Overview

Notes

• After the war, the United States and the Soviet Union expressed their mutually adversarial stance through a Cold War, in which deterrence, rather than direct military intervention or actual combat, served as a primary means.
• In sharp contrast to the economic devastation and loss of human life of its allies Great Britain and the Soviet Union, the U.S. emerged from World War II in excellent economic shape. Continuity of the prewar and wartime growth and opportunity proved delusory, particularly for female factory workers and African American veterans.
• The 1960s were a decade of social conflict between conformity and individuality, tradition and innovation, stability and disruption. By the 1970s, the counterculture had been assimilated with mainstream U.S. culture; however, a call to tradition, which emerged not as a return to community and self-sacrifice but as a pursuit of wealth, dominated the 1980s.
• Between 1945 and the 1960s, the belief continued that literature could represent a “common national essence,” an ideal formed in the 1950s as a patriot act to fight communism and accumulate material possessions.
• In response to the challenges of literary theory and the explosive growth of the information age, two literary developments emerged: the nonfiction novel and metafiction.
• From the late 1960s onward, American writing was also characterized by a shift in emphasis from homogeneity as a national ideal to the celebration of diversity as a cultural reality.

Full Text

After the war, the United States and the Soviet Union expressed their mutually adversarial stance through a Cold War, in which deterrence, rather than direct military intervention or actual combat, served as a primary means. The U.S. attempted to contain Soviet-style communism and the USSR attempted to contain American-style capitalism to respective “spheres of influence.” The U.S.-USSR Cold War was not limited to ideological battles; both countries took advantage of their postwar reconstruction loans to form military alliances in Europe. The continent was divided politically, economically, and militarily by an Iron Curtain: western countries in alliance with the U.S. formed the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and eastern countries in alliance with the USSR formed the Warsaw Pact. When the communists came to power in China in 1949, the polarizing effects of the Cold War began to be felt globally.

The postwar period can be characterized as an era during which the United States attained unprecedented levels of political, economic, and military power on a global scale. Although the U.S. military did not enter into the war until the last days of 1941, American industry had expanded dramatically and profited handsomely by manufacturing and selling military equipment much earlier. In sharp contrast to the economic devastation and loss of human life of its allies Great Britain and the Soviet Union, the U.S. emerged from World War II in excellent economic shape. Continuity of the prewar and wartime growth and opportunity proved delusory, particularly for female factory workers and African American veterans. White men, however, did benefit from the new economy. The G.I. Bill provided war veterans with a college education. Social critics found Americans increasingly dedicated to a materialistic standard of living in the 1950s and early 1960s. Suburbs and corporations grew, families became more mobile in search of better-paying jobs, and the center of the population moved westward along newly constructed highways.

The 1960s were a decade of social conflict between conformity and individuality, tradition and innovation, stability and disruption. The 1960 election of John F. Kennedy as U.S. president seemed to offer an energetic program of involvement to those neglected during the material prosperity of the Eisenhower Era. Kennedy’s brother, Robert, took an activist approach towards desegregation. The close of the decade was tumultuous because of active dissent against the U.S. war in Viet Nam, resulting in the student deaths at Kent State and Jackson State universities, urban riots, as well as the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, presidential candidate Robert Kennedy, civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and Malcolm X. By the 1970s, the counterculture had been assimilated with mainstream U.S. culture; however, a call to tradition, which emerged not as a return to community and self-sacrifice but as a pursuit of wealth, dominated the 1980s.

Literature in the second half of the twentieth century saw dramatic changes. Between 1945 and the 1960s, the belief continued that literature could represent a “common national essence,” an ideal formed in the 1950s as a patriot act to fight communism and accumulate material possessions. Some authors, responding to Ernest Hemingway’s notion of “going the distance,” attempted to write the “great American novel,” a major work that would characterize the larger aspects of existence. Regional literatures emerged, such as those from the American South. Dramatists wrote about everyday people, such as the salesman in Arthur Miller’s play Death of A Salesman, as emblematic of the postwar human experience.

The idea of literature met many challenges in the 1960s, such as the “death of the novel” controversy and deconstruction, which emerged in critical movements. As deconstruction exposed truth to be constructed by rhetoric rather than based on observation, writers began to adopt the point of view that absolute objectivity did not exist; all works were partial and weighted with the author’s conscious and unconscious thoughts and perceptions. In response to the challenges of literary theory and the explosive growth of the information age, two literary developments emerged: the nonfiction novel and metafiction.

From the late 1960s onward, American writing was also characterized by a shift in emphasis from homogeneity as a national ideal to the celebration of diversity as a cultural reality. Many different literary styles were employed by authors, and often language itself became the subject of a given work. Writers of color—notably Asian, African, Latino, and Native Americans—began to experiment with literary forms, inflecting languages with the cadences of their experiences and using literary works to deal with the specifically racialized nature of their experiences as marginalized subjects in the U.S. American prose since 1945, then, can be said to have moved away from a homogenetic ideal; instead, American writing is marked by a sophisticated understanding of how literature plays an important role in characterizing the heterogeneous, and often contradictory, nature of reality.

Notes

• In the decades following World War II, the form, style, aesthetics, content, and political orientation of American poetry underwent significant changes.
• Some poets such as Ginsburg, Berryman, and Plath found inspiration in artistic and literary treasures of the past, as well as in the new confidence and technical sophistication of 1940s poetry, but later transformed their aesthetics to include more exploratory reflections on sexuality and the psyche.
• As the doors to the world of poetry opened to new voices, poetry became more attuned to political and social issues of the period such that it became impossible to think of poetry as apolitical.
  
• In the 1970s, the world of poetry was infused with energy from poets of color - primarily Latino, Asian, and Native American - who had previously not had access to presses and publication.
  
• Postmodern poetry, as it emerged, was skeptical of single versions of reality; instead, multiple different realities coexist, throwing notions of universal unity and totality into question.

Full Text

In the decades following World War II, the form, style, aesthetics, content, and political orientation of American poetry underwent significant changes. With Allen Ginsburg’s Howl (1956) and Robert Lowell’s Life Studies (1959), postwar American poetry began on a trajectory of making poetry have a more vital relationship to contemporary life. Poetry in the 1940s marked a new confidence in “native” literary traditions. T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound dominated the literary scene, but the work of William Carlos Williams, H. D., Gertrude Stein, and Wallace Stevens also emerged as important figures, offering an alternative to Eliot’s modernism. These earlier poets paved the way for newer poets to emerge, but also cast a formidable shadow. Nevertheless, younger poets, including Gwendolyn Brooks, Elizabeth Bishop, and John Berryman, emerged as important poets. Some poets, including Charles Olson, published poetic manifestoes asserting their independence from their predecessors.

The 1950s and 1960s saw many changes in the world of American poetry. English literary activity began to shift from Britain to the United States. During these years, poets became more visible in American public life, offering public readings, workshops, and conferences. By the 1970s, poetry readings were held in public spaces such as bookstores, coffeeshops, and auditoriums. In addition, poets could now read, study, and write poetry in English literature classes, sometimes taught by poets. Poets often studied traditional rather than contemporary poetry. While the short lyric emerged as an important poetic form, there was no prescribed form for poetry in the 1950s. Poems were often retrospective and intricately woven, and rarely used the first person. Some poets such as Ginsburg, Berryman, and Plath found inspiration in artistic and literary treasures of the past, as well as in the new confidence and technical sophistication of 1940s poetry, but later transformed their aesthetics to include more exploratory reflections on sexuality and the psyche.

In the 1960s, poetry became more political. “The Beats” of the 1950s took Ginsburg’s Howl as their manifesto and imagined underground alternatives to life in a mechanized society. “Beat” deliberately puns downtrodden elements in society, including radicalism and homosexuality, as well as with the new “Beatitude” based on Orientalizing cults around Eastern religions. Poets in the 1960s identified with political causes such as the black power movement, women’s liberation, the antiwar movement, and gay rights. Small presses devoted to showcasing the emerging work of new poetic constituencies (Broadside Press for African Americans in the 1960s and Quinto Sol for Latinos in the 1970s) became important clearinghouses for poets of color. As the doors to the world of poetry opened to new voices, poetry became more attuned to political and social issues of the period such that it became impossible to think of poetry as apolitical. Poetry also took new forms in the 1960s, emphasizing the importance of exposing rather than composing the self. Poets demanded more open forms that were “organic,” spontaneous, and fluid, moving away from more formal and stylized poetry. Charles Olson also hinted that, in contrast to the 1940s notion that poems were complete and finished objects, all poetry was provisional.

In the 1970s, the world of poetry was infused with energy from poets of color - primarily Latino, Asian, and Native American - who had previously not had access to presses and publication. Poetry during this period became increasingly pluralistic, and poets drew inspiration from minority, as well as international cultural forms, in creating new poetic styles as well as new poetic content. The boundary between prose and poetry also began to blur, and oral traditions increasingly became important sources for poetry.

In the 1980s and 1990s poetry was influenced by prevailing attitudes about language and “reality.” The influence of poststructuralism and deconstruction dismantled traditional boundaries between philosophy, poetry, psychology, and linguistics. Postmodern poetry, as it emerged, was skeptical of single versions of reality; instead, multiple different realities coexist, throwing notions of universal unity and totality into question. In addition, poetry borrowed techniques from film and video technology such as jump cuts, shifting angles, split screens, and open-endedness to create new poetic styles that questioned the very categories of knowledge production. Poets also began looking overseas for poetic inspiration. Many “American” poets such as Li Young Li and Alberto Rios grew up in Asia, the Caribbean, and Latin America. Many poets, including Czeslaw Milosz, write in different languages, and poets such as Derek Walcott and Seamus Heaney teach in the United States. Poetry, then, values its heterogeneity. Indeed, the American poet laureateship—a one-year term—values that diversity, at the same time that it leaves out certain poets such as Allen Ginsburg and Gwendolyn Brooks from its list of honorees.