|
American Literature
20th Century—2nd Half
I. Political History
|
Time
|
Events
|
|
1945
|
Atomic bombs dropped over Hiroshima and Nagasaki
WWII ended; Cold War began.
|
|
1950-53
|
Korean War
|
|
1950-54
|
Senator Joseph McCarthy’s anti-communist campaign
|
|
1954
|
Supreme Court ruled segregation in schools was unconstitutional.
|
|
1955-68
|
The Civil Rights movement: non-violent protest and civil disobedience led by Martin Luther King, Jr.
|
|
1962
|
Cuban missile crisis
|
|
1963
|
President John F. Kennedy assassinated
Civil Rights march on Washington: Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered “I have a dream’ speech
|
|
1964
|
The Civil Rights Act, banning segregation in public places
|
|
1965-73
|
Vietnam War
|
|
1967
|
Anti-Vietnam demonstrations
|
|
1968
|
Martin Luther King, Jr., assassinated.
|
|
1969
|
US astronauts landed on the moon
Stonewall (gay rights) rebellion in New York City
|
|
1972-74
|
Watergate scandal
|
|
1981
|
AIDS identified in the US
|
|
1989
|
Soviet Union collapsed; Fall of Berlin Wall; Cold War ended
|
|
1991
|
Persian Gulf War
World Wide Web introduced
|
II. Genres: (selected entries)
1. Poetry:
A. The Formalists:
Randall Jarrell, Karl Shapiro, Richard Wilbur, James Merrill,
Elizabeth Bishop, Charles Wright
B. The Confessionals/the Autobiographical poets: 1950s-80s
Robert Lowell, W. D. Snodgrass, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton,
Theodore Roethke, John Berryman, Adrienne Rich, Louise Glück,
Sharon Olds, John Haines, Robert Pinsky, Dave Smith
C. New Surrealism/ “Deep Image”: 1960s-70s
Robert Bly, James Wright, W. S. Merwin,
D. The Black Mountain poets: 1950s
Charles Olson, Robert Creeley, Robert Duncan, Denise Levertov, A. R. Ammons
E. The Beats/San Francisco Poetry Renaissance: 1950s-60s
Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Kenneth Rexroth, Gary Snyder
F. The New York School: 1950s-60s
Frank O’Hara, John Ashbery, Kenneth Koch
G. Multiculturalism:
a. African/black: Gwendolyn Brooks, Imamu Amiri Baraka/LeRoi Jones,
Don Lee/Haki R. Madhubuti, Sonia Sanchez, Nikki Giovanni, Rita Dove
b. Asian: Cathy Song, John Yau, Li-Young Lee, Marilyn Chin, Garrett Hongo
c. Latino/Chicano: Alberto Ríos, Lorna Dee Cervantes
d. Native/Indian: Carroll Arnett, Simon J. Ortiz, Nora Dauenhauer, Paula Gunn Allen, Linda Hogan, Joy Harjo, Wendy Rose, Ray Young Bear, Louise Erdrich
H. The Language Poetry: 1980s-90s, L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E
Charles Bernstein, Michael Palmer, Susan Howe, Lyn Hejinian
I. Performance poetry, or “Spoken Word”: 1980s-1990s
David Antin
J. Cyber-poetry/e-poetry/digital poetry/new media poetry
2. Novel
A. The Beats: Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs
B. New Journalism: Truman Capote, Norman Mailer
C. African-American: Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Margaret Walker, Ishmael Reed, John Widerman, Toni Cade Bambara, Ernest Gaines, Leon Forrest, Gloria Naylor, A.J. Verdelle, Terry McMillan, Darryl Pinckney, Trey Ellis, James Alan McPherson
D. Postmodern: John Barth, John Hawkes, Joseph Heller, Kurt Vonnegut,
Vladimir Nabokov, William Gass, John Gardner, Robert Coover, Thomas Pynchon, William Gaddis, E.L. Doctorow, Don DeLillo, Joseph McElroy, Donald Barthelme, Kathy Acker,
Paul Auster
E. Regionalism:
a. The South: Flannery O’Connor, Truman Capote, Walker Percy, Carson McCullers, Peter Taylor, Harper Lee
b. New York (Jewish): Bernard Malamud, Cynthia Ozick, Saul Bellow, Philip Roth
c. The West: Cormac McCarthy, Annie Proulx
F. Realism: John Cheever, John Updike, Raymond Carver
G. Women/feminist: Marilyn French, Mary McCarthy, Joyce Carol Oates, Ann Taylor
H. Ethnic Minorities:
a. Native/Indian: N. Scott Momaday, James Welch, Leslie Marmon Silko, Louise Erdrich, Thomas King, Linda Hogan, Louis Owens, Sherman Alexie, Betty Louise Bell, Gerald Vizenor
b. Chicano: Rudolfo Anaya, José Antonio Villarreal, Rolando Hinojosa, Nash Candelaria, Sandra Cisneros, Ana Castillo, Ron Arias
c. Asian: John Okada, Louis Chu, Frank Chin, Maxine Hong Kingston, Shawn Wong, Gish Jen, Amy Tan, Diana Chang, Ruthanne Lum McCunn, Gus Lee, Fae Myenne Ng, Cynthia Kadohata, Ronyoung Kim, Bienvenido N. Santos, Tran Van Dinh, Wendy Law-Yone, Bharati Mukherjee
3. Drama
A. Canonical
a. Eugene O’Neill
b. Arthur Miller
c. Tennessee Williams
d. Edward Albee
e. Sam Shepard
f. David Mamet
g. Others: William Inge, Terrence McNally, Lanford Wilson, John Guare,
A.R. Gurney, David Rabe, Neil Simon, Richard Nelson, Wallace Shawn,
Tony Kushner, Paula Vogel
B. The avant-garde
a. the Living Theater: Jack Gelber, Julian Beck
b. the Open Theater: Jean-Claude Van Itallie, Joseph Chaikin
c. the Performance Group: Richard Schechner
C. Multiculturalism
a. Women/feminist: Marsha Norman, Beth Henley, Tina Howe, Emily Mann, Wendy Wasserstein
b. Ethnic minorities:
(1) Black/African: Lorraine Hansberry, James Baldwin, LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka, Ed Bullins, August Wilson, Suzan-Lori Parks, Alice Children, Adrienne Kennedy, Ntozake Shange
(2) Native/Indian: Hanay Geiogamah
(3) Chicano: Luis Valdez
(4) Asian: Jessica Hagedorn, Ping Chong, David Henry Hwang, Laurence Yep, Wakako Yamauchi, Philip Kan Gotanda
Bibliography
Beach, Christopher. The Cambridge Introduction to Twentieth-Century American Poetry. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UP, 2003.
Bigsby, C. W. E. Modern American Drama, 1945-2000. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UP, 2000.
Ellmann, Richard and Robert O’Clair, eds. The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry. 2nd ed. New York: Norton, 1988.
Gary, Richard. American Peotry of the Twentieth Century. London: Longman, 1990.
Hilfer, Tony. American Fiction since 1940. New York: Longman, 1992.
Lee, A. Robert. Multicultural American Literature: Comparative Black, Native, Latino/a and Asian American Fictions. Edinburgh, UK: Edinburgh UP, 2003.
Parini, Jay and Brett C. Millier, eds. The Columbia History of American Poetry. New York: Columbia UP, 1993.
Zilboorg, Caroline. American Prose and Poetry in the 20th Century. Cambridge UK: Cambridge UP, 2000.
|
