{"id":462,"date":"2020-06-04T14:29:13","date_gmt":"2020-06-04T14:29:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-fmcc-hum140\/?post_type=chapter&p=462"},"modified":"2020-11-15T15:25:51","modified_gmt":"2020-11-15T15:25:51","slug":"4-10-modern-literature","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-fmcc-hum140\/chapter\/4-10-modern-literature\/","title":{"raw":"4.10: Modern Literature","rendered":"4.10: Modern Literature"},"content":{"raw":"The term Modernism as a literary term is largely used as a catchall for a global movement that was centered in the United States and Europe, for literature written during the two wars, which is said to be the first industrialized modern period. In another sense, Modernism refers to the general theme: much of the literature of the period is written in reaction to these accelerated times.\r\n\r\nModernism as a literary movement was influenced by thinkers who questioned the certainties that had provided support for traditional modes of social organization, religion, morality, and human identity, or the self. These thinkers included the socialist Karl Marx (1818-1883); Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), whose philosophical studies encouraged accepting concepts as occurring within (and therefore defined by) perspectives, and that critiqued Christianity; Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), who founded psychoanalysis; and Sir James Frazer (1854-1941), who examined mythology and religion syncretically. Modernism rebelled against traditional literary forms and subjects. Modernists subverted basic conventions of prose fiction by breaking up narrative continuity, violating traditional syntax, and disrupting the coherence of narration\u2014through the use of stream-of-consciousness, that is, a narrative style providing the uninterrupted flow of an individual\u2019s thoughts and feelings\u2014among other innovative modes of narration. They also departed from standard ways of representing characters by questioning identity as a real as opposed to an artificial construct, by eliminating the possibility of character coherence, and by conflating characters\u2019 inwardness with their external representation....\r\n

Modernist Literature in Great Britain<\/h2>\r\nAlthough Victorian themes and authors influenced writers like William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), James Joyce (1882- 1941), Virginia Woolf (1882-1941), T. S. Eliot (1888-1965), and D. H. Lawrence (1885-1930), modernism defined itself against Victorianism. Lytton Strachey (1880-1932) in his Eminent Victorians (1918) punctured Victorian stuffiness and pretensions to moral and cultural superiority by critically examining such revered Victorian figures as Henry Edward Manning (1808-1892), a Roman Catholic Cardinal; Florence Nightingale (1820- 1910), the founder of modern nursing; and General Charles George Gordon (1833- 1885), who quelled the Taiping Rebellion. A prominent feature of modernism was its interest in the avant-garde; as Ezra Pound (1885-1972) directed, modernists wanted to make it new.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"339\"]\"Left Joyce in Z\u00fcrich, c.\u20091918[\/caption]\r\n\r\nVictorian realism gave way to obviously artificial structures. To the modernists, the visible, space, and time are not reality; rather, they are modes through which we apprehend reality. When reviewing Joyce\u2019s Ulysses<\/em> (1922), T. S. Eliot lauded Joyce\u2019s mythical method in using the paradigm of Ulysses\u2019 journey from Troy to his home in Ithaca to give shape and significance to modern futility and anarchy as Leopold Bloom travels through Dublin. Through this mythical method, writers could be realistic in portraying modern chaos while also suggesting, through psychological insights, a continuing \u201cburied life\u201d (to use Arnold\u2019s phrase) that rises in mythic or archetypal patterns, patterns that express the meeting of mind with nature.\r\n\r\nThe sense of the individual\u2019s place in the world became tenuous, especially through what modernists identified as the dissociation of the mind and body. Modernists examined this dissociation through such themes as the inorganic and artificial, alienation, and estrangement. While some modernists, like D.H. Lawrence, suggest strategies for reintegrating the body and mind, others, like Virginia Woolf, face this dissociation with a sense of tragedy and overwhelming despair. Another dissociation that modernists pointed to was that between the perceived and the \u201creal\u201d self, between an autonomous self and one created by society and the world. Some writers, like James Joyce, indicated ways to develop a strong individuality that rejected old values and created new ones; others suggested that such a strong individuality can make a world of itself and claim universality; and still others suggested that \u201creal\u201d individuality ceased to exist at all. Such writers considered how individuals could develop \u201chonest\u201d relationships with the world around them.\r\n

Modernist Literature in America<\/h2>\r\nAfter World War I, many writers felt betrayed by the United States, but even more than that, there was a general feeling of change, of progress, of questioning the ways of the past. Throughout the art of this time period, whether it is painting, sculpture, poetry, fiction, or non-fiction, all question the truths of the past, all question the status quo. Largely, this attitude goes hand-in-hand with the disaffection with politics caused by World War I.\r\n

Poetry<\/h3>\r\nThere is no single style that would encompass all of Modernist poetry; rather, a lot of Modernist poetry could be separated as High Modernism and Low Modernism. These terms are not meant to serve as an aesthetic judgment about the quality of the work, but rather help us understand the range of experimentation occurring during this period. High Modernism features poets who are much more formal, such as T. S. Eliot with his \u201cThe Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,\u201d and who look at the modern era as a period of loss, in some ways, looking at how much America has changed and fearing that the change might be for the worse. Essentially, in high modernist works, the authors realize that society has shifted so much, it will never be possible to return to the old ways, so they often represent the world as fragmented, disjointed, or chaotic. High Modernist poetry also maintains a traditional structure and form and often contains explicit allusions to history, myth, or religion, such as the epigraph from Dante\u2019s Inferno which begins T. S. Eliot\u2019s \u201cThe Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.\u201d\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"264\"]\"\" Eliot in 1934 by Lady Ottoline Morrell[\/caption]\r\n\r\nRead these excerpts from\u00a0\u201cThe Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock\u201d (1915):\r\n
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair \u2013\r\n[They will say: \"How his hair is growing thin!\"]\r\nMy morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,\r\nMy necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin \u2013\r\n[They will say: \"But how his arms and legs are thin...!\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 And I have known the eyes already, known them all \u2013\r\nThe eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,\r\nAnd when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,\r\nWhen I am pinned and wriggling on the wall ...\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 And I have known the arms already, known them all \u2013\r\nArms that are braceleted and white and bare\r\n[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!]\r\nIt is perfume from a dress\r\nThat makes me so digress?\r\nArms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl....\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?\r\nI shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.\r\nI have heard the mermaids singing, each to each....<\/div>\r\nLow Modernism is much less formal, experimenting with form. The poetry of William Carlos Williams, the doctor turned poet, is a great example of Low Modernism. His poetry\u2014like \u201cThis is Just to Say\u201d and \u201cThe Red Wheelbarrow\u201d\u2014often plays with the traditional structure of a poem. These writers tend to be so different that first-time readers often questioned whether these works\u2014Williams\u2019s \u201cThis is Just to Say\u201d; Pound\u2019s \u201cIn a Station of the Metro\u201d; Cummings\u2019s \u201cIn Just\u201d\u2014are poems. Ezra Pound did not even consider himself a poet; rather, in his essay, \u201cA Few Don\u2019ts by an Imagiste,\u201d he refers to himself as an imagiste, or one who creates images.\r\n\r\nRead \"In Just\" by e.e. cumming's poet (1920):\r\n
\r\n
\r\n\r\nin Just-\r\n\r\nspring\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 when the world is mud-\r\n\r\nluscious the little\r\n\r\nlame balloonman\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nwhistles\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 far\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 and wee\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nand eddieandbill come\r\n\r\nrunning from marbles and\r\n\r\npiracies and it's\r\n\r\nspring\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nwhen the world is puddle-wonderful\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nthe queer\r\n\r\nold balloonman whistles\r\n\r\nfar\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 and\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 wee\r\n\r\nand bettyandisbel come dancing\r\n\r\nfrom hop-scotch and jump-rope and\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nit's\r\n\r\nspring\r\n\r\nand\r\n

the<\/p>\r\n

goat-footed<\/p>\r\n \r\n\r\nballoonMan\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 whistles\r\n\r\nfar\r\n\r\nand\r\n\r\nwee\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n

<\/h3>\r\n

Prose<\/h3>\r\nExperimentation was not limited to Modernist poetry, as prose (fiction and non-fiction) writers were also challenging form, style, and content, that is, what you could or could not write about. Authors such as Faulkner experimented with how to tell a story, especially by using a rotating cast of characters often set in the same county of Yoknapatawpha, while Gertrude Stein\u2019s Tender Buttons<\/em> experimented with what exactly was a story. Sherwood Anderson\u2019s book, Winesburg, Ohio<\/em>, was able to blur the line between short stories and the novel by writing a book of short stories that fit together as a novel. In much the same way, Jean Toomer\u2019s Cane<\/em> combined poetry, prose, and drama in one strange and beautiful book, foregrounding the dangerous racial politics of the time. Modernist prose was much more than just experimentation, though, in that it also introduced new subject matter. Writers no longer felt the need to veil their opinions; instead, many were explicit in their political critiques. The Great Depression gave rise to Communism among many artists, especially in the works of Ellison and Baldwin, while the Women\u2019s Suffrage Movement highlighted early feminism. Furthermore, the widespread distribution of easily affordable magazines and paperbacks meant that these writers were reaching a wider audience with a more radical message.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"351\"]\"Ralph Ralph Ellison, noted author and professor[\/caption]\r\n\r\nRead this excerpt from Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man<\/em> (1952)\r\n
\r\n\r\nI am an invisible man. No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allan Poe; nor am I one of your Hollywood-movie ectoplasms. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids - and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me. Like the bodiless heads you see sometimes in circus sideshows, it is as though I have been surrounded by mirrors of hard, distorting glass. When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination - indeed, everything and anything except me.\r\n\r\nNor is my invisibility exactly a matter of a biochemical accident to my epidermis. That invisibility to which I refer occurs because of a peculiar disposition of the eyes of those with whom I come in contact. A matter of the construction of their inner eyes, those eyes with which they look through their physical eyes upon reality.\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

Drama<\/h3>\r\nThe Modernist period was perhaps the birth of the American playwright. Before Modernism, theater consisted of largely vaudeville or productions of European works. However, the success of Eugene O\u2019Neil paved the way for several other successful American playwrights, such as Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"327\"]\"\" Portrait of O'Neill by Alice Boughton[\/caption]\r\n

Experiments in Drama<\/h3>\r\nAlthough drama had not been a major art form in the 19th century, no type of writing was more experimental than a new drama that arose in rebellion against the glib commercial stage. In the early years of the 20th century, Americans traveling in Europe encountered a vital, flourishing theatre; returning home, some of them became active in founding the\u00a0Little Theatre<\/a>\u00a0movement throughout the country. Freed from commercial limitations, playwrights experimented with dramatic forms and methods of production, and in time producers, actors, and dramatists appeared who had been trained in college classrooms and\u00a0community<\/a>\u00a0playhouses. Some Little Theatre groups became commercial producers\u2014for example, the Washington Square Players, founded in 1915, which became the\u00a0Theatre Guild<\/a>\u00a0(first production in 1919). The resulting drama was marked by a spirit of\u00a0innovation<\/a>\u00a0and by a new seriousness and maturity.\r\n\r\nEugene O\u2019Neill<\/a>, the most admired dramatist of the period, was a product of this movement. He worked with the\u00a0Provincetown Players<\/a>\u00a0before his plays were commercially produced. His dramas were remarkable for their range.\u00a0Beyond the Horizon<\/em>\u00a0(first performed 1920),\u00a0Anna Christie<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(1921),\u00a0Desire Under the Elms<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(1924), and\u00a0The Iceman Cometh<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(1946) were naturalistic works, while\u00a0The Emperor Jones<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(1920) and\u00a0The Hairy Ape<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(1922) made use of the\u00a0Expressionistic<\/a>\u00a0techniques developed in German drama in the period 1914\u201324. He also employed a stream-of-consciousness form of psychological monologue in\u00a0Strange Interlude<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(1928) and produced a work that combined\u00a0myth<\/a>, family drama, and psychological analysis in\u00a0Mourning Becomes Electra<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(1931).\r\n\r\nNo other dramatist was as generally praised as O\u2019Neill, but many others wrote plays that reflected the growth of a serious and varied drama, including\u00a0Maxwell Anderson<\/a>, whose verse dramas have dated badly, and\u00a0Robert E. Sherwood<\/a>, a Broadway professional who wrote both comedy (Reunion in Vienna<\/em>\u00a0[1931]) and tragedy (There Shall Be No Night<\/em>\u00a0[1940]).\u00a0Marc Connelly<\/a>\u00a0wrote touching\u00a0fantasy<\/a>\u00a0in an\u00a0African American<\/a>\u00a0folk biblical play,\u00a0The Green Pastures<\/em>\u00a0(1930). Like O\u2019Neill,\u00a0Elmer Rice<\/a>\u00a0made use of both Expressionistic techniques (The Adding Machine<\/em>\u00a0[1923]) and naturalism (Street Scene<\/em>\u00a0[1929]).\u00a0Lillian Hellman<\/a>\u00a0wrote powerful, well-crafted melodramas in\u00a0The Children\u2019s Hour<\/em>\u00a0(1934) and\u00a0The Little Foxes<\/em>\u00a0(1939). Radical theatre experiments included\u00a0Marc Blitzstein<\/a>\u2019s savagely satiric\u00a0musical<\/a>\u00a0The Cradle Will Rock<\/em>\u00a0(1937) and the work of\u00a0Orson Welles<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0John Houseman<\/a>\u00a0for the government-sponsored\u00a0Works Progress Administration (WPA) Federal Theatre Project<\/a>. The premier radical theatre of the decade was the\u00a0Group Theatre<\/a>\u00a0(1931\u201341) under\u00a0Harold Clurman<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Lee Strasberg<\/a>, which became best known for presenting the work of\u00a0Clifford Odets<\/a>. In\u00a0Waiting for Lefty<\/em>\u00a0(1935), a stirring plea for labour unionism, Odets roused the audience to an intense pitch of fervour, and in\u00a0Awake and Sing<\/em>\u00a0(1935), perhaps the best play of the decade, he created a lyrical work of family conflict and youthful yearning. Other important plays by Odets for the Group Theatre were\u00a0Paradise Lost<\/em>\u00a0(1935),\u00a0Golden Boy<\/em>\u00a0(1937), and\u00a0Rocket to the Moon<\/em>\u00a0(1938).\u00a0Thornton Wilder<\/a>\u00a0used stylized settings and poetic\u00a0dialogue<\/a>\u00a0in\u00a0Our Town<\/em>\u00a0(1938) and turned to fantasy in\u00a0The Skin of Our Teeth<\/em>\u00a0(1942).\u00a0William Saroyan<\/a>\u00a0shifted his lighthearted, anarchic vision from fiction to drama with\u00a0My Heart\u2019s in the Highlands<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0The Time of Your Life<\/em>\u00a0(both 1939).\r\n

Conclusion<\/strong><\/h2>\r\nAlthough theirs was a time of great change, the common thread that ties the Modernist writers together\u2014whether they write poetry, prose, or drama\u2014is the techniques they invented. Writers such as Faulkner, whose novel The Sound and the Fury<\/em> offered an entirely new way to narrate a book, or Langston Hughes, whose poetry blended music and verse, developed entirely new ways of telling a story. Modernist writers radically rejected previous standards in an attempt to \u201cmake it new\u201d and, in the process, changed the course of literary history.","rendered":"

The term Modernism as a literary term is largely used as a catchall for a global movement that was centered in the United States and Europe, for literature written during the two wars, which is said to be the first industrialized modern period. In another sense, Modernism refers to the general theme: much of the literature of the period is written in reaction to these accelerated times.<\/p>\n

Modernism as a literary movement was influenced by thinkers who questioned the certainties that had provided support for traditional modes of social organization, religion, morality, and human identity, or the self. These thinkers included the socialist Karl Marx (1818-1883); Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), whose philosophical studies encouraged accepting concepts as occurring within (and therefore defined by) perspectives, and that critiqued Christianity; Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), who founded psychoanalysis; and Sir James Frazer (1854-1941), who examined mythology and religion syncretically. Modernism rebelled against traditional literary forms and subjects. Modernists subverted basic conventions of prose fiction by breaking up narrative continuity, violating traditional syntax, and disrupting the coherence of narration\u2014through the use of stream-of-consciousness, that is, a narrative style providing the uninterrupted flow of an individual\u2019s thoughts and feelings\u2014among other innovative modes of narration. They also departed from standard ways of representing characters by questioning identity as a real as opposed to an artificial construct, by eliminating the possibility of character coherence, and by conflating characters\u2019 inwardness with their external representation….<\/p>\n

Modernist Literature in Great Britain<\/h2>\n

Although Victorian themes and authors influenced writers like William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), James Joyce (1882- 1941), Virginia Woolf (1882-1941), T. S. Eliot (1888-1965), and D. H. Lawrence (1885-1930), modernism defined itself against Victorianism. Lytton Strachey (1880-1932) in his Eminent Victorians (1918) punctured Victorian stuffiness and pretensions to moral and cultural superiority by critically examining such revered Victorian figures as Henry Edward Manning (1808-1892), a Roman Catholic Cardinal; Florence Nightingale (1820- 1910), the founder of modern nursing; and General Charles George Gordon (1833- 1885), who quelled the Taiping Rebellion. A prominent feature of modernism was its interest in the avant-garde; as Ezra Pound (1885-1972) directed, modernists wanted to make it new.<\/p>\n

\"Left<\/p>\n

Joyce in Z\u00fcrich, c.\u20091918<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Victorian realism gave way to obviously artificial structures. To the modernists, the visible, space, and time are not reality; rather, they are modes through which we apprehend reality. When reviewing Joyce\u2019s Ulysses<\/em> (1922), T. S. Eliot lauded Joyce\u2019s mythical method in using the paradigm of Ulysses\u2019 journey from Troy to his home in Ithaca to give shape and significance to modern futility and anarchy as Leopold Bloom travels through Dublin. Through this mythical method, writers could be realistic in portraying modern chaos while also suggesting, through psychological insights, a continuing \u201cburied life\u201d (to use Arnold\u2019s phrase) that rises in mythic or archetypal patterns, patterns that express the meeting of mind with nature.<\/p>\n

The sense of the individual\u2019s place in the world became tenuous, especially through what modernists identified as the dissociation of the mind and body. Modernists examined this dissociation through such themes as the inorganic and artificial, alienation, and estrangement. While some modernists, like D.H. Lawrence, suggest strategies for reintegrating the body and mind, others, like Virginia Woolf, face this dissociation with a sense of tragedy and overwhelming despair. Another dissociation that modernists pointed to was that between the perceived and the \u201creal\u201d self, between an autonomous self and one created by society and the world. Some writers, like James Joyce, indicated ways to develop a strong individuality that rejected old values and created new ones; others suggested that such a strong individuality can make a world of itself and claim universality; and still others suggested that \u201creal\u201d individuality ceased to exist at all. Such writers considered how individuals could develop \u201chonest\u201d relationships with the world around them.<\/p>\n

Modernist Literature in America<\/h2>\n

After World War I, many writers felt betrayed by the United States, but even more than that, there was a general feeling of change, of progress, of questioning the ways of the past. Throughout the art of this time period, whether it is painting, sculpture, poetry, fiction, or non-fiction, all question the truths of the past, all question the status quo. Largely, this attitude goes hand-in-hand with the disaffection with politics caused by World War I.<\/p>\n

Poetry<\/h3>\n

There is no single style that would encompass all of Modernist poetry; rather, a lot of Modernist poetry could be separated as High Modernism and Low Modernism. These terms are not meant to serve as an aesthetic judgment about the quality of the work, but rather help us understand the range of experimentation occurring during this period. High Modernism features poets who are much more formal, such as T. S. Eliot with his \u201cThe Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,\u201d and who look at the modern era as a period of loss, in some ways, looking at how much America has changed and fearing that the change might be for the worse. Essentially, in high modernist works, the authors realize that society has shifted so much, it will never be possible to return to the old ways, so they often represent the world as fragmented, disjointed, or chaotic. High Modernist poetry also maintains a traditional structure and form and often contains explicit allusions to history, myth, or religion, such as the epigraph from Dante\u2019s Inferno which begins T. S. Eliot\u2019s \u201cThe Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Eliot in 1934 by Lady Ottoline Morrell<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Read these excerpts from\u00a0\u201cThe Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock\u201d (1915):<\/p>\n

With a bald spot in the middle of my hair \u2013
\n[They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”]
\nMy morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
\nMy necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin \u2013
\n[They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin…!\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 And I have known the eyes already, known them all \u2013
\nThe eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
\nAnd when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
\nWhen I am pinned and wriggling on the wall …\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 And I have known the arms already, known them all \u2013
\nArms that are braceleted and white and bare
\n[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!]
\nIt is perfume from a dress
\nThat makes me so digress?
\nArms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl….\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
\nI shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
\nI have heard the mermaids singing, each to each….<\/div>\n

Low Modernism is much less formal, experimenting with form. The poetry of William Carlos Williams, the doctor turned poet, is a great example of Low Modernism. His poetry\u2014like \u201cThis is Just to Say\u201d and \u201cThe Red Wheelbarrow\u201d\u2014often plays with the traditional structure of a poem. These writers tend to be so different that first-time readers often questioned whether these works\u2014Williams\u2019s \u201cThis is Just to Say\u201d; Pound\u2019s \u201cIn a Station of the Metro\u201d; Cummings\u2019s \u201cIn Just\u201d\u2014are poems. Ezra Pound did not even consider himself a poet; rather, in his essay, \u201cA Few Don\u2019ts by an Imagiste,\u201d he refers to himself as an imagiste, or one who creates images.<\/p>\n

Read “In Just” by e.e. cumming’s poet (1920):<\/p>\n

\n
\n

in Just-<\/p>\n

spring\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 when the world is mud-<\/p>\n

luscious the little<\/p>\n

lame balloonman<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

whistles\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 far\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 and wee<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

and eddieandbill come<\/p>\n

running from marbles and<\/p>\n

piracies and it’s<\/p>\n

spring<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

when the world is puddle-wonderful<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

the queer<\/p>\n

old balloonman whistles<\/p>\n

far\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 and\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 wee<\/p>\n

and bettyandisbel come dancing<\/p>\n

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

it’s<\/p>\n

spring<\/p>\n

and<\/p>\n

the<\/p>\n

goat-footed<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

balloonMan\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 whistles<\/p>\n

far<\/p>\n

and<\/p>\n

wee<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

<\/h3>\n

Prose<\/h3>\n

Experimentation was not limited to Modernist poetry, as prose (fiction and non-fiction) writers were also challenging form, style, and content, that is, what you could or could not write about. Authors such as Faulkner experimented with how to tell a story, especially by using a rotating cast of characters often set in the same county of Yoknapatawpha, while Gertrude Stein\u2019s Tender Buttons<\/em> experimented with what exactly was a story. Sherwood Anderson\u2019s book, Winesburg, Ohio<\/em>, was able to blur the line between short stories and the novel by writing a book of short stories that fit together as a novel. In much the same way, Jean Toomer\u2019s Cane<\/em> combined poetry, prose, and drama in one strange and beautiful book, foregrounding the dangerous racial politics of the time. Modernist prose was much more than just experimentation, though, in that it also introduced new subject matter. Writers no longer felt the need to veil their opinions; instead, many were explicit in their political critiques. The Great Depression gave rise to Communism among many artists, especially in the works of Ellison and Baldwin, while the Women\u2019s Suffrage Movement highlighted early feminism. Furthermore, the widespread distribution of easily affordable magazines and paperbacks meant that these writers were reaching a wider audience with a more radical message.<\/p>\n

\"Ralph<\/p>\n

Ralph Ellison, noted author and professor<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Read this excerpt from Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man<\/em> (1952)<\/p>\n

\n

I am an invisible man. No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allan Poe; nor am I one of your Hollywood-movie ectoplasms. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids – and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me. Like the bodiless heads you see sometimes in circus sideshows, it is as though I have been surrounded by mirrors of hard, distorting glass. When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination – indeed, everything and anything except me.<\/p>\n

Nor is my invisibility exactly a matter of a biochemical accident to my epidermis. That invisibility to which I refer occurs because of a peculiar disposition of the eyes of those with whom I come in contact. A matter of the construction of their inner eyes, those eyes with which they look through their physical eyes upon reality.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Drama<\/h3>\n

The Modernist period was perhaps the birth of the American playwright. Before Modernism, theater consisted of largely vaudeville or productions of European works. However, the success of Eugene O\u2019Neil paved the way for several other successful American playwrights, such as Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Portrait of O’Neill by Alice Boughton<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Experiments in Drama<\/h3>\n

Although drama had not been a major art form in the 19th century, no type of writing was more experimental than a new drama that arose in rebellion against the glib commercial stage. In the early years of the 20th century, Americans traveling in Europe encountered a vital, flourishing theatre; returning home, some of them became active in founding the\u00a0Little Theatre<\/a>\u00a0movement throughout the country. Freed from commercial limitations, playwrights experimented with dramatic forms and methods of production, and in time producers, actors, and dramatists appeared who had been trained in college classrooms and\u00a0community<\/a>\u00a0playhouses. Some Little Theatre groups became commercial producers\u2014for example, the Washington Square Players, founded in 1915, which became the\u00a0Theatre Guild<\/a>\u00a0(first production in 1919). The resulting drama was marked by a spirit of\u00a0innovation<\/a>\u00a0and by a new seriousness and maturity.<\/p>\n

Eugene O\u2019Neill<\/a>, the most admired dramatist of the period, was a product of this movement. He worked with the\u00a0Provincetown Players<\/a>\u00a0before his plays were commercially produced. His dramas were remarkable for their range.\u00a0Beyond the Horizon<\/em>\u00a0(first performed 1920),\u00a0Anna Christie<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(1921),\u00a0Desire Under the Elms<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(1924), and\u00a0The Iceman Cometh<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(1946) were naturalistic works, while\u00a0The Emperor Jones<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(1920) and\u00a0The Hairy Ape<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(1922) made use of the\u00a0Expressionistic<\/a>\u00a0techniques developed in German drama in the period 1914\u201324. He also employed a stream-of-consciousness form of psychological monologue in\u00a0Strange Interlude<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(1928) and produced a work that combined\u00a0myth<\/a>, family drama, and psychological analysis in\u00a0Mourning Becomes Electra<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(1931).<\/p>\n

No other dramatist was as generally praised as O\u2019Neill, but many others wrote plays that reflected the growth of a serious and varied drama, including\u00a0Maxwell Anderson<\/a>, whose verse dramas have dated badly, and\u00a0Robert E. Sherwood<\/a>, a Broadway professional who wrote both comedy (Reunion in Vienna<\/em>\u00a0[1931]) and tragedy (There Shall Be No Night<\/em>\u00a0[1940]).\u00a0Marc Connelly<\/a>\u00a0wrote touching\u00a0fantasy<\/a>\u00a0in an\u00a0African American<\/a>\u00a0folk biblical play,\u00a0The Green Pastures<\/em>\u00a0(1930). Like O\u2019Neill,\u00a0Elmer Rice<\/a>\u00a0made use of both Expressionistic techniques (The Adding Machine<\/em>\u00a0[1923]) and naturalism (Street Scene<\/em>\u00a0[1929]).\u00a0Lillian Hellman<\/a>\u00a0wrote powerful, well-crafted melodramas in\u00a0The Children\u2019s Hour<\/em>\u00a0(1934) and\u00a0The Little Foxes<\/em>\u00a0(1939). Radical theatre experiments included\u00a0Marc Blitzstein<\/a>\u2019s savagely satiric\u00a0musical<\/a>\u00a0The Cradle Will Rock<\/em>\u00a0(1937) and the work of\u00a0Orson Welles<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0John Houseman<\/a>\u00a0for the government-sponsored\u00a0Works Progress Administration (WPA) Federal Theatre Project<\/a>. The premier radical theatre of the decade was the\u00a0Group Theatre<\/a>\u00a0(1931\u201341) under\u00a0Harold Clurman<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Lee Strasberg<\/a>, which became best known for presenting the work of\u00a0Clifford Odets<\/a>. In\u00a0Waiting for Lefty<\/em>\u00a0(1935), a stirring plea for labour unionism, Odets roused the audience to an intense pitch of fervour, and in\u00a0Awake and Sing<\/em>\u00a0(1935), perhaps the best play of the decade, he created a lyrical work of family conflict and youthful yearning. Other important plays by Odets for the Group Theatre were\u00a0Paradise Lost<\/em>\u00a0(1935),\u00a0Golden Boy<\/em>\u00a0(1937), and\u00a0Rocket to the Moon<\/em>\u00a0(1938).\u00a0Thornton Wilder<\/a>\u00a0used stylized settings and poetic\u00a0dialogue<\/a>\u00a0in\u00a0Our Town<\/em>\u00a0(1938) and turned to fantasy in\u00a0The Skin of Our Teeth<\/em>\u00a0(1942).\u00a0William Saroyan<\/a>\u00a0shifted his lighthearted, anarchic vision from fiction to drama with\u00a0My Heart\u2019s in the Highlands<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0The Time of Your Life<\/em>\u00a0(both 1939).<\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Although theirs was a time of great change, the common thread that ties the Modernist writers together\u2014whether they write poetry, prose, or drama\u2014is the techniques they invented. Writers such as Faulkner, whose novel The Sound and the Fury<\/em> offered an entirely new way to narrate a book, or Langston Hughes, whose poetry blended music and verse, developed entirely new ways of telling a story. Modernist writers radically rejected previous standards in an attempt to \u201cmake it new\u201d and, in the process, changed the course of literary history.<\/p>\n\n\t\t\t

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Candela Citations<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t
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