Warm-up –Answer these Essential Questions

1.Explain the style of the Postmodernist time period in literature.

2.Name the genres of the Postmodernists.

3.What was happening in the U.S. during this period?

4.Name some works from this period.

5.Name some authors from this period.

Time Periods of LiteratureLesson 42

Postmodernism1946-Present

Georgia Performance Standard

• ELAALRL3: The student deepens understanding of literary works by relating them to their contemporary context or historical background, as well as to works from other time periods.

b. The student relates a literary work to the characteristics of the literary time period or historical setting: – v. Postmodernism

Genre & Style of the Postmodernism Period

mixing of fantasy with

nonfiction;

blurs lines of

reality for reader

no heroes –

later,

antiheroes

concern with

individual in isolation

narratives,

essays,

poems, short

stories, novels

usually humorless

socia

l issu

es

as writ

ers

align w

ith

feminist

&

ethnic

groups

metafiction

present tense

magic realism

Historical Context of Modernism• post World War II (WWII) prosperity• dawn of the nuclear age & Cold War with

Soviet Union• Korean War and Vietnam War• civil Rights protests/riots/gains• women’s Liberation Movement• watergate scandal• explosive suburban growth because of

automobiles• media culture interprets values• people beginning a new century and a

new millennium

Notable Writers

• Flannery O’Connor

• John Updike (b.1932)

• Robert Lowell (1917-1977)

• Theodore Roethke (1908-1963)

• Robert Penn Warren (1905-1989)

• Arthur Miller – Playwright (The Crucible)

• Others

Rainbow of Writers• African American – Rita Dove (Poet), Toni

Morrison, Alice Walker• Native American – N. Scot Momaday

(Essayist), Joy Harjo,• Asian American – Maxine Hong Kingston

(Chinese), Naoomi Shibab (Arab American)• Latino – Martin Espada (lawyer)• Julia Alvarez was born in NY, raised in

Dominican Republic, and came back to US at ten years old.

These and others prove that American’s strength lies in its diversity.

Truman Capote (1924-1984)

•Wrote short stories, novels, and screenplays•Novel: In Cold Blood (fictional novel based on a real event – He called it a nonfiction novel, though.)•Novella: Breakfast at Tiffany’s

J.D. Salinger (1902-1968)

• Novel: Catcher in the Rye

• themes of teenage confusion, angst, sexuality, alienation, and rebellion

• The novel's protagonist and antihero, Holden Caulfield, has become an icon for teenage rebellion.

Alex Haley (1921-1992)

• ghostwriter for The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965)

• wrote Roots and won Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award for it

• There is some controversy that parts of Roots are inaccurate.

A. R. Ammons (1926-2001)

• He had worked as an elementary school principal, a real estate salesman, an editor, and an executive in his father's biological glass company before he began teaching at Cornell University in 1964.

• Wrote the book-length poem, Garbage (1993), which won the National Book Award and the Library of Congress' Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry

A few lines from Garbage…

garbage has to be the poem of our time becausegarbage is spiritual, believable enough

to get our attention, getting in the way, pilingup, stinking, turning brooks brownish and

creamy white: what else deflects us from theerrors of our illusionary ways…

A few more lines from Garbage…

…here the driver knows

where the consummations gather, where the disposalflows out of form, where the last translations

cast away their immutable bits and scraps,flits of steel, shivers of bottle and tumbler,

here is the gateway to beginning, here the portalof renewing change…

Toni Morrison

Nobel Prize for Literature 1993

Click on picture to start video segment (5:11) Toni Morrison on the Purpose of African American Literature

Carson McCullers

• born and raised in Columbus, Georgia

• married and moved at 17

• hard life because of physical problems that started in her 30’s

Rachel Carson

• wrote the book, Silent Spring, which spurred

the environmental

protection movement

Click on black area to start video segment (1:56) Rachel Carson

Georgia Performance Standard

• ELAALRL3: The student deepens understanding of literary works by relating them to their contemporary context or historical background, as well as to works from other time periods.

b. The student relates a literary work to the characteristics of the literary time period or historical setting: – v. Postmodernism

Warm-up –Answer these Essential Questions

1.Explain the style of the Postmodernist time period in literature.

2.Name the genres of the Postmodernists.

3.What was happening in the U.S. during this period?

4.Name some works from this period.

5.Name some authors from this period.

1. Explain the style of the Postmodernist time period in literature.

•mixing of fantasy with nonfiction; blurs lines of reality for reader

•present tense

•no heroes, then later, antiheroes

•Social issues as writers align with feminist & ethnic groups

•usually humorless

•concern with individual in isolation

•magic realism

2. Name the genres of the Postmodernists.

narratives,

essays, poems,

short stories, novels

3. What was happening in the U.S. during this period?

• Post World War II (WWII) prosperity• Dawn of the nuclear age & Cold War

with Soviet Union• Korean War and Vietnam War• Civil Rights protests/riots/gains• Women’s Liberation Movement• Watergate scandal• Explosive suburban growth because of

automobiles• media culture interprets values• People beginning a new century and a

new millennium

4. Name some works from this period.

Possibly…• In Cold Blood• Silent Spring• The Crucible• The Color Purple• Garbage• Roots• The Autobiography of Malcolm X• Catcher in the Rye• Breakfast at Tiffany’s

5. Name some authors from this period.

• Possible answers: Carson McCullers, John Updike, Flannery O’Connor, Truman Capote, Scott Momaday, Barry Lopez, Theodore Roethke, Elizabeth Bishop, A.R. Ammons, Rita Dove, Maxine Hong Kingston, Martin Espada, J.D. Sallinger, Alex Haley, Rachel Carson, Flannery O’Connor, Robert Lowell, Robert Penn Warren, Arthur Miller, Toni Morrison, etc.

We have studied all of these time periods below. Which one is most appealing to you and why? Write a paragraph with a topic

sentence supporting details, and concluding sentence.

• Native American• Colonial/Revolutionary/National• Romanticism• Transcendentalism• Realism• Naturalism• Modernism (including Harlem Renaissance)• Postmodernism