Disillusion, Defiance, and Discontent: American Literature (1914–1946)

Vocabulary flashcards covering the major historical events, literary movements, stylistic techniques, and key authors of American literature from 1914 to 1946.

Lusitania

A British merchant ship sunk by a German submarine in 1915, killing over 1,200 people—including 128 Americans—and shifting American public opinion toward the Allies.

Prohibition

The legal ban on the sale of alcohol from 1920 to 1933 in the United States, which spurred bootlegging, speakeasies, widespread lawbreaking, and gang warfare.

Great Depression

The severe economic downturn triggered by the October 1929 stock market crash, leaving approximately 12 million Americans (one quarter of the workforce) unemployed by mid-1932.

New Deal

A comprehensive package of economic reform policies initiated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt after his 1932 election to revive and strengthen the American economy.

Modernism

An early twentieth-century literary movement that broke from nineteenth-century conventions, constructing works out of fragments without traditional expositions, transitions, or direct resolutions to reflect a fragmented modern world.

Free verse

A form of poetry abandoned of traditional meter and forms in favor of rhythms improvised to suit individual poems, widely adopted by Modernist poets.

Imagism

A poetic movement lasting from 1909 to 1917 in the United States and England that rejected nineteenth-century sentimentality in favor of hard, clear expression, concrete images, and everyday speech.

Amy Lowell

A Massachusetts poet who assumed leadership of the Imagist movement in the United States during its final years following Ezra Pound's departure.

Expatriates

American writers and artists who chose to live abroad as exiles after World War I, many settling in Paris around writer Gertrude Stein.

"Lost Generation"

A phrase coined by Gertrude Stein to describe postwar writers and intellectuals who were deeply disillusioned by the devastation of World War I.

T. S. Eliot

A St. Louis-born expatriate poet who moved to Europe in 1914 and authored "The Waste Land," a despairing work considered by critics to be one of the most important poems of the century.

Archibald MacLeish

An expatriate poet (1923–1928) who later returned to the United States in the 1930s, supported the New Deal, and served as Librarian of Congress during World War II.

Stream-of-consciousness

A narrative technique inspired by modern psychology and named after psychologist William James's work, presenting a character's unbroken flow of thoughts, memories, and associations without formal logical transitions.

Ulysses

The landmark 1922 novel by Irish writer James Joyce that popularized the stream-of-consciousness narrative technique.

Harlem Renaissance

A cultural and literary movement of young African American writers that emerged in New York City during the 1920s and 1930s, formally recognized in March 1924.

Claude McKay

A Jamaican-born author whose 1922 poetry collection "Harlem Shadows" became a major early work of the Harlem Renaissance.

Jean Toomer

A Harlem Renaissance writer known for "Cane" (1923), an innovative collection combining stories, verses, and a play.

Arna Bontemps

A Louisiana-born Harlem Renaissance author who published his first novel, "God Sends Sunday," in 1931.

E. E. Cummings

A Modernist poet known for distinct stylistic innovations including playful typography, unusual wordplay, and unconventional punctuation.

William Carlos Williams

A New Jersey physician and poet who drew upon Imagism to capture everyday American life and conversational speech, deliberately choosing not to live in Europe as an expatriate.

Paterson

An epic poem written by William Carlos Williams, titled after a city in New Jersey, which greatly influenced later poets Allen Ginsberg and A. R. Ammons.

Wallace Stevens

An insurance executive and poet who wrote elegant, intellectual verse examining the boundary between physical reality and human imagination.

Marianne Moore

A Modernist poet renowned for syllable-counted verse, vivid imagery, and incorporating quotes from everyday texts such as business documents and schoolbooks into poems like "Poetry."

Sinclair Lewis

The first American author to win the Nobel Prize for Literature (established in 1901), recognized for satirical novels such as "Main Street," "Babbitt," and "Arrowsmith."

Ernest Hemingway

An American author who served as an ambulance driver and in the Italian infantry during World War I, was acutely wounded, and became one of the leading expatriate writers in Paris.

Joyce Kilmer

An American poet and soldier who fought and died in France during World War I, best remembered for authoring the poem "Trees."

Alan Seeger

An American poet who fought and died in France during World War I, famous for his wartime poem "I Have a Rendezvous with Death."

Gertrude Stein

An American expatriate writer living in Paris from 1902 to 1946 whose home served as a gathering place for authors like Hemingway and Fitzgerald, and who coined the phrase "Lost Generation."

Ezra Pound

A prominent Modernist poet who lived abroad in England, France, and Italy, and played a central role in spearheading the Imagist movement before moving on to other styles.

H.D. (Hilda Doolittle)

An American poet who, alongside Amy Lowell, assumed leadership of the Imagist movement in its later phase.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

A prominent American expatriate novelist who lived in Paris following World War I and was a key figure in Gertrude Stein's literary circle.

William Faulkner

A major American novelist who adopted the stream-of-consciousness narrative technique, most notably in his 1929 novel "The Sound and the Fury."

The Sound and the Fury

A landmark 1929 novel by William Faulkner that famously employed stream-of-consciousness narration to convey the complex inner lives of its characters.

Katherine Anne Porter

An acclaimed American author known for utilizing stream-of-consciousness narrative techniques in her short stories.

John Dos Passos

A Modernist writer celebrated for his "U.S.A." trilogy, which incorporated stream-of-consciousness narration along with biographies of famous figures and newspaper clippings.

U.S.A.

A major trilogy of novels by John Dos Passos combining stream-of-consciousness narration with documentary devices like brief biographies and contemporary newspaper quotations.

Carl Van Doren

The editor of "The Century" who announced at a March 1924 gathering that African American writers had accumulated emotional energy ready to burst forth, marking the public emergence of the Harlem Renaissance.

Main Street

A 1920 satirical novel by Sinclair Lewis that critiqued small-town American conformity by fictionalizing his hometown of Sauk Centre, Minnesota, as "Gopher Prairie."

Babbitt

A satirical novel by Sinclair Lewis that scrutinized American materialism and social conformity through the portrait of a middle-class businessman.

Arrowsmith

A novel by Sinclair Lewis that critically examined the idealism, sacrifices, and commercial pressures surrounding the medical profession.