Southern literature

FLANNERY O’CONNOR (1925-1964) was a Southern writer relying on regional settings, portraying grotesque characters as she remarked that “anything that comes out of the South is going to be called grotesque by the northern reader.” Her trademark is foreshadowing, giving a reader an idea of what will happen far before it happens. She wrote with the notion that the world is charged with God but she is not apologetic like other prevalent Catholic literature of the time. She portrays backward Southern characters that undergo transformation of character that brings them closer to the Catholic mind. Her characters are often freaks that do not fit into society but they are not totally negative.

American-Jewish fiction

Early Jewish writers were trying to persuade they can contribute to the American society and they not dangerous aliens. Later writing included mainly autobiographies, describing their coming to America and the new life. Till 1930s, Jewish poetry was considered marginal, mostly written in English, Yiddish and Hebrew. Writers who learned English wrote mainly prose as they felt they could not adequately express themselves in a foreign language, struggling with American Protestant vocabulary and culture. The main themes were return to the roots, multiculturalism and the search for identity with poems close to commentary.

Contemporary poetry

PHILIP LEVINE /lívajn/ (1928) is known as the poet of the working class. His poems tell stories of blue collar workers, his own workingman’s life and address the common man in simple colloquial language. He knew the people of the Beat generation but had a voice of his own. As a child of Jewish immigrants, he experienced anti-Seminism in his childhood. He worked days at a factory and wrote poetry at night. He was appointed poet laureate.

Contemporary drama

EDWARD ALBEE (*1928) is the most influential playwright still alive who appeared when Miller and Williams were declining. He was adopted by a millionaire family, received the finest education but he was expelled for not going to church and smoking on campus. He was also politically active and supported Czech absurd drama of Václav Havel and urged Havel to be freed from jail.

Contemporary fiction

Feminist authors

ALICE WALKER (*1944) is an Afro-American feminist but for her feminism was still too soft and she was right since it used to aim only white middle class women so she found her own feminist movement Womanism. She was unpopular both with whites and blacks since she was too open for her time and presented in bad light even black community (violence, rape, abortions).

Postwar fiction

JEROME DAVID SALINGER (1919-2010) was of Jewish origin but without ties to the Jewish culture, in fact, he became a follower of Zen Buddhism. The Catcher in the Rye (1951) was the most censored book and the second most, his only novel as he wrote short stories and novellas like Nine Stories (1953) and Franny and Zooey (1961). The challenges begin with frequent use of vulgar language, sexual references, blasphemy, undermining of family values and moral codes, Holden's being a poor role model, encouragement of rebellion and promotion of drinking, smoking, lying, and promiscuity.

Postwar poetry and criticism

Formalism

The main critical movement of 1940s-50s was Formalism that originally started as literary critical movement New Criticism in 1920s as new approach to literature. They concentrated more on the form with close reading, less on content. For them the only thing you should pay attention to is the text itself – forgetting about author´s background – everything we need to know is in the text, not outside. The main emphasize was the language which results in the analysis of metaphors, rhythm, everything that makes the language poetic. They used the special term ostranenie = defamilirazation. Otherwise they relied mainly on traditional forms and genres for which they had many opponents, in additional it was very academic, not for a common reader to enjoy.

Postwar American drama

LILIAN HELLMAN (1905-1984) came from a Jewish family of the South and her work reflected social changes of that region, contrasting times before and after the Civil War. Her first play, Children´s Hour, was still pre-war, it is about two women running a private school and one little spoiled student who she does not want attend school makes a story that these two female teachers have a lesbian relationship. The scandal spreads in the small Southern prejudiced town and the school is closed. One teacher commits suicide, another loses her fiancée.

Little Foxes depicts the new ruling class that emerged after the Civil War. It tells a story of a Southern family that became rich during the Civil War and now runs an exploiting business, destroying old valuable culture. Another Part of the Forest is about the same family but precedes it.

In Watch On Rhine she was one o the first writers who started deal with fascism, she wanted to warn Americans since they do not care about some Germany so she set the scene in America. Hellman was political active in the left-winged politics during 1950s, similarly to Odets, and for that was blacklisted, investigated by McCarthy´s committee and her work could not get published. She described all that in her memoir Scoundrel Time.

ARTHUR MILLER (1915-2005) became the most popular American playwright after the war since his plays are realistic and he never used any symbols like O'Neill or experiments on stage. He produced mainly social criticism and openly criticised American dream, depicting over-motivated character who want to succeed because of the idyllic idea that everybody can be what they want to be.

All My Sons (1947) depicts a protagonist wants to make money on the war so he sells defective parts of airplanes to American army which causes deaths of many pilots, including one of his sons. The whole family pretends not to know about it because if they admitted it, father would be responsible. Eventually, the second son finds out, confronts his father and wants him go to the police but he cannot admit it publicly so he commits suicide.

Death of a Salesman's (1949) protagonist Willy Lowman is an old travelling salesman with not special skills and spent all his life trying to sell things nobody really wanted and now company does not need him anymore but he does not want to face reality and still pretends his life had sense. The only time he has to face the fact he is a failure as so will his sons is when he commits suicide to that his family can live from insurance. Throughout the play Willy is blind to reality, refuses to admit failure and when he finally decides to commit suicide, he sees his value in insurance, hoping that his sons can start a new life with the money. However, his below average sons cannot use it for anything proper. The play expresses the falseness of American dreams and its destructive effects.

The Crucible (1953) is a political play, similarly to Hellman who addressing the red scare. Unlike her, Miller set the story in the Salem village during Puritan times, stating parallel during of Puritan witch-hunt and post-war America's scare of anything left-winged.

As Miller was of Jewish origin, he wanted to express it also in his work but as he was scare of another wave of anti-semitism, he rather addressed universal American topics and published his Jewish play much later. Playing for Time (1980) was based on real events, about women orchestra in concentration camp.

Miller was also a popular figure with a very publicly visible marriage to Marilyn Monroe. He wrote screenplays for her but he also had to take care of her when she was drunk. Finishing the Picture (2004) was the last tribute to her, written a few months before Miller's death.

TENNESSEE WILLIAMS (1911-1983)

His plays are considered to be controversial because of open sexual and psychological relationships. Characters are neurotic, sexually obsessed people and usually female characters. The recurring motif is the conflict between fragile sensitive female characters and the world of other characterss representing animalistic aggressive forces. He attempt to defend old values and innocence in the world that does not accept them but he avoided to present it as a fight between good and evil. His characters are not black and white and images of love range from sentimental romantic to sexual violence. He was not experimental like O'Neill but he used symbolism.

His early plays were realistic like Glass Menagerie which is a partly autobiographical play consisting of memories of the protagonists who recalls with his mother, an aging Southern lady and shy handicapped sister who is collection little glass animal figure. The sister, as well as her mother, are symbolically compared to these glass figures, better to be confined in order not to be broken by the cruel world.

Streetcar Named Desire (1947) deals with a culture clash between Blanche DuBois, a relic of the Old South, and Stanley Kowalski, a rising member of the working class.

Blanche DuBois is a fading but still-attractive Southern woman. Blanche arrives at the apartment of her sister Stella. The local transportation she takes includes a streetcar route named "Desire." The reference is symbolic and has a metaphorical meaning. Blanche is literally brought to the Kowalski place by “Desire,” but also by her own desire - her sexual escapades with a student which ruined her reputation and drove her out of town. The steamy urban city is a shock to Blanche's nerves. Stella fears the reaction of her husband Stanley Kowalski. Blanche tells Stella that her supervisor allowed her to take time off from her job, when in fact, she has been fired for having an affair with a 17-year-old student. She was in short marriage with a man who turned out to be a gay and his subsequent suicide has led Blanche to withdraw into a world in which fantasies and illusions. Stanley Kowalski is a force of nature: brutish and sensual. He dominates Stella in every way and is physically and emotionally abusive. Stella tolerates it as this is part of what attracted her in the first place; their love is based on powerful animal-like sexual chemistry, something that Blanche finds impossible to understand. Stanley discovers Blanche's past through a co-worker and he confronts. His attempts to "unmask" her are cruel and in their final confrontation, Stanley rapes Blanche, which results in her nervous breakdown. In the closing moments, Blanche utters her signature line to the kindly doctor who leads her away: "Whoever you are, I have always depended on the kindness of strangers."

Then Williams moved on surrealistic plays like Camino Real inspired by Eliot's The Waste Land in which he presents moral American wasteland after the war together with surrealistic fragments from mythology. Later life he moved to social realist plays as in Cat On a Hot Tin Roof (1955) depicting moral decay of Southern families. 

American drama in the first half of the 20th century

Drama was the least popular genre in America since Puritans hated it as work of devil and during the Revolution it was officially banned as useless expensive entertainment. In addition, there was no copyright so companies were stealing British plays. Plays based on novels like The Last of Mohicans and Uncle Tom's Cabin were popular but it was seen as entertainment for the whites and later on destroyed by cinema. In beginning of 20^th century main influences on American theatre were realists J. B. Shaw and Henrik Ibsen and realism started to appear in American drama.

Poetry and fiction of the Twenties

The Roaring Twenties was an era of material wealth of the post-war Big Boom, capitalism, prospering middle-class, big cities, new technologies, racial intolerance, consumption, nostalgia for the past, huge immigration, Prohibition of alcohol and organized crime and the biggest economic depression. It was also a Jazz Age and the era of mass entertainment and films.

American modernism

Unlike Anglo-American modernists who were influenced by European tradition, American modernists stayed in American to establish their own American tradition. They were referring back to Walt Whitman, trying to present changes in America with positive attitude to American democratic principles. American modernists were often connected to some region and used language close to everyday speech, unlike T.S. Eliot. They wrote poetry about things not considered poetical.

Anglo-American modernism

The Modern is the term denoting the whole period, modernity (1909-1939) are social, political, technological changes and modernism is an artistic response to these changes. Americans still clang to the 19th century values but rapid changes destroyed old values. It was the era of rising feminism since women got used to working (the only positive effect of WW1), huge immigration, jazz music (although only avant-garde listened to it, for normal Americans it was a primitive African form), economic growth and the biggest depression, decreasing role of religion, race riots and mass popular culture. At first, Modernism was not appreciated in American but in 1950s Americans finally realised that America is home of modern art and it suddenly became appreciated, rediscovering early modernists like Poe, Melville and Dickinson.

Naturalism

Realism partly shifted to naturalism when influenced by Charles Darwin´s survival of the fittest and literary by Emile Zola. Naturalism reflects the social state of America, cities growing very fast, producing new working class trapped in slums and ghetto. It is based on determination, either biological = characters behave more like animals relying on instincts; or social = a person is reduced to a machine as a victim to society).

Realism

American realism started in the 19^th century and continued to the 20^th century, influenced by European realism represented by Leo Tolstoy (War and Peace, Anna Karenina), Honoré de Balzac and Gustav Flaubert (Madame Bovary). Among the most influential magazines was Atlantic Monthly. This was a period Mark Twain called the Gilded Age.

Beginning of modern American fiction

American fiction was not like the British one since it searched for darker aspects and was not optimistic. American characters were alienated individuals, isolated, lonely and obsessed. Their fates are dark and they are trying to find the meaning. While British authors lived in a complex traditional society and shared their reader's attitudes, America with its Revolution, wilderness and relatively classless democratic society lacks that tradition.

Beginning of modern American poetry

WALT WHITMAN (1819 - 1892)

He had to work since he was 11 years old in Brooklyn, although it was not legal to employ children. He observed people and had also time to read good old classics like Homer, Dante and Shakespeare. Whitman came from weird family, oldest brother died in insane asylum on syphilis, sister married an alcoholic, younger brother married prostitute and died of over-dose of alcohol and tuberculosis, other brother was mentally and physically handicapped, only two brothers were successful engineers.

Romanticism and Transcendentalism

Romanticism

The Fire Side Poets concentrated mainly on domestic topics. They are also called school room poets since they were taught at schools, their poems were clear, easily accessible, conservative, sentimental, didactic and promoted common sense and honesty. There were partly poets Emerson called for because they relied on American sources.

Revolutionary period in American literature

In the 18^th century, Puritan heritage fell to age of enlightenment with scientific arguments, rationality and liberty. American colonies achieved political independence but literary independence was slowed by a lingering identification with England. American authors were painfully aware of their excessive dependence on English literary canon and there were no authors who could equally rank with the contemporary school of English writers.

Colonial American literature

Indian tradition

The literature of America is not composed only by colonists' writing. The native Indian oral tradition was very rich even before the arrival of Europeans. Poems were in the form of songs transmitted orally and varied a lot according to the specific tribe and most of Indian poetry requires the knowledge of Indian culture and traditions. Poems were chanted accompanied by musical instruments, often for magical practice of medicine men. Indians did not know European poetic forms so their poems are classified according to their purpose: praise of gods, rites of iniciation, seasonal celebration, chronicles, mourning over the dead, celebration of heroes, about nature or calling the tribe to war. Women could also compose poems since Indian cultural life was not limited only to men. In the native oral poem They Came from the East the European settlement is seen not as victory but as invasion and disaster brought on land and the people.