Diego Chavarra Snchez A91711

Contemporary Literature
(1939 Present)

Historical Overview
World War II (1939 1945) Began when Britain and France declared war on Germany after Hitlers armies invaded Poland. U.S. was drug into the war on Dec. 7 1941, when Japan bombed the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The attack on Pearl Harbor killed over 2,395 Americans and destroyed / damaged 21 ships and 323 aircrafts. Until this attack, the U.S. had remained neutral (although we had provided financial support to those countries fighting Germany, Italy, and Japan). World War II - U.S. response Atomic Bomb. The U.S. dropped atomic bombs that obliterated two Japanese cities. Bomb on Nagasaki / Bomb on Hiroshima from the U.S. airplane Enola Gay. Many Americans disapproved of the use of the atomic bomb to end WWII, but most agreed with the purpose of the war itself. o Fighting against tyranny and regimes that would destroy the American way of life. The Cold War 1945 1991 (ideological battle between Capitalism and Communism). The Soviet Union developed nuclear weapons in the 50s and 60s created conflict with the U.S.

 The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. 70s winding down of the Vietnam War. Watergate Scandal 1974 forced the resignation of U.S. president, Richard Nixon. 80s me generation. Individual enjoyment and material success seemed to overshadow other concerns. Attack on September 11, 2001. killed three thousand civilians (damaging blow to the countries economy). War on Terrorism.

The Digital Revolution and Economic Prosperity Introduction of the computer. 50s and 60s businesses and governments were revolutionized by large mainframe computers. 80s and 90s desktop computers appeared in schools, offices, and homes. Late 90s internet communication emerged along with wireless telephone technology. All of these innovations fueled a surge in the stock market in the 90s.

Contemporary Fiction

Diversity and Vitality. Postmodern a term used to describe contemporary American culture - still in the process of being defined. Postmodernism sees contemporary culture as a change a development or a departure from modernism. o Postmodern writers use many of the same tools that the modernists used; although, they are constructing a body of literature that is completely different from that produced by the modernists.

Characteristics of postmodernism. Allowing multiple meanings and multiple worlds. Worlds: realistic, literal, past, and dreamlike / metaphorical. Narrators and characters may tell different versions of a story, or a story may deliberately accommodate several valid interpretations. Intensely self-conscious. o Comment on themselves / criticize themselves. Blending of fiction with nonfiction. Uses the past fearlessly (invigorate the old by means of the new).

Contemporary Nonfiction Breaking the Barriers. Until this point, nonfiction meant everything that wasnt fiction. (Many times, nonfiction writers were lumped together with journalists). Since the 70s, this idea has changed dramatically.

o Featured reviews now discuss the art (not just the factual content) of books on computers, architecture, travel, history, etc. o Lists of bestsellers which have always included self-help books, now regularly feature memoirs, biographies, and histories.

Contemporary Poetry Varied and Intensely Personal. Decline of Modernism. o A generation had returned from war to a country where conformity and material success were the main values. Projective Verse. o Led by Black Mountain Poets: Charles Olson, Robert Duncan, and Robert Creeley. o Open-form treating each poem as an individual entity, creating its own form as it proceeded. o Open-form poems avoided regular meter and rhyme and aimed to imitate the spontaneity and complexity of reality itself.

New journalism In the 1960s, new journalism (or literary journalism) began to appear. Truman Capote, Tom Wolfe, Joan Didion, Norman Mailer, they attracted attention by describing contemporary culture and actual events in strongly individual voices.

Use many of the devices of fiction, including complex characterization, plot, suspense, setting, symbolism, and irony. Sometimes the lines are blurred new journalists arent necessarily objective. Example: Capotes In Cold Blood, a nonfiction novel that tells the story of an actual criminal case, but in a novelistic style.

The beat poets 1956: Allen Ginsbergs long poem Howl came out. I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked. How addresses the concerns of contemporary life. The injustices of modern life. The importance of the imagination (these would become principal themes of the next decades poetry).

History of the human heart Today American poetry is characterized by diversity. Much contemporary poetry has a democratic quality, often influenced by the works of Walt Whitman and William Carlos Williams. Contemporary poets often write in the language of common speech, and do not hesitate to shock with their language, attitudes, and details of private lives.