The Contemporary Period--(1945-Present)
Introduction:
The Contemporary Period of literature occurred directly after the Modernist period. In fact, it is often referred to as the "Postmodern" period. The events that brought this era about were the realization of the holocaust and the power of the atomic bomb, the wars America had with Korea, Vietnam, and the USSR, and the Civil Rights Movement. "Postmodernism" signals works that were created after Modernism and were characterized by multiple qualities. Contemporary works often featured ordinary places and dealt with an awareness of itself, a release from meaning, an interest in process, a desire to revise the past, and a desire to have fun.
With the end of World War II and the discovery of the holocaust and the atomic bomb, the American society became more abstract towards reality. Art displayed this new mindset as much as the literature of the time period did. There was also a desire to revise the past and the atrocities that occurred during both of the World Wars. It was ultimately the advancement of technology that led Americans to searching again for their identity and wondering if there was any good left in humanity.
As technology continuously advanced, the American society could better define who they were. With the dropping of the atom bombs, Americans now saw themselves as a major world power. Along with society as a whole, women and African Americans also began developing a voice and identity distinct in American culture. With people like Martin Luther King and Malcolm X leading the Civil Rights Movement, the African American identity started becoming recognized by society. Even though Americans started recognizing the blacks as a culture, not everyone liked with them. Racism also became another important theme of the Contemporary era.
These events in society shaped the writing of this ongoing era so that it would display the multiculturalism of the country and also the materialism and commercialism of the country. The writing started describing everyday family life around the new electronic inventions of the era. The Contemporary Era focused on what was going on now and even the future. It was and is an ongoing period of literature where literature itself is evolving.
With the end of World War II and the discovery of the holocaust and the atomic bomb, the American society became more abstract towards reality. Art displayed this new mindset as much as the literature of the time period did. There was also a desire to revise the past and the atrocities that occurred during both of the World Wars. It was ultimately the advancement of technology that led Americans to searching again for their identity and wondering if there was any good left in humanity.
As technology continuously advanced, the American society could better define who they were. With the dropping of the atom bombs, Americans now saw themselves as a major world power. Along with society as a whole, women and African Americans also began developing a voice and identity distinct in American culture. With people like Martin Luther King and Malcolm X leading the Civil Rights Movement, the African American identity started becoming recognized by society. Even though Americans started recognizing the blacks as a culture, not everyone liked with them. Racism also became another important theme of the Contemporary era.
These events in society shaped the writing of this ongoing era so that it would display the multiculturalism of the country and also the materialism and commercialism of the country. The writing started describing everyday family life around the new electronic inventions of the era. The Contemporary Era focused on what was going on now and even the future. It was and is an ongoing period of literature where literature itself is evolving.
Harper Lee:
Nelle Harper Lee was born as the youngest of five children to Amasa Coleman Lee and Frances Cunningham Finch. She was born in Monroeville, Alabama, in 1926. Her father practiced law in the Alabama State Legislature and her mother was a homemaker. As a young child, she loved to read, but she was also a tomboy. One of her best childhood friends was the famous Truman Capote, who was the author of In Cold Blood(1966).
While Lee attended Monroe County High School, she developed a love for English literature. She graduated from high school in 1944 and then attended an all women's college. Approximately twelve years after she graduated from high school, she received a gift from a writer, Michael Brown. This gift was a year's worth of wages so that she could do nothing but write whatever she desired to. Collaborating with editor Tay Hohoff, over the next couple years, she produced and finalized her only novel, To Kill A Mockingbird.
To Kill A Mockingbird was published on July 11, 1960, and was an immediate bestseller. It won much positive critical acclaim and a Pulitzer Prize in 1961. In 1999, it was voted best novel of the century. In the novel, Scout is an eight year old girl who is also a tomboy like Lee. The father, Atticus Finch, is modeled after Harper's own father who was an attorney. Dill, the boy who comes to Maycomb in the summers, is modeled after Lee's good friend Capote. Despite the major similarities between the novel's characters and Lee's own life, Lee downplays the autobiographical parallels in the book.
After the publication of To Kill a Mockingbird, she accompanied her friend Capote to Kansas, where the two of them worked to acquire the material that he used to publish his most famous novel, In Cold Blood. After returning home, she became reclusive from society and partook in very few interviews and public appearances. She attempted to work on two other novels, but left them unfinished when she became dissatisfied with them. To this day, she has no further publications, except for a few essays. The explosive success of her novel and the fame that followed it were distasteful to Lee.
Lee did, however, have a minor life in the limelight. She became good friends with Gregory Peck, an actor who not only portrayed Atticus Finch in the screenplay adaptation of To Kill A Mockingbird, but also won an Oscar for it. In 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed Lee to the National Council of Arts. Lee spent most of her time split between an apartment in New York and her sister's home in Monroeville and during that time, Lee accepted many honorary degrees, but refused to make speeches.
Forty years later in 2006, Lee wrote a letter to Oprah Winfrey talking about how much she still loves books in a world driven by technology. In 2007, President George W. Bush awarded Lee the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the U.S. Today, Harper Lee lives in an assisted-living home, wheel-chair bound, partially blind and deaf and as a victim to mild memory loss. When asked why she never wrote again, she said "Two reasons: one, I wouldn't go through the pressure and publicity I went through with To Kill A Mockingbird for any amount of money. Second, I have said what I wanted to say and I will not say it again" (Lee).
While Lee attended Monroe County High School, she developed a love for English literature. She graduated from high school in 1944 and then attended an all women's college. Approximately twelve years after she graduated from high school, she received a gift from a writer, Michael Brown. This gift was a year's worth of wages so that she could do nothing but write whatever she desired to. Collaborating with editor Tay Hohoff, over the next couple years, she produced and finalized her only novel, To Kill A Mockingbird.
To Kill A Mockingbird was published on July 11, 1960, and was an immediate bestseller. It won much positive critical acclaim and a Pulitzer Prize in 1961. In 1999, it was voted best novel of the century. In the novel, Scout is an eight year old girl who is also a tomboy like Lee. The father, Atticus Finch, is modeled after Harper's own father who was an attorney. Dill, the boy who comes to Maycomb in the summers, is modeled after Lee's good friend Capote. Despite the major similarities between the novel's characters and Lee's own life, Lee downplays the autobiographical parallels in the book.
After the publication of To Kill a Mockingbird, she accompanied her friend Capote to Kansas, where the two of them worked to acquire the material that he used to publish his most famous novel, In Cold Blood. After returning home, she became reclusive from society and partook in very few interviews and public appearances. She attempted to work on two other novels, but left them unfinished when she became dissatisfied with them. To this day, she has no further publications, except for a few essays. The explosive success of her novel and the fame that followed it were distasteful to Lee.
Lee did, however, have a minor life in the limelight. She became good friends with Gregory Peck, an actor who not only portrayed Atticus Finch in the screenplay adaptation of To Kill A Mockingbird, but also won an Oscar for it. In 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed Lee to the National Council of Arts. Lee spent most of her time split between an apartment in New York and her sister's home in Monroeville and during that time, Lee accepted many honorary degrees, but refused to make speeches.
Forty years later in 2006, Lee wrote a letter to Oprah Winfrey talking about how much she still loves books in a world driven by technology. In 2007, President George W. Bush awarded Lee the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the U.S. Today, Harper Lee lives in an assisted-living home, wheel-chair bound, partially blind and deaf and as a victim to mild memory loss. When asked why she never wrote again, she said "Two reasons: one, I wouldn't go through the pressure and publicity I went through with To Kill A Mockingbird for any amount of money. Second, I have said what I wanted to say and I will not say it again" (Lee).
Literary Themes:
The Contemporary Period keys in on several themes that are characteristic to most of the literary works of the time period. The themes of identity, racism, family, and a search for goodness in humanity are the main themes of this time period. Identity was a theme commonly found in many African American works as they began to write about their culture and heritage. The theme of family became more prominent in stories such as that in To Kill A Mockingbird, a novel which shows the importance of a family and the bonds between them. Racism was another main theme as is shown in To Kill A Mockingbird as well. It was a time period where African Americans began pushing for Civil Rights, battling the hatred of many white people, especially in the south with Bull Connor.
Many scholars refer to this time period as post-modernism, and the fact that Americans began searching for the good in humanity aligns almost perfectly with that term. During the modern era, two major World Wars and the greatest depression the U.S. has ever seen occurred. After these events, many Americans tried to find hope in society; hope in humanity. Authors tried to reflect society in a way that there was still some goodness in it, even after two devastating wars.
Many scholars refer to this time period as post-modernism, and the fact that Americans began searching for the good in humanity aligns almost perfectly with that term. During the modern era, two major World Wars and the greatest depression the U.S. has ever seen occurred. After these events, many Americans tried to find hope in society; hope in humanity. Authors tried to reflect society in a way that there was still some goodness in it, even after two devastating wars.
Key Authors:
- John Hershey: Author of Hiroshima, The Wall, A Single Pebble, The War Lover, and Fling and Other Stories
- Randall Jarrell: Author of "The Death of the Bell Turret Gunner," Poetry and the Age, Losses, The Seven-League Crutches, and The Woman at the Washington Zoo
- Flannery O'Connor: Author of "The Life You Save May Be Your Own," "Geranium," and Wise Blood
- Bernard Malamud: Author of "The First Seven Years," The Natural, The Fixer, The Tenants, and The Magic Barrel
- Lawrence Ferlinghetti: Author of "Constantly Risking Absurdity," City Lights, Howl and Other Poems, and A Coney Island of the Mind
- Sylvia Plath: Author of "Mirror," Christian Science Monitor, The Colossus and Other Poems, and The Bell Jar
- Anne Sexton: Author of "Courage," and To Bedlam and Part Way Back
- Theodore Roethke: Author of "Cuttings," Open House, The Waking, The Far Field, The Lost Son, and Words for the Wind
- Gwendolyn Brooks: Author of "The Explorer," "Eventide," A Street in Bronzeville, and Annie Allen
- Robert Hayden: Author of "Frederick Douglass," and A Ballad of Remembrance
- Elizabeth Bishop: Author of "One Art," "Filling Station," and North and South
- James Baldwin: Author of "The Rockpile," and Go Tell It on the Mountain
- Toni Morrison: Author of "Life in His Language," The Bluest Eye, Sula, The Song of Solomon, Beloved and Jazz
- John Fitzgerald Kennedy: Author of his Inaugural Address
- Martin Luther King Jr.: Author of "Letter from Birmingham City Jail"
- Arthur Miller: Author of All My Sons, Death of a Salesman, The Crucible, and The Last Yankee
- Julia Alvarez: Author of "Antojos," Homecoming, The Other Side, The Woman I Kept to Myself, and In the Time of the Butterflies
- Alice Walker: Author of "Everyday Use," Once, and The Color Purple
- Raymond Carver: Author of "Everything Stuck to Him," and "Will You Be Quiet, Please?"
- William Stafford: Author of "Traveling Through the Dark," Down in My Heart, West of Your City, and The Rescued Year
- Denise Levertov: Author of "The Secret," "The Man," and The Freeing of the Dust
- Li-Young Lee: Author of "The Gift"
- Martín Espada: Author of "Who Burns for the Perfection of Paper," and The Immigrant Iceboy's Bolero
- Yusef Komunyakaa: Author of "Camouflaging the Chimera," Dien Cai Dau, and Neon Vernacular
- Naomi Shihab Nye: Author of "Streets"
- Stanley Kunitz: Author of "Halley's Comet," Intellectual Things, Passport to the War, and Selected Poems
- Judith Ortiz Cofer: Author of "The Latin Deli: An Ars Poetica," and The Line of the Sun
- Harper Lee: Author of To Kill A Mockingbird
- William Safire: Author of "Onomatopoeia"
- Ian Frazier: Author of "Coyote v. Acme," Dating Your Mom, Family, On the Rez, and The Fish's Eye
- Anna Quindlen: Author of "One Day, Now Broken in Two," Object Lessons, Black and Blue, One True Thing, and Blessings
- Amy Tan: Author of "Mother Tongue," The Joy Luck Club, The Kitchen God's Wife, The Hundred Secret Senses, and The Bonesetter's Daughter
- Rita Dove: Author of "For the Love of Books," Thomas and Beulah, On the Bus with Rosa Parks, and American Smooth
- Maxine Hong Kingston: Author of The Woman Warrior, China Men, and Veterans of War, Veterans of Peace
- N. Scott Momaday: Author of The Names, House Made of Dawn, and The Way to Rainy Mountain