Making Connections

American Literature between the Wars, 1914–1945

1. Thomas Jefferson’s writings, arguing for an individual’s right to happiness on earth, were implicitly re-evoked in this era by writers responding to the role of the individual in a world devastated by war, and in a nation riven by racial and ethnic inequality. (See “American Literature 1700–1820,” pages 430–431.)
2. The modernist impulse to also take into account regional specificities has origins in the regional writing of U.S. realism and naturalism. Works by Carlos Bulosan, John Steinbeck, William Faulkner, Sherwood Anderson, and Willa Cather, for instance, can usefully be compared to work by earlier authors including Kate Chopin and Mark Twain. (See “American Literature, 1865–1914,” pages 12–13.)
3. Writers of the Harlem Renaissance such as Hughes, Larsen, and Hurston used their writings to speak about the distinctiveness of African American racial and ethnic experiences. Poetry written by African Americans after 1945 also acquired a more political, and often radical, edge. In addition, the concerns voiced in such writings bear resemblance to writings by other poets of color (Latino, Native, and Asian American), such as Paula Gunn Allen, Li-Young Lee, Cathy Song, Denise Chavez, and Pat Mora. (See “American Poetry Since 1945,” pages 2643–44.)