The Modernists and Others [antikvár]

{1} Preface The world which Americans came to know in the first half of the 20"" century was a world of profound social, cultural, and intellectual change, a world marked by economic upheavals, artistic and social revolutions, and worid wars. The United States emerged fi-om the Spanish-American war of 1898 stronger than ever. U.S. participation in the two world wars marked crucial stages in the nation's evolution to a worid power. The country's wealth, its technological achievements and military power astonished the world. The United States began the twentieth century with a population of less than 76,000,000, almost two thirds of it living on farms and in rural villages. By 1950 the population had doubled, rising to more than 152 million. At mid-century the vast majority of Americans lived in large urban centers. American losses in Worid War I were not great in "absolute" terms—more men had been killed in the Civil War—and there was no fighting on American soil. But the senses of a great civilization being destroyed or destroying itself, of social breakdown, and individual powerlessness became part of the American experience as a result of participation in World War I, with resulting feelings of fear, disorientation, and, on occasion, liberation. Certainty that an old order had ended (whether one regretted or rejoiced at this fact) and uncertainty as to what might arise (whether one looked ahead with fear or anticipation) marked what more than one social critic called the "modem temper." The changes that were wrought by the First World War (1914-1918) in the way people thought, felt, and lived their lives had a deep impact on the American literary culture. The even more profound changes of the Second World War (1939-1945) were also reflected in literahire, beginning a transformation still in progress today. Forces making for rapid social change and resulting disorientation had been at work in the country for some time. Urbanization, industrialization, and immigration had been altering the appearance and character of the United States since the end of the Civil War and they continued apace after Worid War I. New technology evolved as well. The telephone and electricity, both 19'''-century inventions, now expanded into American homes at large. The phonograph record and the record player, the motion picture (which acquired sound in 1929), and the radio made possible and perhaps inevitable a new kind of connectedness and a new kind of culnjre, neither elite nor regional, which we call mass or popular culture. This culture—verbal, visual, musical—quickly overpowered both "high" and "folk" culture in its influences. Many writers criticized the commercialism and manipulativeness of this culture. But no artist could escape it; nobody could grow up in America between the wars without listening to the radio, hearing records, and going to the movies. Talented writers were recruited by Hollywood; the possibility of selling one's book to the movies promised new levels of wealth; and various cinematic techniques—the flashback, intercutting, and the like—gave writers new ideas about literary form. By far the most powerful technological influence in America was the automobile, which soon became the dominant symbol of mobility and industrialism, and which would radically transform American life. In all the land, as the 20"' century began, there were only 8,000 "horseless carriages" and a mere 150 miles of paved country roads. Thanks to Henry Ford's development of the mass production techniques (assembly-line production) for producing motor vehicles,' after 1920 cars became cheap enough for most Americans to ' Conveyer-belt mass production was employed in Ihe U.S. most dramatically in Henry Ford's assembly line for the Model-T Ford automobile, which put Americans on Ihe wheels and which became the symbol for American