Which movement is 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn' (1884) also an example of?

Regionalism - a movement within realism that encouraged writers to write material that depended on a particular geographical area, to capture in their work local customs, speech and physical background. For instance, Huck tells his own story using his strong Missouri vernacular.

What myth did Romantic authors subscribe to? Give an example.

Romantic authors emphasised fervent landscape descriptions of an already mythicised frontier peopled by "noble savages"

How was Romanticism involved with the American revolution?

Romantic notions of national possibility and individual human potential were at the heart of the liberal American Revolution which, with the Declaration of Independence in 1776, transformed the American colonies into the United States.

How did Roosevelt attempt to deal with the financial situation?

Roosevelt closed all banks, calling on the Treasury department to examine their books and only allow those in good financial condition to reopen, supplied by treasury money if necessary. He pushed unemployment legislation through congress, emphasising relief, training, conservation and construction projects at government expense.

Give an example of a Hemingway work that demonstrates the harsh reality of war?

Set primarily during and just after WW1, his first book, 'In Our Time' (1925) is made up of a series of stories interspersed with vignettes, each related by content or theme. In one vignette, Nick recalls an experience early in the war: "Then three more [soldiers] came over further down the wall. We shot them. They all came just like that". Hemingway's shortest sentence here - "We shot them" - makes clear that he is aware of the awful reality.

Which novel satirises provincial American life?

Sinclair Lewis' 'Babbit' (1922) satirises the confining patterns and cultural emptiness of provincial American life.

Why did Sinclair write 'The Jungle'?

Sinclair wrote this novel to portray the harsh conditions and exploited lives of immigrants in the US in Chicago and similar industrialised cities. His purpose in describing the meat industry and its working conditions was to advance socialism in the US. The book depicts working-class poverty, the lack of social supports, harsh and unpleasant living and working conditions, and a hopelessness among many workers. These elements are contrasted with the deeply rooted corruption of people in power.

Was Stowe only an author?

Stowe was not only an abolitionist and an established author, but also an eminent feminist activist.

What did 'A Dark Brown Dog' (1901) act as an allegory for?

The 'Jim Crow' America, referencing laws which enforced racial segregation in Southern US states in areas ranging from education to public services to housing until the 1965 Civil Rights Act under the maxim "Separate, but equal".

Why did many authors take up obviously political subjects?

The 1930s was a decade of unionisation and political ferment.

Why did the American Civil War (1861-65) emerge?

The North had a flourishing industrial base, populous cities and greater representation in congress. The conflict arose over the issue of state sovereignty in relation to slavery, which the south saw as necessary because their farming economy depended on slave labour. Southern congressmen insisted that new states entering the US be slave states. When the North refused, the South broke away.

What did Emmerson argue about the true American self?

The Romantic Poet Ralph Waldo Emerson argued that the true American self was self-reliant and in tune with nature, that everyone had the power to discover what is true and right.

How did the Civil War impact the South?

The South was physically and economically ravaged and the Civil War came to symbolise the end of an era for the south.

In what way did American romanticism distinguish itself from British Romanticism?

The U.S.'s unique history and landscape influenced the movement in special ways. The American Romantics were preoccupied with questions of democracy and freedom, which were rooted in the American Revolution that had led to independence from Britain back in 1776. And the U.S.'s natural landscape—very different from Europe's—also influenced the writers of this movement in special ways. "The frontier," for example, is a big idea in the work of American Romantic writers. Values like individualism and democracy are reflected in American Romantic writing.

What did the best regionalist authors do? Include an example.

The best regionalist authors used particular experience to examine controversial social and psychological issues. For example, Kate Chopin's 'The Awakening' (1899) explores the frustration of an ordinary woman, Edna Pontellier, unable to overcome the sexist limitations her New Orleans society has placed on her. Her increasingly unorthodox views on femininity and motherhood lead to the final scene of the novel, in which she walks naked into the sea and drowns.

What is he particularly fascinated by?

The difficulties his characters encounter when traditional notions of masculinity and femininity no longer apply.

What is this loss, something common to Faulkner's fiction, based in?

The effects of the Civil War on the South, which was scarred not just politically and economically, but spiritually.

How did FDR support writers during this period?

The introduction of the Federal Writers' Project in 1935 helped fund authors such as James Agee, Sterling Brown and Clifford Odets, who were commissioned to document the experience of America in these years.

What element of 'Their Eyes were Watching God' (1937) made some of Hurston's contemporaries feel that she was not championing her race?

The narrator speaks in a strong dialect and authentic humour, which made some of her contemporaries feel that she was not championing her race, not producing the sort of 'universal' literature that Du Bois called for.

Which novels celebrated the working class in the 1930s?

U.S.A. (1938), a huge trilogy by John Dos Passos is, like Steinbeck's 'The Grapes of Wrath' (1939), a serious leftist fiction which celebrates the working class.

Which poem challenges the patriotism of the war?

In E.E. Cummings' poem 'i sing of Olaf glad and big' (1931), a conscientious objector compelled to serve in the armed forces, Olaf, refuses to join in patriotic affirmation of the war. His colonel and fellow servicemen thrust his head in a 'muddy toilet bowel' and beat him with 'blunt instruments'. Olaf says "I will not kiss your f.ing flag" even when they torture him with 'bayonets roasted hot with heat', he says 'there is some s. I will not eat'. Cummings writes that the American government 'threw the yellow sonofabitch/into a dungeon, where he died'. Cummings' speaker concludes that he hopes to see Christ in heaven 'and Olaf too' because 'unless statistics lie he was/more brave than me: more blond than you". This war protest makes Olaf, not the Colonel, the hero. By deliberately not making the final line rhyme, the 'you' turns the poem on the reader, making us reflect on our own attitudes towards war, violence and patriotism.

In which novel can the influence of the radio and movies of the 1930s be seen?

In Fitzgerald's 'Tender is the Night', Rosemary Hoyt is a movie star who in the course of the novel encourages Dick Diver to take a screen test. Film also informs the language of the novel, many of whose metaphors derive from cinema (e.g. the book's first section is entitled 'Rosemary's Angle' and Rosemary at a crucial point in the narrative says to Dick "Oh, we're such actors - you and I".)

In which famous novel is the puritan attitude to 'sin' displayed?

In Nathaniel Hawthorne's 'The Scarlett Letter' (1850). In Puritan Boston, Hester Prynne is condemned for having a child as a result of an affair with another man.

Which poem exemplifies this movement?

In Stephen Crane's free verse poem 96 in anthology 'War is Kind' (1899), he succinctly captures the spirit of naturalism: "A man said to the universe:/'Sir, I exist!'/'However', replied the universe,/'The fact has not created in me/A sense of obligation'".

In which text is this depicted?

In William Faulkner's 'Light in August' (1932), Joe Christmas agonises over the issue of his racial identity while the Reverend Gail Hightower struggles to understand the significance of the Civil War both for himself and his community.

How did Fitzgerald describe his nervous breakdown?

In a series of essays published in 1936 under the collective title 'The Crack Up', F. Scot Fitzgerald wrote of his nervous breakdown "I began to realise that...my life had been drawing on resources I did not possess, that I had been MORTGAGING MYSELF PHYSICALLY AND SPIRITUALLY UP TO THE HILT...calling upon physical resources that I did not command, like a man over-drawing at his bank". "My recent experience parallels the wave of despair that swept the nation when the Boom was over".

What happens in 'The Passing of Grandison' by Charles W Chestnutt (1899)?

In order to marry the girl he loves, Dick Owens feels he needs to do something heroic, so attempts to free a slave called Grandison by allowing him freedom to escape on a trip they take together. Grandison does not choose to take advantage of the many opportunities Dick purposely gives him to leave, so Dick finally abandons him. But Grandison returns to the plantation, where he is rewarded for his loyalty, only to then escape with all the other slaves a few weeks later.

What did literary realists lay the foundation for?

In rejecting romanticism and especially sentimentality, literary realists and regionalists laid the foundations for naturalism, a movement whose authors tended to see their characters as victims of social - and even natural and supernatural - forces over which they had little or no control.

What did unemployment peak at during the depression?

In the early 1930s, it reached 25%, with no government welfare scheme to alleviate suffering.

Which novel encapsulates this mood?

In this atmosphere, Zora Neale Hurston produced 'Their Eyes were Watching God" (1937), a compelling novel about an African-American woman's search for identity and independence. It is both a woman's narrative (her protagonist Janie Crawford tells her own dramatic story to her best friend Pheoby Watson) and a vivid, often critical depiction of class and gender relations in a southern black community.

What did Anderson consciously draw on?

Like many authors in this period, Anderson consciously drew on Mark Twain's 'Huckleberry Finn'. Huck's dialect and candour, his lack of sophistication, vital inner life and independent judgement appealed to writers disillusioned with conventional forms and subjects.

In what ways were the American romantics influenced by British romanticism?

Like the British Romantics, their work emphasised emotion, a love of nature, and imagination.

What characterised Mark Twain's later writing?

Mark Twain's later writing became darker as he became angrier about what he saw as America's failures and less confident about humanity's capacity for reform.

Which writer was at the forefront of this movement?

Mark Twain.

Which authors experimented with subjects that had previously not been explored?

Modernists like E.E. Cummings and Gertrude Stein explored subjects, such as sexuality and the body, that had previously been 'off limits' or unrecognised, like the unconscious.

Were puritan settlements in reality such utopias?

No, they soon found that they needed to build prisons as well as churches, law courts as well as merchant's houses.

Where can Twain's social satire be seen?

One way of reading 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn' (1884) is to see it as a social critique which makes fun of those cultural tendencies which Mark Twain disliked and which Huck finally rejects in setting out for the territory.

What was the system of borrowing that functioned up until the 1929 Wall Street Crash?

People bought 'on margin', a system which only functioned as long as the stocks continued to rise.

What is the main plot of 'The Jungle' (1906)?

The protagonist is Jurgis Rudkus, a Lithuanian immigrant trying to make ends meet in Chicago. He thought the US would offer more freedom, but he finds working conditions harsh. He and his wife fall deeply into debt and are eventually evicted from their home and all their money is taken. Rudkus had expected to support his wife and other relatives, but eventually all—the women, children, and his sick father—seek work to survive. As the novel progresses, the jobs and means the family use to stay alive slowly lead to their physical and moral decay. The family's hardships accumulate as Ona confesses that her boss, Connor, had raped her, and made her job dependent on her giving him sexual favours. In revenge, Rudkus attacks Connor, resulting in his arrest and imprisonment. She dies in childbirth at age 18 from blood loss; the infant also dies. Rudkus had lacked the money for a doctor. Soon after, his first child drowns in a muddy street. Rudkus leaves the city and takes up drinking. Rudkus works in as a farm worker but eventually returns and is pulled into the socialist movement where he finds community and purpose.

Which ideas increasingly influenced writing in the 1930s?

The psychoanalytic ideas of Sigmund Freud and the socialist ideas of Karl Marx.

How did Romantics and Puritans clash?

The romantic conception of human nature clashed with puritanism, suggesting that humans were essentially good or at least a blank slate.

How did the writing of black authors change in the 1930s?

The sense of community and optimism that had characterised the Harlem Rennaissance in the 1920s gave way in the 1930s to a more political, agitated mood.

Like many other writers and intellectuals in the 1930s, what was Hughes interested in?

The socialist experiment in Russia, even visiting the USSR in the 1930s.

How is this demonstrated in 'The Sound and the Fury' (1929)?

The various members of the Compson family fail to come to terms with modern life, while the black community, once the family's slaves, manages to carry on without illusions. Faulkner writes eloquently, "they endured".

How did writers responding to the war generally view it?

They generally saw the violence of battle and the deaths of millions of men in ironic terms, feeling that young people had sacrificed their lives for the economic and political interests of an older generation. This sense of being duped/exploited coloured their writing.

What did Romantics reject?

They rejected the urban 'city' for nature.

How did Mark Twain achieve this?

Via social satire.

How is the significant influence of writers in the civil war exemplified?

When in 1863 President Abraham Lincoln was introduced to Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of famous anti-slavery novel 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' (1852), he is reported to have said "So this is the little lady who made this big war".

Give an example of an author choosing to comment on the national state primarily through the psychological study of individuals.

William Faulkner's 'The Sound and the Fury', 1929, which is told from 4 different perspectives and recounts the social and psychological dynamics of the Compsons, a Mississippi family defined by loss.