Modernist Poetry
This style of poetry arose from the fallout of World War I. This resulted in pessimistic poems that were much more depressing than the poetry that had been created in the 1800s.
Modernist Poetry
Sherwood Anderson wrote this novel, which is actually a group of short stories that are interconnected. This unique approach to form reflects the work's Modernist nature.
Winesburg, Ohio
This literary movement began in 1865 in reaction to dissatisfaction with Romanticism. Growing numbers of the poor and a larger gap between haves and the haves not influenced this movement.
Realism
A type of poetry that doesn't conform to any set rhyme or meter. Whitman wrote his poems in this style.
Free Verse
A comparison between two dissimilar things that have some sort of abstract similarity without using the words 'like,' 'as,' or 'than.'
Metaphor
A poem about a woman whose husband impregnated her even though he knew it would kill her. No one else knows he did this, showing that you can't know people's secrets.
Amanda Barker by Edgar Lee Masters
A partially autobiographical play by Eugene O'Neill. It follows a struggling family over the course of a day. The mother in the play suffers from addiction, much like O'Neill's mother.
Long Day's Journey Into Night
An abolitionist novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe that is population by complex characters. The attention paid to these characters connects the novel to Realism.
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Through this essay, Emerson encouraged people to bring about change by using personal strengths.
Self-Reliance
A reference in a literary work to another literary work or historical element.
Allusion
Robinson uses standard rhymes and meter in this Modern poem to describe a guy who seems to have a great life before he goes home and kills himself in a surprise twist.
Richard Cory by E.A. Robinson
This novel uses the symbol of the green light to represent achieving the American dream, which is always unreachable for the main character.
The Great Gatsby
A rare story by Twain that is set in London, instead of in America. It is still very concerned with the social history of the main character.
The Million Pound Bank Note
According to Emerson, self-reliance in this area required you to understand the oneness between man and god.
Religion
When something has a deeper meaning than what's on the surface. Often, something physical has an abstract symbolic meaning.
Symbolism
In this type of poetry, you would focus on using clear words to paint a picture of specific images.
Imagism
This Modernist writer wrote The Grapes of Wrath. He had a lot of interest in the disenfranchised and demonstrated this by including themes regarding social protest in his work.
John Steinbeck
Writers in this period often strove to accurately represent regional ways of speaking in their works. Much of Twain's work, including The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn displays this.
Regional Dialect
In his essay, Emerson asserted that self-reliance in this field meant not imitating the work of others. He thought that schools made people reliant in this area because they encouraged copying.
Arts
Identify the literary device: Instead of simply saying 'It's hot,' saying 'The sun is blazing orange and is cooking the ground.'
Imagery
In this sonnet, the narrator considers her many lovers. It shocked readers because the writer and her narrator were both women.
What Lips My Lips Have Kissed by Edna St. Vincent Millay
A Modernist writer known for the novel As I Lay Dying and other works. He wrote in stream-of-consciousness, which means thoughts are written down without a lot of focus.
William Faulkner
The 12th novel by Edith Wharton, published in 1920. It follows domestic issues in an upper-class family and earned the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
Age of Innocence
This poem of Dickinson's focuses on the individual experience of hope, without attributing it to a divine cause. This interest in the individual draws on Transcendentalism.
Hope is the thing with feathers
Identify the literary device: The color white is traditionally used by writers to mean purity or innocence.
Symbolism