Literature

Background Information

• Fitzgerald (1896-1940) published essays in the Saturday Evening Post and Esquire

• One of his essays, “One Hundred False Starts” (1933), shows anxiety in authors and how a single event can be repeated in an author’s work

• Another essay, “How to Live On $36,000 a Year” (1924), uses humor and irony to advise others about financial decisions (in contrast with his own extravagant life)

  • He focalizes the narration through his past self (represents events in his past self’s perspective), but recognizes his past self’s faults at the same time

• Fitzgerald is most famous for novels/short stories, but his nonfiction work is often thoughtful and self-criticizing (even though he is often said to be an egotist)

• Gained bad reputation after 1936 New York Post interview with Michael Mok

Analysis of the Work

• Says the end of the Jazz Age was when the older generation joined in on the fun (Fitzgerald calls this commodification, or the “mass production” of unique ideas)

• Important artworks and new interests/attitudes were also made

• Like the more radical artists, writers were also more prolific during this time and made a new culture (“living literature” that would be timeless beyond the Jazz Age)

• Fitzgerald says the Roaring Twenties were a little absurd (lots of economic growth and speculation with unprecedented culture changes)

• Great Depression of 1930s and rise of fascism in Europe made Jazz Age seem excessive, but Fitzgerald argues that there was truly something special about the 1920s (at least at first) beyond the parties (his essay tries to recapture that feeling)

Background Information

• Born Harold Hart Crane (1899-1932) and fled from the strict midwest and chaotic family life to NYC in 1916

• NY had a vibrant poetry scene that Hart emulated by writing about its architecture and underground communities (his most famous is The Bridge, a series of poems about the power of Brooklyn Bridge)

• Sensitive to the cruelty of the world against marginalized communities and innocent (as seen in his writing), but also offered some hope for the future

• Had mental illness and addictions that led to his death by suicide; may have been due to his homosexuality (was not allowed to embrace identity)

• Turned down friends near the end of life (like Katherine Anne Porter, who was briefly his neighbor in Mexico)

Analysis of the Work

• Inspired by Charlie Chaplin’s silent film The Kid (1921), which is about a “tramp” (unemployed and homeless man) and an orphan

• Crane wrote about his efforts to capture this in poetry to Gorham Munson (literary critic and editor) in 1921

• First letter: October 1st, 1921 wrote about his first drafts; second letter: October 6th had the draft attached and said the film influenced his work

• Poem emphasizes purity/innocence (The Kid has the tramp and the child; the poem uses the kitten, meant to represent poets, and “we” who save it from danger)

• While poets (and artists in general), are often poor, they help others find beauty in a cruel world and should be allowed to fully thrive

• Convinced, like many others, that WWI caused societal change due to violence, but Crane wanted to give hope (unlike T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land)

• Message: the world is cruel, but those who are more affected by it (artists) can help find better alternatives and should use their power to help others (not for profiting)

Background Information

• Mencken (1880-1956) was popular among youth, but despised by fundamentalists/conservatives

• Known as “Sage of Baltimore” (part of a wealthy Baltimore family)

• Began writing career as a reporter for Baltimore Morning Herald; moved to Baltimore Sun later; edited/contributed to magazines like Smart Set and American Mercury (peaked at readership exceeding popular storied magazines, like Harper’s and The Atlantic)

• Newspapers seen as highly reliable at the time and Mencken enjoyed being seen as a truth-teller

• Encouraged Clarence Darrow to defend John Scopes in Scopes Monkey Trial (Scopes arrested for teaching evolution, which went against the Bible, in Tennessee)

• Had himself arrested for selling a copy of his magazine (The American Mercury) to Rev. J. Franklin Chase, who disapproved of “obscene” texts and won the case, defending freedom of expression

• Idolized Mark Twain and similarly made his writing humorous and well-researched

• His The American Language: An Inquiry into the Development of English in the United States, which studied English’s development, was successful, but popular journalism made him a household name

Analysis of the Work

• Mencken often uses satire (irony and exaggeration used to criticize society)

• These essays use an advice column form to mimic “common sense” advice sold to young men at the time

• Divided into three sections: “To Him that Hath,” “The Venerable Examined,” and “Duty”

• First section: says that most people are told to form virtue before wealth, but wealth is often more practically valuable

• Many people are polite to the wealthy for their own advantage (ethics always comes second to wealth)

• Second section: age does not often equal wisdom and ties this to the age of Supreme Court judges (frequent target in his writing)

• When this was written, Mencken was 42 and the youngest Supreme Court Justice, Harlan Fiske Stone, was 52

• Third section: duty is the same as following the status quo; this is bad because conformity does not help humanity progress

• Sometimes, not doing one’s duty, even if it means disobeying those in power, can be good

Background Information

• Porter (1891-1980) was most famous modernist writer of the time, even though she published little (27 stories, a novel, a memoir, and a few essays)

• Collected Stories (1965) won National Book Award for fiction and Pulitzer Prize: one of 7 works to get both awards, one of two career-spanning collections of stories to win Pulitzer Prize and one of three career-spanning story collections to win National Book Award

• Received Guggenheim Fellowship and writings featured in Library of America collection

• Born Callie Russell Porter in Indian Creek, TX; father was poor subsistence farmer who moved his family into his mother’s home (Aunt Cat) after his wife’s death

• Cat taught Porter how to behave like an upper-class woman, but, in reality, Cat was very poor (the family relied on donations from neighbors)

• Porter’s formal education ended at 14

• Porter descended from wealthy farmers and landowners in Kentucky, but poor in reality (created internal conflict, often featured in her works)

• Contradictory personality (ex. fought for worker’s rights, but held old social beliefs; wanted to be “grand dame” (social matriarch), but lacked the calm disposition needed)

• Her work uses Willa Cather’s frontier realism, but also some creativity

• Began writing as a newspaper journalist (like Ernest Hemingway), so used concise language

• Common themes in writing included American South dynamics, status/class conflict, and language forms

Analysis of the Work

• Entirely written in dialogue form (no narration), which is part of her creative style (though not as radical as Gertrude Stein)

• Dialogue is unmarked (no quotation marks) to show complex relationship between the couple, but this sometimes makes it difficult to read

• Character dialogue is often broken up by paragraph, and sometimes both characters speak in the same paragraph to mimic the pace of an actual argument

• Marginalization of women is implied through husband’s forgetfulness of his wife’s requests (in the poem, he forgets to buy the coffee and instead buys the rope, which seems to be a pattern in their marriage)

• The husband does not understand why his wife breaks down at the end of the story because of the coffee, but fails to understand that the coffee symbolizes his forgetfulness

• The husband also complains about the house creating more work, dismissing his wife’s efforts to care for the home because they do not contribute to the family financially

• Message: gender discrimination can exist without explicit abuse, but through general patterns and habits

Background Information

• Millay (1892-1950) was highly popular, but came from humble background (raised by single mother Cara with sisters Kathleen and Norma)

• Cara had good morals, but few connections that would help Millay’s writing career

• Cara encouraged her to submit her poem “Renascence” (mature poem for a younger writer) to annual competition by poetry publication The Lyric Year in 1912 (she had only published in small journals before)

• Competition liked her mix of grand and common language, giving her scholarships to Barnard and Vassar (studied Greek, Latin, and comparative literature)

• Published first poetry collection, Renascence and Other Poems (1917) after moving to Greenwich Village in NYC and continued to write for next twenty years (published short stories under pseudonym Nancy Boyd)

• Frequently wrote about women’s rights (A Few Figs from Thistles (1920) and The Harp-Weaver and Other Poems (1923))

• First woman to win Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1923, but had bouts of illness from then until her death

• Socially active (like protest against Sacco/Vanzetti trial in 1927 and anti-fascist poetry of 30s/40s), but never forgot about women’s struggles

Analysis of the Work

• Frequently used complex meter/verse (like contemporary Robert Frost)

• Written in Petrarchan sonnet form (sonnets have 14 lines; Petrarchan form has opening eight-line stanza, or octet, in ABBAABBA form and closing six-line stanza, or sestet, in CDCDCD form)

• Some sonnets end with CDECDE sestet, but this poem uses the CDCDCD form

• Two stanzas separated by “volta” (turn); here, it is the word “however” in ninth line

• Reflects on how female identity expects her to constantly desire her male addressee

• Uses iambic pentameter (five pairs, or metrical feet, of unstressed and stressed syllables) in first stanza to make the poem smoother and her expectations feel natural

• Second stanza rebukes the expectations and states that passion does not equal love (women are not controlled by their desire for men); dismisses addressee and says they may meet again

• Two stanzas’ differences shows social expectations vs personal values and mind vs body (mind vs body is a common theme in her work)

• Uses old poetic forms to display modern issues

Background Information

• Brown (1901-1989) often disagreed with Harlem Renaissance writers because he thought the movement was about appeasing White audiences

• Had early success (part of Countee Cullen’s Caroling Dusk: An Anthology of Verse by Negro Poets collection and published first collection, Southern Road (1932)

• Struggled to find publisher for second poetry collection (No Hiding Place) and did not publish until 1975

• Brown was one of the most important figures of the New Negro Movement (redefined Black American identity)

• Brown’s father born into slavery, but became professor at Howard University (a HBCU, or Historically Black College and University)

• Brown was born in Washington, D.C. and also taught Black culture, writing, and literature at Howard after getting degrees from Harvard and Williams Colleges

• Wrote essays, including famous “Negro Character as Seen by White Authors” (1933) that rejected racial stereotypes by White authors (used to justify racism)

• Common theme throughout his writing is that identity is not one thing and literature could never fully express the stories of Black Americans

• Believed social progress equaled the realization that identity is complex

• Also focused on local, rural African-American dialects as well as connecting Black struggles to worldwide fights for equality

• Often combined English literature with folk themes

Analysis of the Work

• Poem uses two intertextual references (explicit reference to another art

• First: title refers to Latin “morituri te salutamus” (“We who are about to die salute you”), used by gladiators to address Roman Emperor before fighting

• Second: paratext (part of a text that is not the main body of work), specifically epigraph (intro quotes used to display themes in the work)

• Epigraph in the poem is the line  “O Gentlemen the time of Life is short” from Shakespeare’s 1597 play Henry IV, Part 1; excerpt from a speech by Hotspur to his soldiers before they charge into battle to overthrow King Henry IV

• Full speech showed how short life is and to use it to pursue justice (even in the face of death)

• In the poem’s context, Brown wants readers to pursue racial justice, even if they will not live to see the changes

• Brown helped organize political programming for New Negro Movement, Howard University, and other colleges

• Like Hotspur, Brown says a morally worthy life is often not achieved immediately, but can be by providing a foundation for others

• Frequently repeats the word “must” to emphasize necessity of action

• Brown often used references from a variety of time periods/popularity

Background Information

• Johnson (1880-1996) was a poet, playwright, journalist, essayist, and musician

• Hosted famous Black writers in her home (Jean Toomer, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Countee Cullen)

• Musician and educator who was assistant principal in Atlanta; served in Dept. of Labor as commissioner of conciliation

• Never wrote just one genre, but equally skilled in all

• Her plays are analyzed by scholars, but her poetry shows experience of Black women in 1920s (not often emphasized)

• Her first poetry collection, The Heart of a Woman, and Other Poems (1916), mainly explored the despair (and sometimes joy) of women

• Women were denied in public sphere, so they turned to the home and themselves (ex. “Elevation” shows inner exploration and “Foredoom” shows that women’s increased emotional capacity meant they saw painful realities, like their lack of freedom)

• Many criticized her for not talking about race, so she wrote Bronze, 1922, to combine race and gender struggles (Black female writers often need to choose to be either Black or female)

Analysis of the Work

• Speaker prepares son for racist world while still trying to provide hope (referred today by Black families as “The Talk”); still an issue today

• First stanza: pessimistic; describes American racial politics as “pageantries” (an artificial creation where citizens are “actors”), and Black Americans are “branded” (racism, or predetermined roles in society, that those in power cannot justify or explain), but speaker does not want to say this to her son

• Second stanza: offers hope and wants to tell son to create a strong identity that will be able to withstand harsh reality; shows that domestic caregivers play an important role (a theme in Johnson’s many works)

• Over 3,000 Black Americans lynched from 1882 to 1930, but no laws passed (Johnson shows this in her most famous play A Sunday Morning in the South, which shows the constant fear of being lynched)

• Message: Black parents and artists were responsible for creating the future of their children by crafting it in a positive light (i.e. the fight against racism starts at home)

Background Information

• Hughes (1901-1967) was “Shakespeare of Harlem” and “Poet Laureate of the Negro Race” as a leader of Harlem Renaissance and New Negro Movement

• Born in Joplin, Missouri and moved to Harlem, NY in 1922

• Published The Weary Blues (1926), a poetry collection, at age 24

• Wrote many pieces (and two autobiographies) that amplified voices of regular people (especially Black voices)

• Most famous poem: “I, Too”

• Traveled worldwide to connect racial justice activists with writers (ex. Mexico inspired poems “In a Mexican City” and “Mexican Market Woman,” the second being about seeing beyond the prejudice of common people)

• Wanted to travel to different countries (with different racial policies) as he got older (like Haiti, Cuba, the Soviet Union, and West Africa) and referred to as “elder statesman” due to worldview

• First to popularize (not use) blues/jazz in writing (to make it more creative and to show Black experiences worldwide)

• His essay “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain” (1926) argued for the use of music (experienced by all) in poetry to make it relatable and therefore more powerful

Analysis of the Work

• Poem is about the blues, but also tries to replicate same emotions that define blues by making the setting in Harlem, specifically in a Lenox Avenue bar (for working people) since blues emerged from ordinary areas

• Repetition (“‘And I can’t be satisfied/And can’t be satisfied/And I wish that I had died’”) is in blues structure (repeats a series of sorrows)

• Poem has a “drowsy syncopated” rhythm (occasionally slips out of meter’s pattern to keep audience’s attention)

• Frequent pauses/silences, denoted by ellipses (“He did a lazy sway.../He did a lazy sway....”) since space is an important part of jazz

• Many blues songs had moans/whispers, like the song “Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground” by Blind Willie Johnson

• Poem uses quotes (vernacular language) to make it more informal and show that even commoners can be artists

• Emphasizes poetry-blues relationship

Background Information

• Hurston (1891-1960) is best known for her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937); forgotten after 1940s, but rediscovered in 1970s by Black feminist scholars (like essay collection You Don’t Know Us Negroes (2022))

• Born in Alabama; attended Howard University and Barnard College (became involved in Harlem Renaissance here)

• Wrote for popular magazines (Negro World, The Messenger,  and Charles Johnston’s The Opportunity)

• Knew many famous people (friend of Lagnston Hughes, contributed to former professor Alain Locke’s The New Negro (1925), and went to Georgia Douglas Jonhson’s literary parties)

• Traveled to Florida in 1920s to conduct field work (studied Southern and rural cultures as folklorist, linguist, and anthropologist)

• True passion in anthropology (wanted to contradict White accounts that showed these customs as backward or promoted racist theories) because full understanding was necessary for political change

• Believed preserving African-American folklore was the most important, which alienated her from contemporaries

• Often underpaid and had to stay at St. Lucie County Welfare Home due to financial constraints until she passed

Analysis of the Work

• Part of a writing collection (discovered in 1990s) written for commemorative magazine of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority’s annual Chicago convention

• Hurston’s talent for irony and social criticism, specifically satire (play on the Biblical Ten Commandments to show absurd social expectations for women)

• Uses excessively excited tone and faux-Biblical words (“thou,” “thyself”) to show irony

• Similar to Mencken in that she challenged “common sense” of the time

• Highlights the importance of women making men feel understood to frame men as helpless

• Women were often given instructions on how to behave when Hurston argues that men were the ones who needed help (essays and magazines advised women on how to impress/entertain men, aka “women’s writing”)

• Women needed to work hard to avoid damaging men (often referred to as the stronger sex), and Hurston says this makes women more powerful