ENGLISH ESSAY TEST 2 – Flashcards

Jamacan immigrant who saw and experianced the treatment of American blacks during his work and travels. An open critic of American society, he lved as an expatriate in Europe and North Africa for a decade. His poetry was traditional in form but could be militant in tone.

Educated at NYU and Harvard, he was influenced by English Romantic poets such as Keats, He was criticized by some for his failure to use black idioms and speech. After his arly sucess during the Harlem Renaisence, he taught junior high school French and English.

A prolific author of both poetry and ficiton, he was famous for using the ryhthmes of blues and jazz in his poetry. He maintained a long career, still writing during the Civil Rights Era.

From Mississippi - Great theme: the decline of the Old South and its aristocracy. His novels and stories often feature declining, decadent aristocratic families in conflict with unscrupulous but rising figures from a lower social class. (Two late modernists) - Faulkner sets many of his stories in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, Miss., one of the great fictional settings in American literature. - Style elements- His writing and syntax are complex. A Faulkner sentence can fill a half a page or more. His style is considered difficult by some and remarkable by many. - His narratives play with sequence and tie together the past and the present. - He was an expert at the use of stream of consciousness- the imitation by the writer of a character's rambling thought process. - As I Lay Dying, The Sound and the Fury, Absalom! Absalom!, - Won the Nobel Peace Prize for Literature in 1950. - He taught at UVA late in his career.

Famous for a relatively small number of highly polished short stories. - Brief, concentrated - Tightly written - Focus on psychological aspect of characters - Flowering Judas (first collection) - Pale horse, Pale Rider - Ship of Fools (long awaited novel published in 1962, winner of National Book Award an Pulitzer Prize

The most famous of the beat writers - Novelist his novels were autobiographical ' - Fictionalized accounts of his experiences with changed names - Not a fan of revision - "spontaneous bop prosody" - (means spontaneous jazz poetry) - "Not writing, its typing" - The publication of his best know book, "On the Road" in 1957 turned the Beat Generation into a national craze and made Kerouac a favorite of the national media. - He was this movie star like character and supposedly brought his dead up on himself with his own fame. - The book itself was a travel log that describes their thrill seeking, experience, and meaning. - Follow up novel was somewhat similar in approach and with influence from Buddhism "Dharma Bums". - By the 1960s, Kerouac distances himself from the Beat Generation and his friends. He lived with his mother for the last part of his life.

Leading poet of the beat generations - His public reading (at the Six Gallery in San Francisco, 1955) Of his anti-establishment poem "howl" led to his publication, national fame, and court case involving his national his court case involving its language - Although over 40 by then, he became a leading figure of the youth counter culture. - He kept his association with the new and hip throughout his life, recordings with the Rock Band Pearl Jam, for example, in the 1990s.

NOT BEAT- - Annie Dillard: Hollins University. Draws from Henry David Thoreau. Pilgrim at tinkerer creek won Pulitzer prize in 75. Style is very much like Thoreau, drawing spiritual truths from observations from nature. Describes herself as spiritually promiscuous. Holy the Firm. Teach a Stone to Talk. A Writing life

NOT BEAT She became involved in writng at Fisk University in the 60s and head of SNCC which was key in the civil rights movement. After Malcom X is assassinated she became heavily involved in the Black Power movement. (artistic arm). Her early poetry was combative and looked toward revolution. (Black feeling, black Talk 1968). Work eventually entiailded to womens and family issues. Cotton Candy on a Rainy Day.

The Harlem Renaissance-• The Harlem Renaissance was a flowering of literary activity and art among young Negroes in Harlem (was originally a Dutch settlement [spelled Haarlem] during the years 1920-1930. • Factors that contribute to the HR • Great Migration (rural to urban shift) which created mixed cultures. [High rents in Harlem]. • A more assertive generation of black Americans. • New interest in black culture in white urbanites and publishers. • Much of the writing was very race conscious • The dependence on white publishers was a huge weakness of the movement. • Harlemania= Night life in Harlem • The Cotton Club: A white only club that had mostly black performers coming in and playing. • Rent Parties: A party in a house with paid admission in order to pay the rent. • A rift exists among the members of the HR movement. • Some felt that their work should present blacks in the best possible light and emphasized high culture, achievement, and educational excellence. • Some felt that they should portray honestly all aspects of black life, including the life of the lower class. • Depression ended the HR by diverting money from the arts.

Originally a small group of authors who met at Columbia University in NY during the late 1940s. - Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Greg Corso - The name is street slang for a world weariness and came to mean here weariness with the dull, ordinary routine of mainstream life. - Its nonconformist views were expressed in a hip vocabulary. - Some of the writings show influence from Buddhism and seem to involve spiritual searches. - Some critics have dismissed this influence and Buddhism light. - Beat poetry and prose were influenced by the rhythms of bebop . a complex form of virtuosic jazz that was a reaction against the swing band jazz of the 1940. - Bebop innovators are Charlie "Bird" Parker and Dizzie Gillespie - Bop, in its early years, was played in late night clubs to hipsters in the know after musicians had finished their regular gigs with more conventional bands. - The Beat literary scene later was transplanted to the West Coast, especially San Francisco, in the 1950 and came to encompass a somewhat wider circle of writers. - Eventually, from publicity resulting from some influential magazine articles and the publication of some of the major works of Beat canon, the idea of a Beat Generation was spread by the pop media to the 1950s youth scene in general. - Stereotype of the beatnik arose, and beatnik characters began appearing in movies, eventually, television sitcoms. - Maynard G. Krebbs (bob Denver) played a stereotypical beatnik. - As with any cultural movement, by the time the ideas and image become wide spread and mainstream, what was authentic in the original movement was over. - The Beat writers are considered the predecessor to the 1960s youth counterculture.

Is post modernism a continuation of modernism or does it represent some type of break with modernism. - For many, post modernism is "a tentative grouping of idas stylistic traits, and thematic preoccupations" in the arts. - It sometimes involves the incorporation of different genres and of contradictory voices within the same work. - It sometimes involves the use of fragmented forms that allow audiences to assemble the work. - It sometimes involves the taking by the artist of a playfully ironic stance toward the subject matter of the work itself. - In general, postmodernism often involves a th"thorough-going skepticism toward the foundations and structures of knowledge. - There are a variety of approaches to postmodernism - Radical experiments in form - An increase in minority voices - New genres that reflect social change. - New forms of publications tied to technology. - New relations between literature and pop culture. - Some post modern writing reflects the breakdown of the idea an objective, "official" story . There has been a trend toward the mixing of history, journalism, and fiction. - Fragmentary nature of historical evidence - Reliance on technologies for reproduction of historical evidence, with the subsequent potential for error or exploitation - The subjective nature of interpretation by historians. - Postmodern historical fiction may have certain characteristics. - It may focus on marginal or "outsider" figures. - It may incorporate historical characters into fictional stories. - It may be fragmentary in structure, or it may contain contradictory motives. - Some authors have reworked "canonical literary texts" from the view of minor characters. - Postmodern journalism, especially new journalism, of the 1960s and 70s, has several characteristcis - The traditional reporter's "objective" stance is abandoned - There may be active participation by the writer in the events portrayed. - There is a trend toward subjectivity in such reporting - Some key works have involved a blending of journalism and fiction - The nonfiction novel.