AMERICAN LITERATURE - HENRY JAMES: THE BOSTONIANS

AMERICAN LITERATURE - HENRY JAMES: THE BOSTONIANS AMERICAN LITERATURE - HENRY JAMES: THE BOSTONIANS

AMERICAN LITERATURE - HISTORY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE (1900-1950)

AMERICAN LITERATURE - HISTORY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE (1900-1950) AMERICAN LITERATURE - HISTORY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE (1900-1950)

History of American Literature (1900–1950)

The first half of the 20th century transformed American literature into a dominant global force. Writers broke from 19th-century realism and Victorian morality, embracing modernism—a movement marked by fragmentation, psychological depth, stylistic experimentation, and disillusionment following World War I and the Great Depression.

**The Lost Generation (1910–1930)**

American expatriates in Paris and Europe, disillusioned by the war, created some of the era's most enduring works. **Ernest Hemingway** (1899–1961) pioneered spare, journalistic prose in *The Sun Also Rises* (1926) and *A Farewell to Arms* (1929). **F. Scott Fitzgerald** (1896–1940) captured the excess and emptiness of the Jazz Age in *The Great Gatsby* (1925). **Gertrude Stein** (1874–1946) and **Ezra Pound** (1885–1972) mentored the movement. **T.S. Eliot** (1888–1965), though born American, became a British citizen and wrote *The Waste Land* (1922), the quintessential modernist poem. **William Faulkner** (1897–1962) used stream-of-consciousness and Southern Gothic to explore decay and history in *The Sound and the Fury* (1929) and *As I Lay Dying* (1930).

**The Harlem Renaissance (1920–1935)**

A flowering of African American art and literature in New York City. **Langston Hughes** (1901–1967) infused jazz rhythms into poetry like *The Weary Blues* (1926). **Zora Neale Hurston** (1891–1960) celebrated Black folk culture in *Their Eyes Were Watching God* (1937). **Jean Toomer** (1894–1967) wrote the experimental *Cane* (1923). The movement asserted Black identity and demanded cultural recognition.

**Social Realism and the Great Depression (1930–1945)**

The economic collapse turned literature toward social protest. **John Steinbeck** (1902–1968) exposed migrant suffering in *The Grapes of Wrath* (1939). **Richard Wright** (1908–1960) confronted racism violently in *Native Son* (1940). **James T. Farrell** and **John Dos Passos** used documentary techniques.

**Post-War Transition (1945–1950)**

As World War II ended, new voices emerged. **Tennessee Williams** (*A Streetcar Named Desire*, 1947) and **Arthur Miller** (*Death of a Salesman*, 1949) revolutionized American drama. **Robert Lowell** and **Elizabeth Bishop** began redefining poetry. The groundwork was laid for the **Beat Generation** of the 1950s.

**Legacy**

By 1950, American literature had become synonymous with innovation, psychological depth, and social confrontation, influencing writers worldwide.

AMERICAN LITERATURE - WALT WHITMAN : POETRY OF WALT WHITMAN

AMERICAN LITERATURE - WALT WHITMAN : POETRY OF WALT WHITMAN AMERICAN LITERATURE - WALT WHITMAN : POETRY OF WALT WHITMAN

AMERICAN LITERATURE - EMILY DICKINSON: POETRY OF EMILY DICKINSON

AMERICAN LITERATURE - EMILY DICKINSON: POETRY OF EMILY DICKINSON AMERICAN LITERATURE - EMILY DICKINSON: POETRY OF EMILY DICKINSON

AMERICAN LITERATURE - MARK TWAIN: THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN

AMERICAN LITERATURE - MARK TWAIN: THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN AMERICAN LITERATURE - MARK TWAIN: THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN