Semester 2 Lit FINAL

F. Scott Fitzgerald

He wrote stories NOT poems

Life: Fell in love with Zelda Sayre during army training but she refused to marry him until he was financially secure. When his first novel got him rich, the couple got married. However, Zelda suffered from mental breakdowns that would keep her hospitalized for the remainder of her life. He battled alcoholism.

Writing style: depicted the material success and eventual disillusionment (disappointment, sadness, loss of faith) that characterized the Jazz age. Tension between the very wealthy and those who were attracted to them. He gave us intimate insights into the American preoccupation (obsession) with money

Katherine Anne Porter

She wrote stories NOT poems

Life: She was educated in various Catholic convent schools in the south. She went to Mexico on assignment for a magazine and arrived in the middle of a revolution. Her observations of this conflict became the subject on some of her short stories. She won both the Pulitzer Pize and the National Book Award for her Collected Stories.

Writing style: Uses stream of consciousness to present the flow of a character’s seemingly unconnected thoughts, responses, and sensations. “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall”

Robert Frost

Wrote poems

Life: His first poem was published in his school’s newspaper. He drifted from occupation to occupation which gave him lots of experience and was able to empathize with many different kinds of struggling. He won the first of 4 Pulitzer Prizes. Despite his outward success, he was struggling on a personal level. 4 of his 6 children died and his wife died from a heart attack. He took a trip to the Soviet Union in 1962. He read his poem at the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy

Writing style: loved nature and wrote about a lone individual making choices about how to live. A lot of his poems portray tensions in relationships and advantages/disadvantages of being alone. Uses plain language to reflect simple lives of new England farmers. Use of blank verse (not rhyming) to achieve the natural rhythms of everyday speech. uses metaphors that change commonplace idea into experiences of deeper meaning. Use of repetition, dialogue, and dialect. Unusual word order for emphasis.

Claude McKay

Wrote poems and prose

Life: Called the “poet of rebellion”, helped launch the Harlem Renaissance. Spent most of the 1920s living abroad.

Writing style: Protested racial injustice. Showed a mastery of literary forms and poured into the “new negroes” new expressions of individual and collective feeling

Langston Hughes

Wrote both poems and prose

Life: He became a poet because his classmate elected him class poet in 7th grade. While working as a busboy at a restaurant, he slipped 3 of his poem to Vachel Lindsay, a famous poet, and the next day, the newspapers reported that Lindsay had “discovered” a busboy poet. He played a key role in the Harlem Renaissance, many refer to him as the “Poet Laureate of Harlem”

Writing style: portrayed both the nightlife and the everyday experiences of Harlem. Protested racial discrimination. Use of dialect that is characteristic of African Americans in the Urban north. A passionate tone, often of love, sympathy, or melancholy. Use of irony, satire (humor, exaggeration), and paradox (self-contradictory, absurd) to expose racial problems and self-deceptions. Vivid imagery of the African American experience, particularly in Harlem. Rhythms that are taken from speech and music.

Carl Sandburg

Wrote poems and prose

Life: worked various jobs and eventually sought work as a journalist. He became reporter, editorial writer, and columnist for the Chicago Daily News. Know as a “poet of the people” because he gave public readings around the country. No other American writer was so widely read and heard at the same time.

Writing style: His poem “Chicago” captures the contrasts of bustling industry (high energy) and appalling slums (overcrowded, social issues, unemployment, crime)

Emily Dickinson

Wrote poems NOT prose

Life: Obsessed with home. By 1870, she dressed only in white and did not leave her house for the last 30 years of her life.

Writing style: fascination with death and dying and the fate of the soul. Short poems, no longer than 20 lines. Wrote most in 4 line stanzas that echo the simple rhythms of familiar church hymns, but she added a twist with slant rhymes (words that don’t rhyme exactly) and used dashes to highlight important words. She used similes, metaphors, and personification.

Willa Cather

Wrote prose

Life: She wrote, staged, and performed plays in the local theater.

Writing style: had the power to ennoble (dignify, excellent) the ordinary details of prairie life with her rich prose

Mark Twain

Life: Original name was Samuel Langhorne Clemens. He became a licensed riverboat pilot on the Mississippi river that suited his love for freedom and travel. Became America’s first celebrity author.

Writing style: Realism (people wanting to read more real examples of how people truly lived their lives) and truthful imitation. Made people laugh even as he made them think about themselves and their society.

Ambrose Bierce

Wrote short stories, essays, and poems

Life: At 18, he enlisted in the Union Army and received several citations for bravery. Nicknamed “Bitter Bierce” for his cynical humor and cruel wit. He disappeared in 1914.

Writing style: Several of his stories concern the ironic futility (being pointless, useless, or ineffective) of war.

Edgar Allan Poe

Wrote one novel, 50 poems, and 70 short stories

Life: in school, He showed off a gift for languages, Latin and French. He married his cousin when she was 13. He created a new literary genre- the detective story.

Writing style: melancholy and the obsession with beauty and the tragedy of its loss. dark medieval castles or decaying ancient estates provide the setting for weird and terrifying events. Many of his male narrators are insane; his female characters are beautiful and dead or dying. His plots involve extreme situations: murder, live burials, physical and mental torture, and retribution (punishment) from beyond the grave.

Walt Whitman

Wrote poems

Life: He was unable to find a firm to publish his 12-poem book, so he had it printed at his own expense; expanding it throughout his lifetime until the final copy contained 400 poems. His work was not well recived. The Saturday Review suggested that if his poem book should come into anybody’s possession, they should throw it instantly in the fire.

Writing style: radical (goes to the root) style and the vivid sexual imagery. The unique and the commonplace, the beautiful and the ugly, country life and city life. Writes in freestyle not stanzas.

Henry David Thoreau

Wrote essay’s NOT poems

Life: He was a careful observer and a deep thinker who recorded his thoughts and observations in his journal. Tried to live by his own values rather than society’s values; for example, as a teacher he refused to punish his students physically, so he resigned after 1 year. Became involved in the abolitionist movement. He lectured at antislavery rallies and served as a conductor on the Underground Railroad, hiding fugitive slaves in his family’s house.

Writing style: observations about nature, the importance of the individual, and the value of a simple life are appreciated more today than ever before. uses personification and paradox (a statement that seems to contradict itself but may nevertheless suggest an important truth.)

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Wrote lectures, poems, and essays

Life: He entered Harvard College when he was 14 with the aid of several grants. Together with a group of friends, he formed the Transcendental Club.

Writing style: Used aphorisms (a short saying that contains truth or a guiding principals)

Washington Irving

Life: loved to explore the countryside along the Hudson River, used his talent to write about the American landscapes. Studied law for 6 years. Made contributions like setting an example for humorous writing.

Writing style: humorous writing. Imagery (descriptive words that appeal to the 5 senses), Symbolism, Tone, Characterization, theme, plot, and omniscient narrator (one who tells the story outside the action and reports what different characters are thinking). Being completely consumed with Romance, sentiment, and optimism

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Life: Member of a group of New England romantic writers known as the Fireside Poets; reading poetry out loud in front of the fireplace after dinner. Able to speak and read 10 languages. First American writer to be honored with a bust in the Poet’s Corner of London’s Westminister Abbey. When he died, schools were closed and the nation went into mourning.

Writing style: metaphor (comparing 2 things without using like or as), simile (uses like or as), uses 4 line stanzas that end rhyme. Being completely consumed with Romance, sentiment, and optimism.

Frederick Douglass

Life: He grew up in slavery. taught himself the alphabet. At 21, he fled to NYC disguised as a sailor. 3 years later, he was hired by the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society to speak about his experiences. During his speaking tour, 2 friends raised the money to purchase his freedom. During the war, he advised President Lincoln.

Writing Style: wrote narratives. used realism, focusing on the truth about slavery.