1920s American Literature

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Originally Posted by JBI

No, I was implying the Lost Generation of authors to be ironically reappropriated. I just think it is a nice slice of irony that this so called movement stems directly from a rejection of Americanism - yet is presented by the original poster as the high point of American literature. It is a nice bit of irony.

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I don't see the irony. Perhaps I would understand where you're coming from if the question were "Is the Lost Generation the highest point in pro-America literature?"

"American literature" does not signify an ideological canon, but an artistic one (which is not to say that the latter is not polluted by the former whenever the question of inclusion comes up). The Lost Generation writers were through-and-through a response to and extension of the American cultural experience. It's not ironic that they would be estimated as one of the shining points in American literature; on the contrary, it is completely fitting. The American canon is not founded on reifications of so-called "Americanism" anywhere near as much as it is on rejection, subversion, and critique - more so, in fact, than most of the European canons.

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Originally Posted by Bluebeard

I don't see the irony. Perhaps I would understand where you're coming from if the question were "Is the Lost Generation the highest point in pro-America literature?"

"American literature" does not signify an ideological canon, but an artistic one (which is not to say that the latter is not polluted by the former whenever the question of inclusion comes up). The Lost Generation writers were through-and-through a response to and extension of the American cultural experience. It's not ironic that they would be estimated as one of the shining points in American literature; on the contrary, it is completely fitting. The American canon is not founded on reifications of so-called "Americanism" anywhere near as much as it is on rejection, subversion, and critique - more so, in fact, than most of the European canons.

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No, American literature signifies a national tradition, not an artistic one. It is ridiculous to say that there is something quintessentially artistic that informs a notion of "American" as a single body of literature, artistically broken from its motherland.

What signifies American literature is that its foundation lies in a direct break from British literature, coming with the American national dream, and expanding over the Imaginative and physical frontier.

It is ironic that if we are to celebrate such a thing (and there is what to celebrate), it would be in celebrating the authors who least wanted in on the vision (with the exception of perhaps Fitzgerald, who wanted the monetary fame). Hemingway is American, but Paris represented his freedom from America, the same way America represents a freedom from England. Pound, Eliot, Gertrude Stein, or even Henry James earlier further represent this rejection of the American ethos, the American puritanical-naive culture.

The foundation of American letters is Romantic, mostly coming in after the Civil War. Whitman, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Melville, even the little-read but quite good Longfellow - these are American. They represent a break from mother England, and a separate Aesthetic.

The Lost Generation is not that. The general connection between all of them is that they were "lost" from America - that is, America, and its tradition "lost" them. They destroyed the Romantic myth, and met in Paris, which acted as the American-Italy (Italy being the place of escape to which British artists and authors generally escaped).

My point was that it is ironic that these people, who, in the case of Pound, Eliot, Stein, even to an extent, Hemingway seemed never to repatriate themselves, nevertheless are held as a symbol of American literary identity. It is not that they were criticizing from within, the way Steinbeck was, or working from within, the way Faulkner was, but were apart, and abroad - were lost - to themselves and America. If you cannot see the irony there, then I guess you cannot, but from someone looking in, it is pretty damn funny seeing this being the "pinnacle" of Americanism - the holding to not rewrite, but to escape Americanism.

I guess Paine represents the "revolutionary" and "humanitarian" traditions of mother England within this diagram. George Washington can be considered an English creative mind too, why don't we just call the US a subgenre of British fiction, which works instead to criticize British culture, yet is still a quintessential part of British identity.

You see what I mean, it is ironic.

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Originally Posted by JBI

No, American literature signifies a national tradition, not an artistic one. It is ridiculous to say that there is something quintessentially artistic that informs a notion of "American" as a single body of literature, artistically broken from its motherland.

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So you're saying that American literature is only "American" insofar as the State is the subject, and the writer identifies themselves and their work with the historical function of that subject?

I never claimed that American literature is a single body of work, nor that it is somehow all informed by an indigenous artistic essence. On the contrary, I am arguing that American literature is a diverse body of cultural productions marked by continual breaks, subversions, and rejections. Hence the Lost Generation.

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What signifies American literature is that its foundation lies in a direct break from British literature, coming with the American national dream, and expanding over the Imaginative and physical frontier.

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This certainly describes the initial tendency of the literature. However, to identify that initial movement as the essential and normative trajectory of all American literature is completely ridiculous. The fact that future generations of writers deviated from and rejected this notion is not ironic - it is a major attribute of the American canon.

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It is ironic that if we are to celebrate such a thing (and there is what to celebrate), it would be in celebrating the authors who least wanted in on the vision (with the exception of perhaps Fitzgerald, who wanted the monetary fame). Hemingway is American, but Paris represented his freedom from America, the same way America represents a freedom from England. Pound, Eliot, Gertrude Stein, or even Henry James earlier further represent this rejection of the American ethos, the American puritanical-naive culture.

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We are not "celebrating such a thing" - i.e. an antiquated literary notion of "American identity." We are celebrating American literature as a body of disparate works characterized by multiple, intersecting lineages of influence, to which the Lost Generation is completely immanent.

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The foundation of American letters is Romantic, mostly coming in after the Civil War. Whitman, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Melville, even the little-read but quite good Longfellow - these are American. They represent a break from mother England, and a separate Aesthetic.

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This is indeed the foundation. It is not the whole, nor is it the once and future "American national identity".


Basically, this situation is only ironic to you, as a person who supports the notion of a national canon as a purely Statist and Nationalist affair.

So in other words, what makes these distinct and different traditions American then? What makes literature American, if it is so different and diverse? Is it the nationality of the author, in which case the original greats were British - Paine even addressing his Common Sense as by an Englishman. Or are we to say they were raised and lived their lives in the States - in which case the Lost Generation is a response to it. Or are they writing about the United States, in which case the lost Generation in many ways was not. Or are they primarily aesthetically in line with the States, in which case the distinction and difference amongst authors already disqualifies such notions. Or perhaps they are fundamentally different from the rest of world literature with a specific vision - well, perhaps, except that that disqualifies your previous argument about how generations have deviated and criticized this notion.

So what exactly are you trying to say? I am not saying anything about national ideas being the definition, I am saying that the original poster is suggesting as much. To suggest that a weird movement in Paris in the 20s somehow is the pinnacle of American literature, his/her words not mine, is to me ironic, given that these authors couldn't help get away from America and Americanism and American culture.

As a person, I stopped believing in national literatures a long time ago, and my personal opinion on the subject is that fiction particularly, and literature in general, when coupled with nation becomes a form of propaganda and cultural tool for asserting an international presence. "English literature" in the canonical sense was original concieved and invented to educate Indians in the British colonies. American literature is presented to me as something of an imposition. Chinese literature is presented on stage at the Beijing olympics, despite China as a single country not existing with specific borders or continuity until 1949, and even now is divided into peripheries (not to mention that Chinese literature includes Thai, Indonesian, Philipino, Malaysian, Singaporean, etc. literatures). The world is rather difficult to pin down by country, it would seem.

So why is this ironic? well, if we want to celebrate the "Lost Generation" who also included in the Hemingway definition Irish, English and even German authors, as the so called pinnacle of American Belles Lettres it is ironic, and it is funny. As ridiculous and funny as some Canadian authors claiming Under the Volcano as Canadian Fiction.

Now, I have supported clearly what I think is the interpretation of American literature, as American, given examples, and you say this is only ironic because... what? I find the definition ironic because...?

So my question to you is, what is American literature. Before you can speak of pinnacles, and even read my points, I want you to state that, so I know exactly what you are saying, so that when you criticize me, I can direct myself to comments that take a stand and make sense. It is a ridiculous issue to talk of ironic interpretations of national traditions when the person who is criticizing your points misunderstands what you are saying, and yet holds no opinion, or at least conveys no other opinion in that "American fiction is diverse". Well Duh, it is, what does that change? What does that mean? How does that define American letters, and by extent, how does that define the Lost Generation in this scheme of American literature.

As you would have it, you want your cake and want to eat it too. You want your American authors in Paris (Joyce was there too, and included in A Moveable Feast) to be part of this tradition, yet at the same time you seem to suggest there is an incoherence in tradition, there is a diverse body. So my question is, how do you answer the topic at hand, how does the Lost Generation define, contradict, inform or illustrate a specific tradition of American letters, and more importantly, do you agree with this assertion that this is the high point of American literature. That is the question, not whether or not you can understand basic irony.

I can spell it out for you. I think it is ironic that someone is claiming the pinnacle of a tradition a movement within it (in my estimate not even the greatest movement) of a bunch of kids who decided to reject their Americanism in a form of rebellion, and hang out in Paris, and basically drift. It is ironic that in breaking away from a tradition, to the mind of the original posters, these authors in effect represent the highest point of it. That is the irony. The intention of the authors is reappropriated into the very scheme they were working against - their act of being "lost" was informed by their act of being "claimed". Now, that is irony, whether you get it or not is another thing.

Please quit the assumptions.

Given that the United States of America is partially characterized by a lack of any cohesive cultural tradition, isn't it fitting that the pinnacle of American literature is a disparate group of writers who rejected the idea of "cultural traditions" altogether, be it Americanism or otherwise?

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Originally Posted by Desolation

Given that the United States of America is partially characterized by a lack of any cohesive cultural tradition, isn't it fitting that the pinnacle of American literature is a disparate group of writers who rejected the idea of "cultural traditions" altogether, be it Americanism or otherwise?

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Assuming given is correct, it would be fitting, however, I have reservations about the given, therefore I cannot jump to the conclusion.

There is a cohesive American tradition of sorts, there is an American uniqueness as a trend, and there is a tradition of American culture, which had been determined by the nature of media and language before the 1920s - the work of Whitman is proof of it in itself.

Switch the word American to Post-Modern and your statement would be dead on, however.

To an extent it is possible to see the Lost Generation as fitting into a tradition of American literature if we think of it from a post-1950s retrospective incorporation of them into an imagined literary lineage for American authors. However, even that is difficult because I feel the most "American" feeling authors of the post-war period have looked back to Stevens and Faulkner, or in the case of Confessionals and the Beats they leap-frogged some of the Modernist and went back to Whitman directly.

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Originally Posted by OrphanPip

To an extent it is possible to see the Lost Generation as fitting into a tradition of American literature if we think of it from a post-1950s retrospective incorporation of them into an imagined literary lineage for American authors. However, even that is difficult because I feel the most "American" feeling authors of the post-war period have looked back to Stevens and Faulkner, or in the case of Confessionals and the Beats they leap-frogged some of the Modernist and went back to Whitman directly.

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Great Comment, but to add,

as others maintained it - it just so happens the Whitmanians are far better accepted than the Classicists - Wilbur for instance is a similar continuation of the European culture the expat modernists were chasing.

Either way, the strange quirks of Stevens were much overlooked - he is far more Chinese than we credit him, if such a thing is possible, and he is certainly quite a bit continental - it just seems he, W C Williams and Whitman have merged together into a sort of Confessional self-celebration within the 1950s and 60s movement.

Either way it makes no difference, the spirit of the 1960s counterculture, which is perhaps the highest point in American culture, even with its destructive properties, is closer to Blake and Shelley than Stevens, Eliot, Pound, Hemingway, or any other figure of the American imagination besides Whitman.

You are dead on though about the mainstream continuation.

Am I correct in phrasing your argument thus, JBI?

You're saying that expatriate American writers from the 1920s were not contributing to the body of American literature because their lifestyles and literature were in fact a rejection of America - and, as such, it would be ironic ("funny," even - if you're stoned I guess) to consider such writers to be at the pinnacle of our literary tradition. If that's not exactly your point, please say so.

My problem with this line of thinking is that it only works given one of these assumptions:

1) Because these writers rejected many pervading aspects of American culture at the time, they were not American.
2) Literature is only "American" insofar as it affirms the status quo of American culture at a given time, or supports the operations of the State.
3) Because these writers left America geographically, they ceased being American and automatically metamorphosed into French people (similar to how when you jump into a pool of water, you instantly dissolve into liquid).

Here is how I address each of these points:

1) Being an American is not a matter of whether you affirm or reject the culture in which you were brought up. It is a matter of having been brought up there, being thoroughly immersed in that culture, and, as an artist, responding to the tradition that constitutes it in your work.

2) Part of the function of a nation's literature is to act as an immanent critique - to affirm that which the artist finds valuable, to reject that which he finds depraved. Insofar as the writer's work is a response to that nation's culture - either positive or negative - if it is nonetheless informed and shaped by that culture, it is a part of it. Artistic works are not merely expressions of a cultural idea or pattern. They are productions, produced in the creative imagination (which both shapes and is shaped by culture). Furthermore, it is fitting that American readers would value works that break with their own cultural makeup above more nationalist productions, because this is a massive part of how American culture has evolved throughout history.

3) In Canada, when you're out walking and it starts to snow, do you suddenly turn into an igloo? Yeah. **** sucks.

It's not a matter of the literature being nationalistic, but of it having a particularly American ethos. It's not unreasonable to argue that the Lost Generation present such an ethos in their work, but they are perhaps closer to International Modernism in general, they are interacting with their American predecessors, but also responding directly to continental, Asian and older British traditions. Thus, their relation to a particularly American literary tradition is stretched, but it's fair to say it may or may still be there in some important way.

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Originally Posted by OrphanPip

It's not a matter of the literature being nationalistic, but of it having a particularly American ethos. It's not unreasonable to argue that the Lost Generation present such an ethos in their work, but they are perhaps closer to International Modernism in general, they are interacting with their American predecessors, but also responding directly to continental, Asian and older British traditions. Thus, their relation to a particularly American literary tradition is stretched, but it's fair to say it may or may still be there in some important way.

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It's interesting that you bring up the idea of an International Modernism, which I think turns this debate on its head in a couple of ways.

Expatriate writers partly articulated their break with American society in becoming more global: both geographically, and in terms of influence. This coordinates, I believe, with the decay of the American myth - the idea that there is a separate and quintessential American identity to be upheld and cultivated by American cultural productions.

And this is where I fail to see the irony that entertains JBI so greatly. At present, such national myths have thoroughly collapsed and become meaningless. No longer do we identify the "American" with a specific ethos, identity or politics. It has become nothing but a disparate field of influence that is barely limited by the conceptual boundary of a "nation." As such, it makes perfect sense to me that Americans in contemporary times would identify Lost Generation writers as some of the greats of American literature, if only because they were American, and their works were great.

You still are missing my point. I was not questioning that some of the society of authors in Paris in the 20s were American authors, I was pointing to the irony of creating a national ethos around a group of individuals who could not help trying to break away from that very same ethos.

Whether it makes people feel good to think anybody born in the States is American is not my concern. Here in Canada we have the problem of looking at anybody who settles here as Canadian, and any author as such as a Canadian author. Each country seems to define itself slightly differently. But that is not the point, the point is, it is incredibly ironic.

Now look more closely at your comments - each one has failed to address the simple point I was making, which undercuts all your commenting. How you define an "American" is not really my concern, and will not be ever. If someone told me Hemingway was American, I wouldn't doubt it. If somebody told me Hemingway of the 20s couldn't wait to be rid of his Americanism, I would agree as well.

The irony is not that you can or cannot stretch the definition of American literature, it is that something so against the very idea can form what some view the pinnacle, the highest contribution of that idea - it's like how here on Canada Reads somebody nominated Hubert Aquin's Prochain Episode as a great Canadian novel, when it is so against the notion of Canada throughout its pages, that the whole idea becomes absurd.

You may fail to catch the irony, but it is there, I do not care how wide your conceptual boundary is, and keep your anti-Canadian rubbish to yourself, it has no grounds in this argument. The only reason I bring up Canada, is that I am trying to draw comparisons, and, as it would be, I happen to be Canadian.

You wouldn't like it if I started playing with American stereotypes, now would you, though, I can promise you, I would be far more creative than silly igloo comments which only betray the ignorance of said poster at playing with the most cliche of stupidities.

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Originally Posted by JBI

You still are missing my point. I was not questioning that some of the society of authors in Paris in the 20s were American authors, I was pointing to the irony of creating a national ethos around a group of individuals who could not help trying to break away from that very same ethos.

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Okay, I was just trying to clarify your views. I am not blind to the irony that you find here, I've just found it very weak and, ultimately, just a way for you to, yet again, voice your equally weak anti-American sentiments on this forum. Which, while I respect you as (the only?) worthwhile reading on this board, strikes me as ignorant and offensive.

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Whether it makes people feel good to think anybody born in the States is American is not my concern. Here in Canada we have the problem of looking at anybody who settles here as Canadian, and any author as such as a Canadian author. Each country seems to define itself slightly differently. But that is not the point, the point is, it is incredibly ironic.

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See, this is the problem. You find it ironic that an American would identify the Lost Generation as some of the best writers of their national literature. Now, how could this be ironic? Only if you assumed that the American consciousness was still stuck in some anachronistic concept of national identity. Which of course you do, because all Americans are stupid and fat, and all of their literary critics haven't escaped the 19th century.

Must be hilarious to look at all those stupid monkeys, eh? Hatred is fun!

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Now look more closely at your comments - each one has failed to address the simple point I was making, which undercuts all your commenting. How you define an "American" is not really my concern, and will not be ever. If someone told me Hemingway was American, I wouldn't doubt it. If somebody told me Hemingway of the 20s couldn't wait to be rid of his Americanism, I would agree as well.

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I wouldn't be so arrogant as to assume that anything I think or write would ever be of your concern. But if you agree that the Lost Generation writers are American, I don't see how it wouldn't be legitimate to list them as some of the nation's best - even though the whole concept of "nation" is no longer meaningful, especially as applied to them.

Ironic? Yes, but only from a certain perspective. And my argument is that that perspective is outdated, and has nothing to do with this thread. And, since you haven't contended with this point, I guess I've undercut you, too!

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The irony is not that you can or cannot stretch the definition of American literature, it is that something so against the very idea can form what some view the pinnacle, the highest contribution of that idea - it's like how here on Canada Reads somebody nominated Hubert Aquin's Prochain Episode as a great Canadian novel, when it is so against the notion of Canada throughout its pages, that the whole idea becomes absurd.

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Yes, I see the irony that you're talking about. My only problem is that such rejections of American culture have been so influential to American culture that to call it irony is to ignore one of the basic attributes of the American literary experience: subversion.

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You may fail to catch the irony, but it is there, I do not care how wide your conceptual boundary is, and keep your anti-Canadian rubbish to yourself, it has no grounds in this argument. The only reason I bring up Canada, is that I am trying to draw comparisons, and, as it would be, I happen to be Canadian.

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Nothing in my post was intended to come off as anti-Canadian. I have the utmost respect for Canada and its culture, and I'm not just saying that. The igloo comment was a joke, and I'm pretty sure the idea that it snows in Canada is not a stereotype.

What I am against, however, is nationalism. It is a form of hatred, very close to racism in my mind. And you seem to be a major proponent of it. If I've measured you wrong, I would be very, very glad to hear it from you.

You can go ahead and make fun of American stereotypes as much as you want; it will only go to make you look like an absolute idiot.

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Originally Posted by JBI

For music, yes, for poetry - well, do we forget Langston Hughes moved to Paris for a while? And the rest of the poets? Well, he certainly seems the most powerful of the bunch anyway - most of the Harlem renaissance didn't amount itself particularly strongly in poetry, even though the artistic repercussions of the time period later influenced other poets.

The reason the "poetry" of the time is so praised, yet so poorly read, with the exception of Hughes - at least in Canada anyway - is a general feeling I have that the poetry didn't really develop as far as the music did at the time, and it didn't really take off. I would wager the poetry of later Harlem-influenced poets, be they African-American, or not, to be more profound.

As for Harlem though, there is a tendency to believe every poet that happened to be there was good, which is simply not true, it just provides a nice niche for historically-driven high school and university textbooks.

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By "poorly read" I assume you meant "not widely read." James Weldon Johnson did pretty well, I think. Go Down, Death should be required reading by everybody in school.

T.S. Eliot was covered in both of my overview classes of American and British literature. How awesome is it to be claimed by TWO countries!

As for "artistic repercussions of the time period [that] later influenced other poets," well, what more do you need as evidence that a literary movement was great?

I understand where JBI is coming from. The Lost Generation were trying to escape American culture and yet they have been reappropriated by the canon of American Literature by becoming staples of high school education, but this is more of a question about unconventional writers being made conventional, rather than whether they identified as American or not.

Isn't part of the Lost Generation the fact that the writers went to war and became disillusioned with society, whether it was American or otherwise? Though they may have moved to Paris, they are not European. They will always experience Europe through the eye of an American.

Besides, the OP didn't mention the canon of American Literature but rather American literature, the only definition of which is that the writer is American.