Ap English Modernism Test Terms

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The Lost Generation

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The group of writers who either fought in WW1 or witnessed it at firsthand. Typically wrote about depression and the act of drinking away your sorrows.

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Harlem Renaissance

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A term referring to the literary, musical and artistic movement in the roaring twenties which was an expression of African-American culture. Spawned from the Great Migration and included the creation of Jazz and Blues. Writers expressed their race and heritage but also argued for more social equality.

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Modernism

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A term referring to the literary and artistic movement which was characterized by a breakdown of social norms, alienation, spiritual loneliness and traditional thoughts and morals. It was achieved through free indirect speech, multiple narrative points of view, as well as figurative language and classical allusions.

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Imagist Petry

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A type of poetry with was a short fad of the roaring twenties and writers like Ezra Pound. Characterized by its short length, typically two to six lines max, and its indirect speech and metaphors when addressing the topic.

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Langston Hughes

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Harlem Renaissance poet, influenced by the works of Walt Whitman. He wrote about everyday life and the simple reality of things or in other words - ordinary people living ordinary lives. He often used jazz and blues as an influence to his rhythms within his poetry. He wrote "I Too Sing America" and "The Weary Blues." "I Too Sing America" talked about the plight of African-Americans in society, "The Weary Blues" is a great example of the rhythm of blues, as it follows the cadence and onomatopoeia of a blues song.

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T.S. Eliot

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Was an essayist, playwright and a poet of the roaring twenties. He lived in England for most of his life but was born in the United States so both places claim him as their own. We was a school teacher in French and Latin and wrote poetry with modernist ideals. His famous works include, "The Waste Land," " The Hollow Man" and "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," which explained how we should exploit our limited time in life and how we should "dare disturb the universe." He uses a plethora of allusions in this poem from John the Baptist to Prince Hamlet and Sirens of Greek mythology.

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Edwin Arlington Robinson

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Wrote "Richard Cory" and "Miniver Cheevy."

"Richard Cory" - talks of isolation and loneliness with in the shell of this gentleman and clean-cut, celebrated man that is Richard Cory, who kills himself because he has no connection with anyone and is extremely lonely.

"Miniver Cheevy" - An older man's perspective, who fantasizes about the glory of being an ancient knight, who drinks to something that he cannot attain in his life.

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Zora Neale Hurston

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Wrote Their Eyes Were Watching God but the focus in this unit was on How it Feels to be Colored Me. A magazine article for an American Socialist political magazine. In it the writer discribes her experiences growing up and what it means to be African-American in america during a time of segregation. The article talks about having to be in a culture which cannot be fully understood by the white compatriots.

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Ernest Hemingway

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Wrote with the "Iceberg Theory," which focuses on the surface elements versus the enduring details, forcing you to make inferences. Wrote, "A Clean Well Lighted Place," which examines the conversation of a naïve, young waiter and an older, wiser, waiter at a café as they talk about an old man who drinks away his depression. A sense of disconnect and separation between the characters is at play.

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Ezra Pound

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An imagist poet who wrote "In a Station of the Metro," which is only two lines but describes an image in vivid, dark, detail. He also pioneered the imagist poetry style.

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Claude McKay

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Famous Harlem Renaissance poet, who would write with a fiery demeanor in his poems. He wrote "If We Must Die" which displays this passion, talking about how to fight back against the oppression of the "hungry dogs," and to go down with dignity and to fight to the death, not giving up.

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Robert Frost

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The Most Famous American Poet. He is made famous by his quote, "Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -- I took the one less traveled by." He wrote mainly about the rural life setting of New England, and used this to examine the complexity of social and philosophical themes at the time. He shows this quite well in his poems "Out, out-" and "The Mending Wall." In "Out, out-" he exposed the social norms of younger people, at the time 14 yro's, working dangerous jobs. He uses personification with the saw to make it seem more dangerous and living. He also displays the tough reality present in farm life, and the fact that death doesn't stop the living. For "The Mending Wall," no fence = community is the common theme persisting throughout the poem as well as do "good fences" really "make good neighbors."