A brief introduction to the Modern time period and the various themes and characteristics of its art and literature

2. DEFINE “MODERN.”
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3. MODERNISM
• Literary and
artistic movement
• Provided radical
breaks with the
conservative and
traditional values
of realism
• Characterized by a
series of cultural
shocks Sixth Avenue Elevated at Third Street (1928) by John Sloan

4. CHARACTERISTICS OF MODERNISM
• Rejected traditional ways
• Promoted experimentation and individualism
• Attack on the notions of hierarchy/class/race
• Preoccupation with the inner self and consciousness
• Disillusionment and loss of faith and innocence
• Rejection of the ideal hero in favor of a realistically flawed
hero
• Optimism in response to cynicism and alienation
• “Unreliable” narrator in many novels
• Stream-of-consciousness

5. COMPARING MODERNISM TO THE PAST
PRE-MODERN WORLD MODERN WORLD
• Ordered • Chaos
• Meaningful • Pessimistic
• Unstable
• Optimistic
• Loss of Faith
• Stable • Collapse of
• Clear sense of Morality/values
identity • Confused sense of
identity and place
• Faith in world
• Morality/values

6. TIMELINE: 1900-1950
• 1905: Einstein formulates theory of relativity
• 1906: Earthquake and fire ravage San Francisco
• 1912: Titanic sinks
• 1914: Panama Canal opens
• 1914: WWI beings in Europe
• 1917: U.S. enters WWI
• 1920: 19th Amendment grants U.S. women the right
to vote
• 1927: Charles Lindberg completes first transatlantic
solo flight

7. TIMELINE: 1900-1950
• 1927: The Jazz Singer opens
• 1929: U.S. stock market crashes (The Great
Depression)
• 1939: WWII begins when Germany invades Poland
• 1941: U.S. enters WWII after Japanese attack on
Pearl Harbor
• 1945: Germany and Japan surrender
• 1945: United Nations forms
• 1950: Korean war begins
• 1950: U.S. population is about 151 million

8. WRITERS TO REMEMBER
• William Carlos Williams • F. Scott Fitzgerald
• Jack London • John Steinbeck
• Willa Cather • William Faulkner
• Robert Frost • Edgar Lee Masters
• Edna St. Vincent Millay • Zora Neale Hurston
• T.S. Eliot • Arthur Miller
• James Joyce • Tennessee Williams
• Ernest Hemingway
• Langston Hughes