Literature SIV

Where would Fitzgerald publish his short stories?

The Saturday Evening Post and Esquire

When was One Hundred False Starts written?

1933

Fitzgeralds writings offer a glimpse into what?

The anxieties and frustrations that can consumer a writer as well as the degree to which a singular transformative events can be repeated in an authors work

When was “How to Live On $36,000 a Year” written?

1924

How to Live on $36,000 a Year incorporates what from Fitzgerald?

His sly sense of humor and insightful perspective

What makes How to Live on $36,000 a Year compelling?

His descriptions of excessive spending and poor financial decisions

Rather than being a plea for pity, How to Live On $36,000 a Year is seen as what?

A clever, ironic self-reflection

While broke and facing a mountain of bills from the Plaza Hotel, Fitzgerald and Zelda adopted what strategy?

Denial

The irony from How to Live on $36,000 a Year derives from what?

Fitzgerald focalizing the narration through his past self

What suggests that Fitzgerald recognizes the naivety of his past self?

His inclusion of his past self’s exaggerated disbeleif

How to Live on $36,000 a Year includes a sharp criticism of what?

The freewheeling financial excess encouraged during the 1920s

Which New York Post publication gave Fitzgerald a negative impression?

A 1936 New York Post interview by Michael Mok

How was Fitzgerald depicted in his later years?

An arrogant egotist

Fitzgeralds nonfiction offers a glimpse into what?

The personality of one of the most significant writers, as well as the attitudes and idiosyncrasies of the period that made him famous

Fitzgeralds look back into the Jazz Age is not nostalgic or cynical but rather what?

An insightful analysis into why the Jazz Age was so remarkable and why its end was so inevitable

When did the beginning of the end for the period begin for Fitzgerald?

When the older generations began to take part in the social revolutions that first seemed too risky and radical

Fitzgerald believes the Jazz Age was primarily about what?

Taste. Young people freed from the confines of confines of a stuffy Victorianism and genteel morality

People like Fitzgeralds enjoyment of things was amplified by what?

How much older generations disapproved of them

How does Fitzgerald refer to the cheapened mass produced versions of things?

The commodification of the periods blatant superficialties

What was commodification to Fitzgerald?

The process by which previously unique revolutionary ideas and practices were simplified and tuned into mass market products

To Fitzgerald the actual freedoms of the Jazz Age were transformed into what?

Empty symbols that could be easily bought and sold, they became apart of another set of cheap goods hardly worth caring about

Though the Roaring 20s were defined by the thrill of doing things that hadn’t been done, what is Fitzgerald keen to point out?

The period produced important works of art and created a new set of aesthetic attitudes and interests

The break from traditional customs and mores did what?

Changed peoples behavior and allowed artists to push the boundaries of artistic forms

What did Fitzgerald feel Jazz Age had done?

Developed a “living” literature

How did the new literature of the era inaugurate a radical form of culture?

Through its willingness to more frankly explore human sensuality and social interactions, and capacity to tap deeply into the feelings and longing of alienation defined by postwar American life

True or False, Fitzgerald admits there was always something a bit absurd about the styles and attitudes of the era

True

The periods excess was fueled by what?

Unsustainable amounts of economic growth and speculation

Fitzgerald felt many lived on what?

Borrowed time on top of a flimsy structure

In light of political and economic crises in the 30s how did the Jazz Age seem?

Embarrassing or unbelievable

How does Fitzgerald end his essay?

By attempting to redeem the mythology of the Jazz Age

What does Echoes of the Jazz Age argue?

However ridiculous it might seem , there was something profound going on in the United States in the 1920s

Beneath the parties and dancing and the drinking what does Fitzgerald say existed?

A “ghostly rumble among the drums” that genuinely seemed to be preparing the way for new forms of freedom

What makes the life of Hart Crane easy to romanticize?

He was a poet who rose from obscurity, attempted to change the world and died trying

What is true about the actual life details of Hart Crane?

They are more tragic than inspiring, and his poetry is far more formal and even traditional than his reputation might suggest

What is Cranes full name?

Harold Hart Crane

When was Crane born?

1899

Where did crane leave to in 1916?

New York

Why did Crane leave for New York?

To escape his turbulent home life and the structures of midwestern morality

The New York poetry scene that Crane entered sought to redeem American culture through what?

Artistic innovation

What were some of Cranes best poetry about?

Buildings, bridges, alleyways, and underground communities.

What plagued Crane throughout his life?

Mental illness and addictions

How did Crane die?

By suicide

How could Cranes childhood be described as?

Fractured and traumatizing

How did the time period’s stigmatization and criminalization of homosexuality affect Cranes life?

It denied him the opportunity to fully embrace his identity

How could the end of Cranes life be described?

Filled with anger, loneliness, and despair as he alienated his friends and benefactors

How did Katherine Anne Porter help Crane?

By helping him work on his writing during his time spend as her neighbor in Mexico

To understand Crane as an artist and person we must dispense what mythology?

The tortured artist

What should be focused on to understand Crane as an artist and person?

What he tried to accomplish in his poetry

What was Crane fascinated on in his works?

The modern metropolis

What is Cranes most famous work?

The Bridge

What bridge was Cranes work “The Bridge” about?

The Brooklyn Bridge

What is The Bridge?

A series of lyrical poems exploring the symbolic and social power of the Brooklyn Bridge

How could the physical presence of the Brooklyn Bridge be described to Crane?

A physical presence so awe-inspiring to Crane, he believed it could “lend a myth to God”

Cranes work is deeply sensitive to what groups?

Underserved and Marginalized populations, as well as to the cruelties that the modern world could inflict on the innocent

True or False, Crane’s works were fully hopeless

False, despite his sensitive portrayals of misery and exclusion, his poetry was never fully hopeless

What does Cranes work offer us according to Kim Lewis?

An invitation to survey the world and “move on past the destruction” toward a better future, one built “not with the diabolical power of technology, but with the imagination”

What was one of the most significant experiences in Crane’s life?

Seeing Charlie Chaplin’s film The Kid

Where was The Kid screened?

Cleveland Ohio

What does the slang word “tramp” mean?

Someone out of work and living on the streets

What is the story behind The Kid?

A tramp befriends and supports a young orphan

Why was Crane transported by the film?

Its mix of sentimentality about the power of human connection and its frankness about the challenges of living on the fringes of society

Who did Crane communicate via a series of letters with in 1921?

Gorham Munson

What were Cranes letters to Gorham Munson about?

The impact the film had on him, as well as his efforts to capture the films power in poetic form

What was Cranes first letter dated to?

October 1st, 1921

In his first letter what did Crane write about?

He wrote about the first drafts of the poem “My poem is a sympathetic attempt to put in words some of the Chaplin pantomime, so beautiful and so full of eloquence, and so modern.”

When was Cranes second letter dated to?

October 6th, 1921

What did Crane include in his second letter?

A draft of the poem along with testimony to the films influence

What did Crane say about the pantomime of Charlie?

It “represents fairly well the futile gesture of the poet in the U.S.A. today, perhaps elsewhere too”

Chaplinesque attempts to capture what from The Kid?

The films beauty along with its thematic content

What does Chaplinesque tell a story about?

Someone keeping something pure and innocent safe in the face of the alienating dangers of the 1920s

In The Kid, what represents purity and innocence?

The tramp and the orphan

In the Poem what is purity and innocence represented by?

The figure of the lost kitten and the collective “we” who finds “recesses for it from the fury of the street”

The poet is simultaneously what two things?

Something in need of protection and the means of that protection

What can describe the circumstances that Artists and idealists are often forced to live in?

difficult and precarious circumstances, making meek adjustments and building a life out of the random scraps blown by the wind into “slithered and too ample pockets”

Why must the sensibility and insight of the poet be preserved?

The poet is able to help others find beauty in a cynical world

How does the poet describe modern society?

A “game” that “enforces smirks”

If the poet is given toom to thrive like the protected kitten, what can he show the world?

The goodness in even the simplest of things

What does Crane describe in the poem as seeing the goodness in even the simplest of things?

“moon in lonely alleys making a grail of laughter of an empty ash can”

Like many modernist poets of the time, Crane was firmly convinced that?

Something irrevocable had occurred as a result of the violence of WW1

What did T.S Eliots The Waste Land offer?

A pessimistic account of modernity’s transformations

What did Crane sought after in his poetry?

something slightly more hopeful

What did Crane write to Munson about Eliot?

Eliot’s “pessimism is justified, in his own case,” he “would apply as much of his erudition and technique as I can absorb and assemble toward a more positive or ecstatic goal”

True or False, Chaplinesque offers an illustration of a more positive approach

True

What does Chaplinesque suggest about those who are most affected by the worlds cruelty?

They can be the ones who find ways to cultivate better alternatives

The better alternative worlds that Crane says those affected by cruelty can find, should be guided by what?

Cultivation of artistic and social ecstasy — a transcendently powerful feeling shared by everyone — rather than merely the pursuit of the isolating goals profit and power

H.L. Mencken became the country’s most famous and perhaps first example of what?

The jaded journalist

What does Ed Caudill call the jaded journalist?

the “verbally raucous cynic, deft with language, and sharp with criticism.”

Who was Mencken beloved by?

Rebellious students

Who was Mencken despised by?

religious fundamentalists and political conservatives

Mencken was the son of what kind of family?

A well-to-do Baltimore family

What would Mencken come to be known as?

The “Sage of Baltimore”

Where did Mencken begin his career?

As a reporter for the Baltimore Morning Herald

What paper did Mencken switch to writing for?

the Baltimore Sun

Mencken contributed to what magazines?

the Smart Set, and highly popular American Mercury

American Mercurys readership exceeded which storied magazines?

Harper’s and The Atlantic

In the 1920’s what was the primary source of news?

Newspapers

Why were newspapers seen as reliable sources of truth?

They would frequently call out political corruption and injustice

What roles did Mencken relish in?

The truth-teller and public intellectual

What was Mencken a relentless critic of?

moral hypocrisy, censorship, and cultural puritanism

Who did Mencken encouraged in the Scopes Monkey Trial?

Clarence Darrow to defend John Scopes