American Literature 2 Volume D Authors

Robert Frost

Lived 1874-1963, from New England. Used simple language.

Carl Sandburg

Lived 1878-1967, from Illinois. Wrote a bibliography for Lincoln. Used free verse.

T.S. Elliot

Lived 1888-1965, born in Missouri settled in England.

Mina Soy

Lived 1882-1966, from London (UK). Feminist.

Ezra Pound

Lived 1885-1972, from Idaho. Believed “Make it new”.

Gertrude Stein

Lived 1874-1949, from Pittsburgh. Gay for H.D.

William Carlos Williams

Lived 1883-1963, from New Jersey. Was a pediatrician. Graduated dental school but switched to medicine. Believed “Poems are small machines made out of words”.

H.D. (Hilda Doolittle)

Lived 1886-1961, from Pennsylvania. Gay for Stein.

Wallace Stevens

Lived 1879-1955, from Pennsylvania. Was an insurance executive.

Claude McKay

Lived 1889-1948. Born in Jamaica, became a US citizen in 1940. Harlem Renaissance writer.

Countee Cullen

Lived 1903-1960, from Maryland. Went to New York Uni. Published book at 22. Believed in using old forms of poetry to say something new.

Zora Neale Hurston

Lived 1891-1960, spent time in Eatonville, Florida. Wrote short stories. Believed in new new negros. Was an anthropologist. Old life- small black town vs new life- big city with anthropologistic outlook. Liked seeing how towns work.

Langston Hughes

Lived 1904-1967, from Missouri. Wrote in the 40’s-60’s (after Harlem). Wrote some plays. Liked Carl Sandburg and wanted to write like him. Also wanted to write like Dunbar.

Eugene O’Neill

Lived 1888-1953, from New York. Won a Nobel Prize and more than one Pulitzer Prize. Family life was similar to that of Long Day’s Journey into Night.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Lived 1896-1940, from Minnesota. Wrote The Great Gatsby. Dies in his 40’s of a heart attack. Was an alcoholic who loved to party. Became a screen writer. Enlisted in WW 1, war ended before he was sent to fight.

Ernest Hemmingway

Lived 1899-1967, from Illinois. Won a Nobel prize. Wrote novels and short fiction. Was in the ambulance core. Wrote A Farewell to Arms. Killed himself. Often parodied, liked to leave things out. Had 4 marriages. Loved “manly” things.

William Faulkner

Lived 1897-1962, from Mississippi. Won a Nobel prize. Had reoccuring and interconnected characters. Stories are connected (requires reading multiple works to understand any one work fully). Wrote a poetry book first.

James Weldon Johnson

Lived 1871-1938, from Florida ended in Maine. Harlem Renaissance writer.