Modern Age

1. Modern Age 1915-1946

2. Textbook Definition • A time when writers experimented with a wide variety of new techniques and approaches. • The writers sought to capture the essence of modern life in form and content. • Their work reflected the fragmentation of American life by constructing their work out of fragments and omitting the expositions, transition, resolutions, and explanations found in traditional literature,

3. On-line definition • Subject and technique became inseparable in both the visual and literary art of the period. • The idea of form as the equivalent of content, a cornerstone of post-World War II art and literature, crystallized in this period.Technological innovation in the world of factories and machines inspired new attentiveness to technique in the arts. • Vision and viewpoint became an essential aspect of the modernist novel as well.

4. Guiding beliefs • Artist is less appreciated but more sensitive than the average person • Artist challenges tradition • A breaking away from patterned responses and predictable forms • International; perspective

5. Characteristics • Alienation • Obsession with primitive material • Stylistic innovations • Free verse • Imagism • disillusionment

6. Authors and their works • T.S. Elliot “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” • Plight of women • Literature reflected the urban experience • Continuation of regionalism

7. Historical and cultural landscape • WWI Depression WWII • Women’s suffrage • Prohibition • Modern entertainments movies, dancing, automobile touring, radio • Flappers • Breakdown of traditional values.