USAD Literature (Selected Works) Resource Guide IV

F. Scott Fitzgerald

the Lost Generation writer of The Great Gatsby (1925) and “Echoes of the Jazz Age” (1931), who was born in 1896 in Minnesota to two parents of very different class and who’s life was dominated by the culture of the Jazz Age

“Echoes of the Jazz Age” (1931)

a short essay by F. Scott Fitzgerald which looks back on the Jazz Age in an insightful analysis into why it was so remarkable and why its end was inevitable

Harold Hart Crane

a homosexual and depressed poet who was born in 1899 and based in New York City before writing “Chaplinesque” (1926) and commiting suicide in 1932

“Chaplinesque” (1926)

a poem by Hart Crane which references Charlie Chaplin’s film The Kid (1921), which followed a tramp who befriends and supports a young orphan, by telling a story about someone keeping something pure and innocent (a kitten) safe in the face of the alienating dangers of the 1920:

H.L. Mencken

a journalist nicknamed the “Sage of Baltimore” and born in 1880 in Baltimore before writing for the American Mercury, winning a case where he had himself arrested for selling a copy of his magazine to Rev. J. Franklin Chase, and writing “Advice to Young Men” (1922)

“Advice to Young Men” (1922)

a series of satirical essays by H. L. Mencken that poke at some of the moral and political hypocrisies of the time period by writing about how (1) many people are advised to focus on cultivating virtue before wealth, (2) the idea that age is equivalent to wisdom, and (3) the principle that all people have duties that they must follow

Katherine Anne Porter

a writer born Callie Russell Porter in 1890 in Indian Creek, Texas, who would eventually win the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award for her Collected Stories (1965), and a Guggenheim Fellowship for her work after writing “Rope” (1928)

“Rope” (1928)

a short story by Katherine Anne Porter which almost entirely substitutes narration for dialogue in order to depict an argument between a man and a woman to highlight how the woman is overshadowed and ignored in their relationship

Edna St. Vincent Millay

a poet who was born in 1892 to her single mother Cara before moving to Greenwich Village in New York City and writing under the pseudonym Nancy Boyd, before becoming the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1923 and wrote “I, being born a woman and distressed” (1923)

“I, being born a woman and distressed” (1923)

a Petrarchan sonnet form poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay which shows the speaker reflecting on how her identity as a woman and “all the needs and notions” that go along with it create nonnegotiable expectations by declaring, after the volta of “however,” that feeling desire for a man is natural, but rejecting her being defined by that desire

Sterling A. Brown

an African American and Harlem Renaissance writer who was born in 1901 in Washington, D.C., and received degrees at Williams College and Harvard before teaching at Howard and writing “Salutamus” (1927)

“Salutamus” (1927)

a poem by Sterling A. Brown that includes a reference to a Latin phrase “morituri te salutamus” which was what gladiators used to address the Roman Emperor as they entered the arena for combat and a quotation from Shakespeare’s play Henry IV, Part I (1597) by Hotspur as he and his soldiers attempt to overthrow the corrupt King Henry IV at the Battle of Shrewsbury in order to urge people to keep fighting for racial justice despite the fact that many of those who do fight may never see the fruits of their labor

Georgia Douglas Johnson

an African American and female writer born in 1880 who was also a trained musician and educator, working as an assistant principal in Atlanta and eventually serving in the Department of Labor as a commissioner of conciliation, writing “Shall I Say, ‘My Son, You’re Branded’?” (1919) and becoming a pivotal figure of the Harlem Renaissance

“Shall I Say, ‘My Son, You’re Branded’?” (1919)

a poem by Georgia Douglas Johnson that shows a speaker working through the impossible dilemma of how to prepare her son for the realities of racism, exclusion, and violence while also providing him with a sense of self-worth and hope

Langston Hughes

the “Shakespeare of Harlem” who was born in 1901 in Joplin, Missouri, before later writing “The Weary Blues” (1926) and traveling worldwide to observe racial justice across the globe

“The Weary Blues” (1926)

a poem by Langdon Hughes which uses vernacular language and a drowsy syncopated rhythm to convey what it sounds and feels like to experience someone playing the blues in a Lenox Avenue bar in Harlem

Zora Neale Hurston

a writer who was born in Alabama in 1891 and studied at Howard and Barnard College before writing Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) and “The Ten Commandments of Charm” (1925)

“The Ten Commandments of Charm” (1925)

an ironic and satirical piece that was part of the collection of Zara Neale Hurston’s writing discovered in the 1990s which she wrote for a magazine published by the Zeta Phi Beta Sorority for its 1925 convention in Chicago, which uses the Biblical symbol of the Ten Commandments and replaces the original instructions with commandments that Hurston uses to point out the absurdities of many of the time period’s social expectations for women