American Literature Exam 2

Cantos

-American epic -"a tale of the tribe" -captures the whole of civilization in poems -over 100 -contained many different languages and quotes from a vast majority of works/sources

Imagism

A movement in early 20th-century English and American poetry that sought clarity of expression through the use of precise images. The movement included Ezra Pound, James Joyce, etc.

Ezra Pound

A poet who is responsible for what poetry looks like today, he is responsible for the direction poetry went in after 1915. Without this poet, there would be no Hemingway, James Joyce, Robert Frost, H.D., William Carlos Williams, etc. He studied the medieval forms of languages at the University of Penn. He tried to be a professor, but found that he did not like authority or structure. He moves to England, where he meets Yeats and becomes his secretary. Yeats had a big influence on this poet. This poet was also interested in translating Chinese poetry. Considered a mobile expatriate, he lived in London, Paris and Italy. During WWII he made broadcasts on Rome Radio which led to him being taken into the custody of the US army for treason, he was then institutionalized for thirteen years.

Vorticism

A pre-World War I movement that sought to capture the mechanical dynamism of its age as well as the stillness at its core. ______ poetry focuses on locating the movement and stillness within the image. This movement included Ezra Pound.

Manifesto

A published verbal declaration of the intentions, motives, or views of the issuer, be it an individual, group, political party or government

Nobel Prize

Awarded to an author for their career body of work, not for just one work.

Langston Hughes

Born in 1902 in the mid-west. His family is very involved with the abolitionist movement, he inherits these ideas and they show in his writing. He was also influenced by Whitman, McKay, and Sandburg. He launched his literary career before he even began college when he wrote the poem Negro Speaks of Rivers. Wrote free verse poetry that was strongly influenced by jazz and blues music. Author of The Negro Artist in the Racial Mountains, an essay that made the argument that a great poet cannot be afraid to be himself.

Harlem Renaissance

Centered in Harlem, NY. Began with discussions in Grenich Village and Harlem. A substantial group of black artists producing art. Greater emphasis on race, integration, and pan-Africanism. Many blacks had begun to move up North in order to escape racial violence, KKK, Jim Crow laws, and find work.

Who is the author of "The Harlem Dancer" and "The Lynching"

Claude McKay

Who is the author of: "O sweet spontaneous" "next to of course god america i" "somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond"

E.E. Cummings

Who is the author of: "Recurdo" "I Think I Should Have Loved You Presently" [I, being born a woman]

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Who is the author of The Snows of Kilamanjaro?

Ernest Hemingway

What poet is known for his interest in translating poetry?

Ezra Pound

Who is the author of: Hugh Selwyn IV and V "A Pact" "In the Station of the Metro" "The River Merchant's Wife: A Letter" "A Retrospect"

Ezra Pound

William Carlos Williams

Friends with Ezra Pound. This poet was a doctor, his profession had a big impact on his writing. He is known to elevate the everyday in his writing and give it a bigger meaning. He would often publish his poems in volumes interspersed with prose, each poem would be explained by the following prose section.

How did Pound feel about Walt Whitman?

He both hated and admired him.

Raymond Chandler

He was popular during his lifetime. Wrote hard-boiled noir fiction (Dashiell Hammet also wrote this kind of fiction). He was one of the greats of this genre of writing. He wrote The Big Sleep, a famous novel of his that became a movie.

Claude McKay

Involved with the Harlem Renaissance, which was centered in Harlem, NY. Considered the poet laureate of the Harlem Renaissance. He was born in Jamaica and came to the U.S. to study agriculture. He ended up studying poetry instead. He wrote the novel Home to Harlem, the first novel by a black author to be on the best seller list. He eventually becomes disillusioned by the Harlem Renaissance and moves to the Soviet Union.

Who is the author of: "A Negro Speaks of Rivers" "I, Too" "The Weary Blues"

Langston Hughes

Who is the author of "Poetry" and "Grave"

Marianne Moore

Who is the author of "Parturition" and "Feminist Manifesto"

Mina Loy

In Negro Speaks of Rivers what is the significance of each of the rivers?

Mississippi- used for slave trade Tiger and Euphrates- cradle of humanity Congo- invaded by the French and Belgium, rich source of resources, colonial violence and exploitation Nile- pyramids in Egypt, pyramids built with slavery

Analyze Barn Burning.

Mix of a third person narrative and stream of consciousness. Abner's limp is an embodiment of his resentment towards people of higher economic status.

Analyze Poetry.

Moore defines what good poetry is in this poem (raw, understandable, genuine). She criticizes popular poets for writing fixed form, conventional verse, and formal poetry. Poetry needs to have life within it and it does not need to be a fancy, formal thing because readers should be able to understand the message and language.

William Faulkner

Nobel laureate. First of our others to write in the Southern Gothic style and use stream of consciousness. Most of his short stories and novels were set in a fictional county called Yoknapatawpha county. He wrote over a dozen novels and fifty short stories. Many of his characters overlap in his stories. Many of his stories are about the legacy of the south and the legacy of the Civil War.

Ernest Hemingway

Nobel laureate. Raised with conservative, mid-western values that show in his writing. Was an ambulance driver during WWI. Was injured during the war. Was greatly impacted by Gertrude Stein and Ezra Pound. His first major publication was in our time (1923) which was a collection of vignettes. In 1925, after meeting Fitzgerald he published In Our Time which included the original vignettes as well as short stories.

E.E. Cummings

Played with capitalization and spacing in his poetry in order to emphasize and deemphasize certain things. He drove ambulances during WWI with the red cross, and he was a prisoner of war for a period of time. Some of his poems were about sentimentality and love, and others were more sexual. Wrote sonnets.

Who is the author of Red Wind?

Raymond Chandler

Who is the author of The Man Who Was Almost a Man?

Richard Wright

Analyze The Weary Blues.

Shows Hughes interest in the common, the every day, as well as his interest in history. Influenced by jazz and blues music. Poem doesn't fit meter but has rhyme. Structured like blues music and the ends of the lines rhyme.

Analyze Negro Speaks of Rivers.

Speaker of poem speaks in an omniscient way but uses I (example of lyric poetry). The speaker speaks both for and of the negro. Uses structural repetition (subject, verb, descriptor). Covers a vast historical spectrum and tied modern times with historical civilizations. This poem is about history but also about identity and knowledge. Parallel between rivers and veins, rivers are the life blood of a civilization.

T.S. Eliot

Studied philosophy at Oxford. He meets Pound in London, this friendship helps him to decide he is finished with academia and is going to become a writer. He becomes an American laureate. He converts to the Anglican church and moves to England permanently in the 1920s, this has a significant impact on his later work.

What poet is known for his interest in using quotations in poetry?

T.S. Eliot

Who is the author of "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

T.S. Eliot

What poem of T.S. Eliot's is considered the most influential of the 20th century?

The Wasteland

The Lost Generation

The generation that came of age during World War I. The term was popularized by Ernest Hemingway, who used it as one of two contrasting epigraphs for his novel, The Sun Also Rises. In that volume Hemingway credits the phrase to Gertrude Stein, who was then his mentor and patron.

What significant contribution did Pound and Eliot make in relation to free verse poetry?

They gave free verse poetry some structure.

How did many American artists become established during this time period?

They would move to Europe and become established and accepted there and then they could come back to the U.S. and continue their career here.

Analyze In a Station of the Metro.

This poem juxtaposes two images in order to make comparisons between: -contemporary technology and the timelessness of nature -nature and manmade, mechanical items -ghostly apparitions and petals -inorganic, industrial scene and beautiful scene from nature -masculine and feminine

Marianne Moore

This poet is also known for using quotations in her work, although she uses quotes differently than Pound and Eliot. This poet uses quotes because she is borrowing and likes the way something sounds, not because there is meaning behind the quote. Does not write poetry with conventional form, although it is syllabic poetry. This poet was known for extensively revising her poetry. She became famous in the 1960s for her work. She was an editor for the literary magazine The Dial, one of the three major literary magazines of the period.

Analyze The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.

Title: -a love song is usually for one person; a vs. the -formal presentation of name -> uptight, straight-laced, intelligent -bankers and lawyers usually write their name this way Italian Section: -love songs are usually romantic -hopeless, confession, speaking alone, resignation -this section tells us about the topic of the poem -> love sucks, love is hell Content: -etherized, used as anesthesia -> about to undergo something painful -sawdust restaurant -> a restaurant where they put sawdust on the ground to absorb liquid -speaker does not describe places one would want to go for a romantic evening Overview: -a free verse poem essentially about a man's mid-life crisis

In Negro Speaks of Rivers what does knowing rivers mean?

To know rivers is to know race relations. To know rivers is to know racial history and human progress.

Why did Claude McKay deliberately write sonnets?

Traditionally, sonnets are associated with high literary culture and they are written by white men. McKay chose to write sonnets to make a statement and show that blacks have the same capabilities as whites.

What choice does an author have to make when translating poetry?

Whether to be faithful to the poetic form or the meaning of the poem.

Who is the author of: "Spring and All" "The Widow's Lament in Springtime" "Landscape with Fall of Icarus"

William Carlos Williams

Who is the author of Barn Burning?

William Faulkner

Iceberg Principle

Writing style of Ernest Hemingway. He would discuss surface ideas, without discussing any underlying ideas. He would give you 1/8 of the information and imply 7/8of the information, although a reader would need to know all of it in order to understand a story.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Wrote lyric poetry from the first person point of view. was famous for her sonnets, wrote over 100 of them. She had a unconventional childhood, she was one of three daughters and her mother left her father. She was raised to be self-sufficient and independent. Her poem Renascence was honorably mentioned when she was only 17, this was the beginning of her career and led to her going to college. She got a lot of attention for this poem because people couldn't believe a young woman wrote such a great poem. She was a very popular poet during her lifetime. She used conventional poetry to discuss radical ideas about feminine sexuality. Later in life she becomes concerned with other social issues as well, such as WWII and immigrants.

Ekphrasis Poetry

art about art; an example of this is Landscape with Fall of Icarus which is about a painting by Pieter Bruegel

Free Verse

poetry without conventional form; has for and structure but not conventional form and structure

Allusion

reference to another text within a text; paraphrase, quotation, or gesture to another text