The Dada, or Dadaism, movement started in Switzerland during World War 1 and climaxed during 1916 to 1922. The three major components of the movement were visual art, literature, and graphic design. There was a lot of focus on anti-war politics. Periodicals such as 391 by the Dadaist Francis Picabia were written in a mostly aggressive tone arguing against the war. The art form of Dadaism was based off of the former popular art form Cubism. Dadaist artists used the techniques that Cubist artists used but incorporated a feeling of life into their work. Cubist artists focused on still life but Dadaist artist included things such as tickets, maps, etc. to show a sense of living and life. In Berlin, the photomontage technique was created. This technique included the use of scissors and glue as opposed to the traditional tools of paint and a paintbrush. It also used actual pictures as its focus. They were generally taken out of newspapers and other forms of public press. Assemblages were also created during this movement. They were three dimensional works of art that were an “assembly” of everyday art that either had meaning or didn’t. The meaning of the art, as always, was created by the artist.
The Surrealist movement began in the early nineteen twenties. It developed after World War 1 as a result of it and Dadaism. The main location in the Surrealist movement was in Paris, France. Surrealist artists created and developed the technique of automatic drawing. It was a way of expressing their subconscious through art. In order to make an automatic drawing, the artist allows his or her hand to move randomly and spontaneously across the work surface. Opening your mind in this way allows it to be released from regular control and patterns which is why some believe it opens up and gives insight into your psyche. It’s also used by mediums and people who practice psychic skills. Many artists in the Surrealist movement started out in Dadaism. Writers from the Dadaist movement also joined the Surrealist movement. Those writers included Tristan Tzara, an avant- garde poet.
The modernist movement in American literature was based in Europe between nineteen hundred and the late nineteen twenties. Some famous authors involved in the modernist movement were Gertrude Stein, T.S. Eliot, William Faulkner, F Scott Fitzgerald, Robert Frost, and Ernest Hemingway. Those are only a few of the dozens of authors who made the modernist movement what it was. Some characteristics of Modernism included an international aspect, gaps or fissures in the writing, the avant-garde philosophy or “Make it new”, fragmentation in the writing, no truths, and the use of quotidian or “the everyday”. It was usually written in the aftermath of a big historical event. Many modernist pieces, such as Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, focus on the effects of World War one on the human population. Some focused on the effects on the general population but others, like Hemingway, focused on the effects on the soldiers and the “Lost Generation”.
A big aspect of all three of these movements is the way they are centered on World War one. The Dadaism movement was during it. The Surrealism movement and the modernist movement were focused on the aftermath. It shows how something such as a world war can unite people in unexpected and unfamiliar ways. Generally, artists and authors stayed in a certain area to create art or writings. However, during these movements, they all came together and travelled around the world to be one with the movements. There were of course certain artists or writers that drew everyone to them but the fact is that most writings or paintings were done in specific areas of the world by people of all different backgrounds and cultures.
Works Cited:
- Class Notes September 21st, 2009
- "Dada Movement". http://www.arthistoryguide.com/Dada.aspx.
- "Art History: Surrealism: (1924 - 1955)". http://wwar.com/masters/movements/surrealism.html.
- "Modernist Literature". http://www.artandpopularculture.com/Modernist_literature.
Monday, September 28, 2009
O Pioneers! Still relevant in the Twentieth Century?
O Pioneers! is a classic book about the immigration of the 1800s and the quest to make a name for oneself. This included owning land, earning a living, and eventually becoming rich. It involves the Bergson’s family’s hard times and how they make things work out eventually for themselves. It also has a much deeper meaning in relation to those times and even the twentieth century. There are many aspects of the twentieth century involved with this nineteenth century book but I, like most other women writing about it, am going to focus on the feminist point of view and discuss the character of Alexandra Burgess.
At a young age, Alexandra had a mind for learning and knew the land she lived and worked on better than her younger brothers. Her father did something quite unheard of when he was sick. He told his sons that it would in fact be his only daughter, Alexandra, who would continue as the head of management for the farm. He urged them to listen to her and do as she says because she had a way of knowing, through research, what was indeed right for the farm. “Boys, I want you to keep the land together and to be guided by your sister.””Alexandra is the oldest, and she knows my wishes. She will do the best she can. If she makes mistakes, she will not make so many as I have made.”(O Pioneers! Page 16). At that current time in history, it was still a male dominated society and women hardly ever were given work outside of cleaning the house, cooking food for the family, planting gardens, and sometimes working the fields.
As Alexandra grew older throughout the book, she took on more and more conflicting ideas with
the current society. She housed an elder man, Ivar, who was thought to be crazy. She even stood up for him to her brothers Oscar and Lou when they suggested she send him to a psychiatric hospital. Women were not supposed to have many single men, or men in general for that matter, living in their homes at once. It complicated the fact even more so due to the fact that Alexandra was still a single woman. She did not get married because the love of her life, Carl, was forced to move away when his family’s farm could no longer survive during the harder years. She managed and ran the farm by herself. The accounting books were even done by her which was rare for a woman to do because it was usually the man’s job to handle the money. “While Emil and Carl were amusing themselves at the fair, Alexandra was home, busy with her account books, which had been neglected of late.”(O Pioneers! Page 84). This quote leads me to my next point which is that older woman were not generally getting married. Alexandra’s long time friend and romantic interest, Carl, comes back and it causes a commotion among her family when they realize that they are beginning to fall in love. Alexandra had been considering that marriage was the logical next step and Oscar and Lou began to pick up on that. They claimed that he was after her money and would not allow it. “Alexandra! Can’t you see he’s just a tramp and he’s after your money? He wants to be taken care of, he does.”(O Pioneers! Page 85). When Alexandra questions why she should not share and give her money to Carl, it makes them even more furious. “Didn’t all the land come out of the homestead? It was bought with money borrowed on the homestead, and Oscar and me worked ourselves to the bone paying interest on it.” (O Pioneers! Page 85). To me, it seemed like they had been greedy since they were introduced in the novel with their children at a family dinner. The fact that they had been the ones that worked the farm is true. However, one can also argue that the farm would never have prospered without Alexandra’s intuitiveness and skill with the land management. She took on new ideas such as keeping the hogs clean so they wouldn’t get sick as well as planting alfalfa which later began to have a larger profit margin. The fact that she did all of this and the brothers weren’t acknowledging it shows not only that they were greedy and wanted the land for their children, but also that they didn’t agree with a woman having so much control and power over the land. Women of her age were supposed to be cleaning the house and working in the kitchen while raising a family. Due to her wealthy status, Alexandra was able to hire other people to do those things and she was left to continue expanding and making her farm better. The fact that she wasn’t married wasn’t about to slow her down. Generally, as women grew older, they stayed with their son’s or daughter’s new families and did the same types of general housework. Lou’s wife’s mother was one example of that in the novel. She was constantly told to keep a neat appearance and to not act out of line. She basically had no free will. I think that this character was introduced to show a contrast of what Alexandra’s life could have been as a woman.
The way she portrayed Alexandra shows Willa Cather’s mindset as she was writing the pieces of this novel. The novel was published in 1913, which was a few years before most women’s rights even existed. Alexandra was written as a strong, independent woman in the generally male-dominated society of the West. She is indeed what most women of the 20th Century aspired to be socially and economically. Women of the 20th century didn’t want to be controlled by the men in their life. They wanted to be able to climb the social ladders with their own name. They wanted to make a living of equal standards to a man doing the same work. Throughout the 20th century, the women’s movement grew and those rights were given along with things such as the right to vote in 1920 when it was ratified by Congress. Gender inequalities still exist today, but we have come a long way since the 20th century and the 19th century-based world of O Pioneers!.
Works Cited:
-Cather, Willa. O Pioneers!. New York: Barnes and Noble Books, 2003 (originally 1913).
-Barber, E. Susan. "One Hundred Years toward Suffrage: An Overview". National American Woman Suffrage Association. http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/naw/nawstime.html.
At a young age, Alexandra had a mind for learning and knew the land she lived and worked on better than her younger brothers. Her father did something quite unheard of when he was sick. He told his sons that it would in fact be his only daughter, Alexandra, who would continue as the head of management for the farm. He urged them to listen to her and do as she says because she had a way of knowing, through research, what was indeed right for the farm. “Boys, I want you to keep the land together and to be guided by your sister.””Alexandra is the oldest, and she knows my wishes. She will do the best she can. If she makes mistakes, she will not make so many as I have made.”(O Pioneers! Page 16). At that current time in history, it was still a male dominated society and women hardly ever were given work outside of cleaning the house, cooking food for the family, planting gardens, and sometimes working the fields.
As Alexandra grew older throughout the book, she took on more and more conflicting ideas with
the current society. She housed an elder man, Ivar, who was thought to be crazy. She even stood up for him to her brothers Oscar and Lou when they suggested she send him to a psychiatric hospital. Women were not supposed to have many single men, or men in general for that matter, living in their homes at once. It complicated the fact even more so due to the fact that Alexandra was still a single woman. She did not get married because the love of her life, Carl, was forced to move away when his family’s farm could no longer survive during the harder years. She managed and ran the farm by herself. The accounting books were even done by her which was rare for a woman to do because it was usually the man’s job to handle the money. “While Emil and Carl were amusing themselves at the fair, Alexandra was home, busy with her account books, which had been neglected of late.”(O Pioneers! Page 84). This quote leads me to my next point which is that older woman were not generally getting married. Alexandra’s long time friend and romantic interest, Carl, comes back and it causes a commotion among her family when they realize that they are beginning to fall in love. Alexandra had been considering that marriage was the logical next step and Oscar and Lou began to pick up on that. They claimed that he was after her money and would not allow it. “Alexandra! Can’t you see he’s just a tramp and he’s after your money? He wants to be taken care of, he does.”(O Pioneers! Page 85). When Alexandra questions why she should not share and give her money to Carl, it makes them even more furious. “Didn’t all the land come out of the homestead? It was bought with money borrowed on the homestead, and Oscar and me worked ourselves to the bone paying interest on it.” (O Pioneers! Page 85). To me, it seemed like they had been greedy since they were introduced in the novel with their children at a family dinner. The fact that they had been the ones that worked the farm is true. However, one can also argue that the farm would never have prospered without Alexandra’s intuitiveness and skill with the land management. She took on new ideas such as keeping the hogs clean so they wouldn’t get sick as well as planting alfalfa which later began to have a larger profit margin. The fact that she did all of this and the brothers weren’t acknowledging it shows not only that they were greedy and wanted the land for their children, but also that they didn’t agree with a woman having so much control and power over the land. Women of her age were supposed to be cleaning the house and working in the kitchen while raising a family. Due to her wealthy status, Alexandra was able to hire other people to do those things and she was left to continue expanding and making her farm better. The fact that she wasn’t married wasn’t about to slow her down. Generally, as women grew older, they stayed with their son’s or daughter’s new families and did the same types of general housework. Lou’s wife’s mother was one example of that in the novel. She was constantly told to keep a neat appearance and to not act out of line. She basically had no free will. I think that this character was introduced to show a contrast of what Alexandra’s life could have been as a woman.
The way she portrayed Alexandra shows Willa Cather’s mindset as she was writing the pieces of this novel. The novel was published in 1913, which was a few years before most women’s rights even existed. Alexandra was written as a strong, independent woman in the generally male-dominated society of the West. She is indeed what most women of the 20th Century aspired to be socially and economically. Women of the 20th century didn’t want to be controlled by the men in their life. They wanted to be able to climb the social ladders with their own name. They wanted to make a living of equal standards to a man doing the same work. Throughout the 20th century, the women’s movement grew and those rights were given along with things such as the right to vote in 1920 when it was ratified by Congress. Gender inequalities still exist today, but we have come a long way since the 20th century and the 19th century-based world of O Pioneers!.
Works Cited:
-Cather, Willa. O Pioneers!. New York: Barnes and Noble Books, 2003 (originally 1913).
-Barber, E. Susan. "One Hundred Years toward Suffrage: An Overview". National American Woman Suffrage Association. http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/naw/nawstime.html.
The Life of Edith Wharton
Edith Wharton was born as Edith Newbold Jones on January 24th, 1862 in New York City and died on August 11th, 1937. At the young age of four, Edith and her family travelled around Europe for five years in Italy, Spain, Germany, and France. When she returned to New York for her private tutoring, she avidly studied German and French. Then, in 1879, her family returned to Europe for three more years, mostly in France. When Edith returned to the United States again, she married Edward Robbins Wharton and they honeymooned in Europe as well as travelling there extensively during their marriage. As you can see, Europe was a major part of her life at a young age and continued to be throughout her years. She wrote many poems while she lived in France and made them into a book of poems called Artemis to Actaeon and Other Verses. She also published her novel Ethan Frome whole she was there.
At the start of World War one, Wharton lived in North Africa. However, she soon moved to Europe yet again but this time to help refugees in France and Belgium. She did a lot of philanthropic work during this time. She helped raise money in a fund for the refugees. She also started some hostels to house them and schools to educate them. For her feminist roles, she helped women support themselves and find ways of making money and getting hired for jobs. Wharton’s friend, Walter Van Rensselaer Berry, a famous American lawyer and diplomat also joined her cause. (He was also friends with other writers such as Henry James and Marcel Proust.) They travelled together to different battlefields and under-staffed hospitals to help tend to the sick and wounded. These experiences led to her personal essays and diary Fighting France, published in 1915, and The Marne, published in 1918. Both essays included personal events and accounts from Edith Wharton’s endeavors in France and Belgium and incorporated things she learned and saw from the whole ordeal. As a result of her philanthropic efforts, she was awarded the French Legion of Honour in 1916 with the title of Chevalier, knight. This award is and was usually given to French citizens, both men and women, and is not often given to foreigners. It symbolizes “eminent merit” in military or civil life. During World War one, it was more common for non-natives to receive this honor. Many of the allied countries fought battles and war on French territory/soil and they awarded them mostly to soldiers who did so. However, the highest mark/rank they could achieve was Chevalier because the higher ranks have always been, and still are, reserved only for French nationals/citizens.
As I did my research on Edith Wharton’s life, it made me see that her heart always belonged in Europe, France especially. She did a lot of her work while she lived there and always seemed to go back for long periods of time before she finally sold her property in the United States and moved to France full time. She devoted her time, energy, and ultimately her life to her new home and showed her gratitude and love for it when she helped the soldiers and women there during World War one. Her life stories and personal experiences are also very correlated and connected to her work that she accomplished. It shows clearly how strongly she felt for each piece of work she wrote.
Works Cited:
-"Edith Wharton". http://www.online-literature.com/wharton/
-"Roman Fever: Introduction" http://www.enotes.com/roman-fever
-"Edith Wharton's World: Portraits of People and Places". http://www.npg.si.edu/exh/wharton/whar3.htm.
At the start of World War one, Wharton lived in North Africa. However, she soon moved to Europe yet again but this time to help refugees in France and Belgium. She did a lot of philanthropic work during this time. She helped raise money in a fund for the refugees. She also started some hostels to house them and schools to educate them. For her feminist roles, she helped women support themselves and find ways of making money and getting hired for jobs. Wharton’s friend, Walter Van Rensselaer Berry, a famous American lawyer and diplomat also joined her cause. (He was also friends with other writers such as Henry James and Marcel Proust.) They travelled together to different battlefields and under-staffed hospitals to help tend to the sick and wounded. These experiences led to her personal essays and diary Fighting France, published in 1915, and The Marne, published in 1918. Both essays included personal events and accounts from Edith Wharton’s endeavors in France and Belgium and incorporated things she learned and saw from the whole ordeal. As a result of her philanthropic efforts, she was awarded the French Legion of Honour in 1916 with the title of Chevalier, knight. This award is and was usually given to French citizens, both men and women, and is not often given to foreigners. It symbolizes “eminent merit” in military or civil life. During World War one, it was more common for non-natives to receive this honor. Many of the allied countries fought battles and war on French territory/soil and they awarded them mostly to soldiers who did so. However, the highest mark/rank they could achieve was Chevalier because the higher ranks have always been, and still are, reserved only for French nationals/citizens.
As I did my research on Edith Wharton’s life, it made me see that her heart always belonged in Europe, France especially. She did a lot of her work while she lived there and always seemed to go back for long periods of time before she finally sold her property in the United States and moved to France full time. She devoted her time, energy, and ultimately her life to her new home and showed her gratitude and love for it when she helped the soldiers and women there during World War one. Her life stories and personal experiences are also very correlated and connected to her work that she accomplished. It shows clearly how strongly she felt for each piece of work she wrote.
Works Cited:
-"Edith Wharton". http://www.online-literature.com/wharton/
-"Roman Fever: Introduction" http://www.enotes.com/roman-fever
-"Edith Wharton's World: Portraits of People and Places". http://www.npg.si.edu/exh/wharton/whar3.htm.
Friday, September 4, 2009
Comparing and Contrasting Romanticism and Realism in The Scarlet Letter
During class, we came up with a list of terms and ideas that define romanticism as well as a second list for realism. According to our class notes, romanticism has an exotic locale for a setting. In The Scarlet Letter, the small community surrounded by wilderness is classified as the exotic locale. Romanticism also has a supernatural component. There is witchcraft, mention of the Devil, and angels in The Scarlet Letter. The use of archaic language is also a part of romanticism. In The Scarlet Letter, words such as “ye”, “thus”, “thou”, etc. were used throughout the book which gave it a slight Shakespearean feel during the dialogues. There is also a lot of symbolism in romanticism. In The Scarlet Letter, the letter “A”, the rosebush, and the supernatural were all symbols along with many others. The letter "A" shows up in places such as page 40 of the novel which is an introduction to Hester Prynne herself. The rosebush is the first real symbol introduced and gives a contrast of the prison and the outside world. There was still beauty in the world while Hester spent her time in prison (page 36). One character of the book, Mistress Hibbins, was thought to be a witch which introduced the supernatural aspect into the novel. She was mentioned sporatically throughout the whole plot. Another supernatural occurence was the way that the scarlet letter was "flaming" on Hester Prynne's breast (page 55). There was a heavy emphasis on plot rather than character development in The Scarlet Letter, which is another idea from romanticism. Most of the dialogue and descriptions in the book were focused on getting to the next big event that was going to take place. There was some development but it was scattered throughout instead of being focused on specifically throughout. There is always a moral or didactic purpose in romanticism. The moral of The Scarlet Letter, in my opinion, was that you shouldn’t commit sin because sin has a devastating effect on all of those involved. Hester Prynne, Reverend Dimmesdale, and Pearl were all affected in different ways. Hester Prynne was the one that took all of the blame for the adultery her and Reverend Dimmesdale committed. Reverend Dimmesdale had to live with the guilt and other emotions he felt because of the fact that Hester Prynne wouldn’t name him as her fellow adulterer. In the end, it ate him up inside, he physically branded himself, and died from the relief of finally exposing himself as the father of Pearl in the end. Pearl grew up as the “elf child” and was publically shunned from a young age. She had a sincere and honest way of looking at the world because of all that happened to her. Finally, in romanticism, there is a clear hero and a clear villain. In The Scarlet Letter, the villain was Roger Chillingworth, Hester’s husband. "That old man's revenge has been blacker than my sin. He has violated, in cold blood, the sanctity of a human heart" (Page 100). Hester clames that Chillingworth's sin of leaving her with no confirmation of coming back is worse than the sin she committed. He comes right at the time that Hester is being publically humiliated when she got out of jail. Then, he harasses her and tries to get her to tell him the name of Pearl’s father for most of the novel. Hester Prynne is the clear hero of the novel. She keeps the identity of Pearl’s father secret the whole time even though she was harassed and verbally abused to try and make her reveal him.
Realism is basically the exact opposite of romanticism. It can be classified as being everything after Walt Whitman. In realism, there is often a dialect, a language that reflects the way that people truly speak. The heroes in realism are flawed. The morality is often very subjective. There is use of quotitian which is “the everyday”. There is no exotic locale whatsoever. For example, in one of Whitman’s poems, he just describes a normal beach and uses words like “scum”. In realism, there is also hardly ever a moral. The character development in realism is more important than plot development. The characters are also realistic. There is no supernatural component to realistic works. Using these comparisons, we can see that The Scarlet Letter is clearly a work of American romanticism.
Works Cited:
-Class Notes including discussions as well as the chart of themes and symbols
-Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter. W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. , 2005.
-"Important Quotations from The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne". http://www.brighthub.com/education/homework-tips/articles/41967.aspx
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