American Literature II: Unit II Study Guide

Modernism

an early-20th-century global cultural movement that rejected traditional conventions, embracing experimentation, abstraction, and new technologies to reflect industrialized life

Free verse

poetry that does not adhere to any regular meter or rhyme scheme

Self-conscious literature

literature which is aware of its place in the literary and cultural tradition

Intertextuality

when a text references other texts as a means of developing or legitimizing itself

Southern Renaissance

-1917, H. L. Menken publishes "The Sahara of the Bozart" criticizing the South's lack of intellectual culture

-Post-WWI writers

-Critical of "Lost Cause" myth

-Confederate nostalgia as barrier to progress

Noblesse oblige

the concept that nobility has a social responsibility to uphold cultural values

Hardboiled

urban, gritty detective fiction; protagonist usually an antihero; cautiously optimistic

Noir

inherently pessimistic; depicts a world of only victims and victimizers with no clear winners

Femme fatale

"Deadly woman"; a female character who uses seduction to dominate others

Hays Code

set of censorship guidelines created and implemented by the American motion picture industry between 1934-1968

Expressionism

an artistic style that uses distortion and subjective perspective to indicate mood and important concepts

Nihilism

rejects religious and moral precepts as being baseless and meaningless

Picaresque

genre that features roguish but heroic protagonists who use cleverness to survive in a corrupt society