American Modernism

Question 1

Historical Context:

Answer 1

Period between WWI and WWII
-> “radical shift in aesthetic and cultural sensibilities evident in the art and literature of the post-WWI period.”…breaks with Victorian bourgeois morality and rejects “19th century optimism”, presenting a “profoundly pessimistic picture of a culture in diary.” - Christopher Keep and McLaughlin

Cultural context -> in 20th century:

-industrialization
-urbanization (many people leaving small towns to work in the big cities because there we have new technology and industrialization)
-complete secularization: God is no longer the center -> God is dead (Nietzsche)
-advances in sciences (relative theory)
-psychoanalysis (Freud: id, ego, super-ego)

-> life has changed dramatically and so has our perception -> if we can‘t completely understand ourselves (because of the id that‘s beyond logical thinking or cognitive capacities): How are we supposed to understand the world or anything beyond that? -> We can‘t get the full picture of the world and ourselves

-> Literary Reactions:

-alienation, doubt with form and language of its own:

• pessimism/disintegration: after WWI: Notion that there might be something nasty about mankind, things are falling apart
• fragmentation: you don‘t understand the world and just see it in parts (same goes for yourself)
• disillusionment, skepticism, despair: the world and humanity has problems, we don‘t know what‘s going on/what we should do

Question 2

How does American Realism differ from American Modernism?

Answer 2

-American Realism followed verisimilitude: appearance of being true while exploring and representing life, giving true accounts on events with locations and people that are grounded in reality (literary contract)
-Realism in paintings: detailed account to paint full picture of (everyday) life -> pictures are therefore painted in details and shapes (to look almost photographic)

≠

-American Modernism: Fragmentation of reality due to the fact that we don‘t understand reality or ourselves fully -> yet often an attempt at putting those fragmented, unfitting pieces together: it shows that there is no way of mirroring “reality” -> so let‘s just put the fragments together in a way that they fit for a moment
-Modernism in Paintings: Picasso for example

Noteworthy:

-American Modernism followed American Realism

-> American Realism: From Civil War (1861-65) to turn of the century

Question 3

Modernism comes as a reaction to the world. What are Modernism‘s core tenets?

Answer 3

-alienation, doubt with form and language of its own:

• losing faith because of the industrialisation
• pessimism/disintegration: after WWI: Notion that there might be something nasty about mankind, things are falling apart
• fragmentation: you don‘t understand the world and just see it in parts (same goes for yourself)
• disillusionment, skepticism, despair: the world and humanity has problems, we don‘t know what‘s going on/what we should do

Question 4

Key features in American Modernist Literature (slogan: “Make it New!”):

Answer 4

-direct treatment of the thing: this thing is not shown in any kind of conventional fashion

-no conventional symbolism -> e.g. “a rose is a rose is a rose”: no other meaning behind a thing than the thing itself

-often concrete sensory image that sets the centre of the poem or text

-the modernist text does not give meaning: it is a searching for meaning

Question 5

What type of poem is “Of Modern Poetry” by Wallace Stevens?

Answer 5

It‘s a metapoem: It is a poem that is about poetry (in this case modern poetry itself), asking:
-What does a modern poem look like?
-What does a modern poem have to achieve?
—> describing what poems should be like

Question 6

What are the characteristics of a modernist poem according to Stevens?

Answer 6

• like a theatre with an invisible audience

IN DETAIL
-It has to move on from simply repeating what came before
-it is an endless act of finding meaning without ever sufficing: it is a process
-“an invisible audience that listens”: modern poetry looks at the world and then the audience listens/reads and looks at itself (in poetry, unlike in the theater, you don‘t see your audience -> the reader and the writer don‘t see each other -> an invisible audience does not listen to a play, but to itself
-at center is the turn to simple, ordinary, common things-> modernist poems don‘t desire to make things exaggerated/lather than they are: they treat/tackle common things in the world and treat them as such

Question 7

What is the Theatrum Mundi metaphor running through the poem?

Answer 7

Theatrum mundi: a comparison without a word of comparing

In “Of Modern Poetry”: The world was like a theater (where the script was repeated over and over again), the past is now like a souvenir
—> life as a staged performance: human perception and imagination act as the directors shaping reality
—> poet as creator: both observer and participant in life’s grand theatre, highlighting the role of artistic expression

Question 8

What is the moment of „sudden rightness“?

Answer 8

• find (in a process) a satisfaction living with people about thing of life
  -> what writer does and audience (reader) thinks both comes together
  –> two emotions becoming one; audience resonates with poem

IN DETAIL
Also called “moment of being (Virginia Wolff): All fragments momentarily resonate/connect with each other -> a process of understanding/ finding: said process of fragments becoming one happens in the mind -> ≠ in Transcendentalism and Romanticism: “it has no will to rise”: it is in the here and now, has no desire to go any further than that (e.g. such as ascending to the stars or a higher being).

Question 9

Which shift do you see between the first and the second stanza of “Of Modern Poetry”?

Answer 9

The first stanza explains what poetry used to be (like a theatre for which the scene had a script that was repeated over and over again), the second stanza tells that the theatre is a different thing now and we cannot go on with these repetitions

Question 10

Which metaphor is at the center of Steven‘s poem “Of Modern Poetry”?

Answer 10

The metaphor of poetry being like a theatre

Question 11

What does Imagism mean and what role does the Haiku play in the poem “In a Station of the Metro” by Ezra Pound?

Answer 11

literary movement founded by Pound: emphasizes clarity, precision and direct presentation of images -> uses single image to convey immediate emotional and sensory experience
role of haiku: focus on fleeting moment of perception

IN DETAIL
Imagism:
-Name given to a movement in poetry, originating in 1912 and represented by poets such as Ezra Pound and Amy Lowell, aiming at clarity and expression through the use of precise visual images.
-Succinct verse of dry clarity and hard outline in which an exact visual image made a total poetic statement.
-≠ Symbolism: Symbolism had affinity with music, Imagism sought analogy with sculpture -> the visual is in the foreground and not the musical kind of association.

-> Imagism was influenced by:

Haiku:

-short poem that uses sensory language to capture a feeling or image
-often inspired by an element of nature, a moment of beauty or a poignant experience
-Haiku poetry was originally developed by Japanese poets, and the form was adapted to English and other languages by poets in other countries

Haiku‘s role in this particular poem:

“In a Station of the Metro” is a short poem that uses sensory language to capture a feeling or image by comparing it with imagery of nature (just like Haiku usually does): The sensorial moment of witnessing a crowd in the station of the metro is being compared with petals ok a wet, black bough.

Both, Imagism and Haiku, are influences for “In a Station of the Metro” by Ezra Pound.

Question 12

What role does the title “In a Station of the Metro” play?

Answer 12

• modern urban setting -> contrast to natural imagery within poem
• sets stage, suggesting that even in a crowded, artificial moment/environment, moments of beauty and deeper meaning can be found

The title itself becomes part of the poem in a particular way -> without it, we wouldn‘t know where the moment (apparition of faces in the crowd) the poem describes is located (we are in a station of the metro)

Question 13

Explain the general metaphor of “In a Station of the Metro”.

Answer 13

• comparison of faces in the metro station to petals on a wet black bough
  –> delicate and transient beauty of human life within the mechanical and impersonal urban environment

IN DETAIL
The metaphor here: Tertium comparationis (latin for “the third part of the comparison”): Tells us the quality that two things which are compared to each other have in common.
-> Here: Apparition of faces in the crowd of a metro station: They are dark, clumped, together, just like Petals on a wet, black bough. -> Comparison between this very kind of moment of people coming together by chance on a metro station: It‘s a moment of beauty, hence it is compared to an image of nature.

Question 14

What is missing grammatically in “In a Station of the Metro” and why is it important?

Answer 14

• absence of verbs –> seems like a sequence of two images without explanation
  –> encourages interpretation and association

“The apparition of these faces in the crowd: Petals on a wet, black bough.” -> it doesn‘t have a verb, because it creates a visual image of a place we could imagine for ourselves, while closing our eyes.

Question 15

The Story of an Hour, Kate Chopin, historical background

Answer 15

Suffrage Movement:

-1820-1925: Progressive Era -> Women from all classes enter public life, increasing politicization of women

-1920: 19th Amendment: American Women win full voting rights

-not only about full voting rights, but also more rights in marriage -> Emancipation of women in general

Question 16

What is the symbolism of open windows and closed doors in “The Story of an Hour”?

Answer 16

• open windows: symbolise freedom, opportunity and a new beginning
  -> when Louise gazes out the window she sees the possibilities of a life without societal constraints
• closed doors: confinement, restriction, societal oppression, mimits due to marriage
  -> final closed door when she dies: inescapability

IN DETAIL
-Implies a sense of possible freedom that she notices after believing that her husband is dead -> Her life opens a metaphorical window into new possibilities (a life that she could now live independently)/ a new perspective on life -> Through the window, she takes in the details of the world for the first time.

-Open window allows her to feel all sorts of force rushing towards her as she finds new liberty -> e.g. spring trees “all quiver”, she smells the fresh rain etc. -> She takes the world in with all of her body, heart and soul.

Question 17

What is the narrative situation in “The Story of an Hour” and why is it special?

Answer 17

3rd person limited omniscient narrator: limited perspective creates sense of emotional depth and irony
–> reader gains insight in her thoughts -> contrast to perception of others

IN DETAIL
Narrative situation here: Figural narrative situation: There is no apparent narrator. A reflector figure thinks, feels and perceives. An illusion of immediacy is created. -> Reflector: Is there to mirror in his own consciousness what is going on in the world outside (or inside). He/she pretends to be giving an unmediated view, as if the reader was presented with the thing itself. Mediation is camouflaged.

In this story:

-we don‘t have a phrase such as “she thought” -> but it still adopts the idiom of the characters’ own thoughts (including indicators of time and place) -> e.g. “she‘d leave here tomorrow” instead if sth. like “she decided to leave that place the next day”

-we have transition that we see in Modernism: Insights in free indirect speech and sense of immediacy of the character

Question 18

How do readers vs. characters interpret her death?

Answer 18

reader: death likely caused by sudden loss of newfound freedom and independence -> tragic result of societal oppression

characters: dies from overwhelming happiness seeing her husband alive
-> woman’s role entirely dependent on her husband for fulfillment

IN DETAIL
The characters, particularly the doctors, interpret Mrs. Mallard’s death as being caused by the overwhelming joy of seeing her husband alive—“a joy that kills.”

The reader knows: The new life Mrs. Mallard already felt and looked forward too immediately faded away (resulting in her death) after she finds out that her husband isn‘t actually dead.

-> Ironic: The solar opposite of what the characters thought is actually the case.

Question 19

What is the historical context behind the Harlem Renaissance? (Red Summer of 1919)

Answer 19

• during early 20th cent., many African Americans moved from rural South to Northern cities, including harlem
  –> seeking better economic opportunities
  –> escaping racial violence

IN DETAIL
-Whereas the general American Modernism is called “high modernism”, the Harlem Renaissance is called the “other modernism”

-the high modernism: White writers and how they reacted to a different kind of cultural context (Industrialization, time after the war where people were disillusioned/did not believe that they had a connection to anything, urbanization where people moved to the big cities etc.)
-> This modernism (“the other modernism”: Black writers who look at a different kind of history within the united states and beyond.

Red Summer of 1919:

Race riots in the North & Midwest: Consequence of the Great Migration -> Great Migration: Technology and urbanization brought people up North and to the Midwest -> brought black people from the south (where they had families, were slaves etc.) to predominantly white spaces -> White people reacted aggressively:

Race Riots: White gangs lynched blacks -> already between January 1 and September 14, 1919: Ca. 43 African Americans lynched, another eight men burned.

In 1920s and 1930s: New York City Neighborhood of Harlem became center of a movement that saw African American art and thought flourish -> Birth of new racial consciousness and proud black cultural identity -> Spiritual coming of age for the black community that separated it from old black stereotypes: Defining moment for African American art and literature.

-> Black writers, musicians, artists etc. produced creative works at an unprecedented level -> In the focus: Ideas that rejuvenate the community‘s self-reliance and self-respect

-boom of the Harlem Renaissance withered in 1930s as the country battled the Great Depression.

Question 20

What are the core concerns of the Harlem Renaissance? What were its demands?

Answer 20

• focus on expression of African Americans identity, cultural pride and artistic innovation while challenging racial stereotypes
• racial discrimination; economic inequality and social justice
• demands: racial equality; civil rights, greater representation in American society

IN DETAIL
Core concerns of Harlem Renaissance:

-racial pride
- celebrating, accepting heritage and culture
-seeking acceptance
-against exclusion
-rich history of African American Culture and their artists
-black creativity and intelligence
-double consciousness: looking at oneself through the eyes of black culture, but also white mainstream culture (Acc. to Du Bois)
-to have own styles and voices (like Jazz and other art forms individually tied to black culture).

Also noteworthy: The New Negro (edited by Alain Locke, one of the most important african Philosophers, who studied at Harvard): The most important book of Harlem Renaissance -> Collection of black texts, trying to counteract stereotypes of the “Old Negro” -> Self-defining blackness, bringing up new definitions, suited for the “New Negro” (to counteract stereotypes such as blackfaced fools in Jim Crow‘s Minstrel Shows)

Question 21

Hughes references another poem in “I, Too, Sing America”. What is the poem? How does it help us understand Hughes‘s text?

Answer 21

Hughes references “I hear America Singing”
by Walt Whitman.
-> That poem: Catalogue of all people that should be included in Whitman‘s form of an ideal, equal America.
-> Hughes now writes himself into that catalogue and therefore adds himself to Whitman‘s list (“I, too, sing America”).

Question 22

How does Hughes‘s poem “I, Too, Sing America” fit with the demands of the Harlem Renaissance?

Answer 22

• they want to be equals, part of America, be greater presented
• have the same civil rights

IN DETAIL
He celebrates his heritage and own identity by writing himself into american literature, yet doing it by using his own voice and style -> He creates counterculture to America‘s racist culture (similar to Slave Narrative: He writes himself into existence)
-> also: He has double consciousness here: He is looking at himself through the eyes of white culture (the ones that see him as a useless outcast) but also through the eyes of black culture (someone who can be proud of himself and will eventually emancipate himself and rise).

-> Harlem Renaissance is about self-definition of racial pride: He brings in his own beauty to underline that him being black does not make him inferior and anybody thinking that will be put to shame.

Question 23

What does the shift in tense signify in “I, Too, Sing America”?

Answer 23

“Now, there is no equality, but soon, there will be equality”
–> hope for the future

IN DETAIL
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.

Tomorrow I‘ll he at the table
When Company comes.
Nobody‘ll dare
Say to me,
“Eat in the Kitchen.”
Then.

-> Shift in tense between Stanza 1 and 2: From present to future underlines tense -> I WILL BE at the table TOMORROW -> Self-confidence within the lyrical I (“I will be among them and no other will dare exclude me” -> Cause he will have put himself into a position where this is no longer possible.

Question 24

How would you describe the development and tone of Hughe‘s Poem?

Answer 24

In the first stanza, the lyrical I sets a rather sad and miserable tone by saying that his Masters forbid him to sit at the table when company comes. But he then sets a hopeful tone by saying that he will eat and grow strong.

The second stanza shifts in tense (from present to future), stating that he will be at the table tomorrow and nobody will dare tell him otherwise, stressing his self-confidence and strengthening a hopeful note of emancipation.

The third stanza tackles the Harlem Renaissance theme of racial pride, making him state that he is beautiful and anybody thinking otherwise will be ashamed for thinking that.

The last line brings the poem to full circle, ending with the very same line that started the poem: “I, too, sing America”.

Question 25

Who/what is the apostrophe in the poem “Black Woman” by Georgia Douglas Johnson? (who is the addressee and what poetic device is at play?)

Answer 25

• Apostrophe: directly addresses collective experience of black woman
  –> their struggle, resilience, sacrifices -> racial/gender oppression
• poetic device: addresses an abstract/absent entity -> powerful expression of emotion
  –> intimate and poignant tone

Apostrophe: A speech or address of a person who is not present or to a personified object (could be something that is personified, such as death).

The apostrophe in this poem is the child her Mother keeps telling to that she can‘t bring it into this cruel world.

Question 26

What is the central conflict in the poem “Black Woman”?

Answer 26

• Internal vs. external struggles: emotional pain vs. societal oppression / pressure -> silent suffering
• Identity vs. societal expectations: desire for self-expression and restrictive roles imposed by society

A black mother does not want to give birth to her child cause she doesn‘t want to put her into a violent, sexist and racist world, as much as the baby would love to be with her and as much as she would love to have her child with her.

Question 27

What role does the last line play in the poem “Black Woman”?

Answer 27

• powerful conclusion -> underscores strength and endurance of Black women
• call for recognition -> emphasizing their dignity and need for gender societal awareness

It ends with “I must not give you birth!” -> Last line has auxiliary verb “must”: It‘s not that the most doesn‘t want her child to be with her, it‘s that she doesn‘t want her to live in this racist and sexist world.