THE LOST GENERATION DISILLUSIONMENT AND THE AMERICAN DREAM

THE LOST GENERATION DISILLUSIONMENT AND THE AMERICAN DREAM

“That is what you are. That's what you all are. . . All of young people who served in the war. You are a lost generation. ” — Gertrude Stein Hemingway resented this because he considered it a “dirty, easy label” Moveable feast

THE LOST GENERATION Nearly 10 million soldiers died and about 21 million were wounded. U. S. deaths totaled 116, 516 in WWI The generation of young people who came of age during and shortly after World War I is known as the WWI generation or the Lost Generation. Characterized by a feeling of disillusionment, many American Writers (expatriates) migrated to Europe (especially Paris) during WWI to WWII

AVANT-GARDE French translation: Advance guard Pushes boundaries of what is accepted as the norm or status quo Experimental and innovative Promotes radical social reforms

IMPACT America's awareness of its lack of cosmopolitanism helped establish America’s culture as it is today. As American customs became more defined, European and other countries recognized America as a distinctive culture and nation. Beyond this, the novels of the Lost Generation give insight into the American life during the 1920 s

SOME KEY WRITERS OF THE LOST GENERATION Ernest hemingway Archibald Mac. Leish F. Scott Fitzgerald Ezra Pound John Dos Passos t. S Elliot e. e. cummings James Joyce Gertrude Stein* Zelda Fitzgerald Ford Maddox Ford Sherwood Anderson Sylvia Beach

EXISTENTIALISM AND THE LOST GENERATION Much of modern literature, philosophy, and art portrays the world as lonely or meaningless. Existential protagonists are often lonely, anxiety ridden characters who are trying to make sense of their lives, who are trying to retain their courage in spite of the fact that the universe cares nothing for those things we call beautiful or good.

HEMINGWAY’S EXISTENTIALISM According to LA Rowland 2008, Hemingway’s Hidden Philosophy, Philosophy Now Magazine “The moral context in which to begin to extract and frame Hemingway’s philosophy is that of a life lived fully and heroically. “The essence of Hemingway’s thought is that in the confused and disordered world left after the Great War it is within man’s power alone to realize his moral purpose” “Purpose must be forged and thereafter protected in the citadel of the soul. “ “The true hero accepts responsibility for himself in a world where notions of ultimate truth and certainty have all but vanished, and with heartfelt vigour and persistence he must wring meaning out of a world devoid of any values outside of himself. ”

MODERNIST POETRY: POETRYFOUNDATION. ORG • Grew out of philosophical, scientific, political, and ideological shifts between 1900 and post WWI • Lyrical expression • Break with traditional conventions • Moved away from poetry inspired by personal imagination, culture, emotions and memories of the poet • Believed poetry should make an intellectual statement about the world.

IMAGIST POETS: POETRYFOUNDATION. ORG Early 2 oth Century poetic movement relied on resonance of concrete images drawn in precise colloquial language Ezra Pound’s defining traits of Imagist Poetry: 1. Direct Treatment of the “thing” whether subjective or objective 2. To use absolutely no word that does not contribute to the presentation 3. As regarding rhythm: to compose in sequence of the musical phrase, not in sequence of the metronome Reaction against “careless thinking” and extraneous abstract language Aims to replace “muddy abstractions with exactness of observed detail, apt metaphors, and economy of language” poets. org “The first tenet of the imagist manifesto was “to use the language of common speech but to employ always the exact word, not the nearly-exact, nor merely decorative word” T. E. Hulme, 1908

GERTRUDE STEIN Stream of Consciousness Art Collector, writer, critic, and inspiration to the Avant Garde

ERNEST HEMINGWAY distinctive writing style had an enormous influence on 20 th-century fiction. PROSE* writing that exhibits the natural flow and inconsistent rhythm of speech

JOHN DOS PASSOS • . wrote forty-two novels, as well as poems, essays, and plays, and created more than 400 pieces of art

F. SCOTT FITZGERALD “It was an age of miracles, it was an age of art, it was an age of excess, and it was an age of satire, ”

T. S. ELIOT The Wasteland Parallels Valley of Ashes in Gatsby “ A poet must take as his material his own language as it is actually spoken around him…His direct duty is to his language…”

TPCASTT ACTIVITIES FOR SLIDES 14 -19 Use the template to do a preliminary analysis of the three poems (or poem excerpts) Title Paraphrase Connotation Attitude Shift Title Theme

E. E. CUMMINGS • Manipulates syntax and punctuation for stylistic purposes* • poetry often deals with themes of love and nature, as well as the relationship of the individual to the masses and to the world. *

I carry your heart with me (I carry it in my heart) I am never without it (Anywhere I go you go, my dear; And whatever is done by only me is your doing, My darling) I fear no fate (For you are my fate, my sweet) I want no world (For beautiful you are my world, my true) And it's you are whatever a moon has always meant And whatever a sun will always sing is you Here is the deepest secret nobody knows (Here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud And the sky of a tree called life; which grows Higher than soul can hope or mind can hide) And this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart I carry your heart (I carry it in my heart) --by E. E. Cummings

EZRA POUND Considered by many to be the poet responsible for defining a modernist visual in poetry. *

THE GARDEN By Ezra Pound En robe de parade. Samain Like a skein of loose silk blown against a wall She walks by the railing of a path in Kensington Gardens, And she is dying piece-meal of a sort of emotional anemia. And round about there is a rabble Of the filthy, sturdy, unkillable infants of the very poor. They shall inherit the earth. In her is the end of breeding. Her boredom is exquisite and excessive. She would like some one to speak to her, And is almost afraid that I will commit that indiscretion