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MyTabstart > Favorites Directory > Education > Evolution of Modernism in American Literature
The world was drastically changing as the nineteenth century's classicism, romanticism, and regard for established order erupted into the twentieth century's hunger for an understanding of a world ravaged by atrocities of war facilitated by technological progress. Enlightenment ideals of science and reason needed to be recalibrated to fit a modern age that hardly resembled the world of the past two hundred years. This shift was particularly dramatic in America, a country barely a hundred years old. Take a look at TabStart's Evolution of Modernism in American Literature to understand how writers grappled with the new landscape of the twentieth century.
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Modern American Literature - This essay from the University of North Carolina at Pembroke examines the evolution of modern American literature through the works of Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, and William Faulkner. This writing pays special attention to the emergence of modernism in American poetry, one of the mediums most influenced by modernism.
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Modern American Poetry - This excellent resource from the University of Illinois provides a list of 161 modern American poets with links to their work and information on their lives and backgrounds. Each of the works is available in the Anthology of Modern American Poetry.
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American Literature 1865-1914 - The Norton Anthology of American Literature traces the political, social, and economic events in America that influenced the evolution of modernism in American literature.
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American Literature 1914-1945 - The Norton Anthology of American Literature continues its study by considering the effect of urbanization, industrialization, and immigration--as well as the profound shock of WWI and WWII--on the evolution of the modern American writer.
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Masters of American Literature - Following the death of J.D. Salinger this article from the UK's The Guardian looks back on a number of modern American literature masters and reflects on the passing of a generation that includes, Saul Bellow, Norman Mailer, John Updike, Philip Roth, and Kurt Vonnegut.
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The Roots of Modernism - This article by Dr. Christopher L.C.E. Witcombe, art historian and professor of art history at Sweet Briar College, explores modernism's roots from the mid nineteenth century until post-modernism's ascension in the mid twentieth century. Witcombe uses visual examples from Courbet and Manet demonstrate modernism's approach to art.
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Definition of Modernism - The University of Georgia's Department of English offers the definition of "modernism" from The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms.
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The Modernism Lab at Yale University - The Modernism Lab's online site is focused on researching the roots and evolution of literary modernism. Their stated goal is to explain the rise of modernism from social, political, and existential perspectives.
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Modernism: A Working Definition - Professor Catherine Lavender from the City University of New York presents this concise entry on the defintion of modernism, focusing on its divergence from the artistic, political, and social ideals of the Victorian era.
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Modernism and the Modern Novel - This brief entry explains the evolution of the artistic intentions and ideals of modernist writers such as James Joyce, W.B. Yeats, and Virginia Woolf.
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The Novel: From Realism to Modernism - This entry from Columbia University's Department of English and Comparative Literature explores the notion of formal experimentation in the modern novel. Included are a number of excellent sources for continued reading in literature, criticism, and theory.
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Religious Experience in the Modernist Novel - From the Yale University Department of Faith and Globalization comes this exploration of spirituality, faith, and religion in the modernist novel.
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Virginia Woolf's "Modern Novels" - This 1919 essay by American writer Virginia Woolf is an attempt by the author to define modern writing and place it within an historical context. She makes a distinction between two groups of her contempories, the "materialists" who consist of mainstream, popular writers and the "spiritualists" whose work is experimental and unconventional. These so-called "spiritualists" are whom we consider modernist writers today.