Lecture №7 Modernism in American Literature (1900s). Jack London, Th. Dreiser

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Lecture № 7 

 

Modernism in American Literature (1900s). Jack London, Th. Dreiser 

 

Plan 

1. Realism in American literature in the 19

th

 century 

2. The results of the Civil War 

3. Jack London 

4. Modernism and Experimentation: 1914-1945  

5. The concept of Modernism 

6. Theodor Dreiser 

 

Key words: modernism, experimentation, poetry, epiphany, new criticism,  

modernism, experimentation, poetry, epiphany, new criticism

 

 

The Civil War brought the abolition of slavery. After the war various 

branches of industry began to develop by leaps and bounds. The incessant flow of 

emigrants is typical of that time, the extensive building of railroads and abolition 

of slavery. All these factors combined led to the rapid growth of the USA, 

American capitalism. At the end of the 18

th 

century the USA became a highly 

developed industrial country. Negroes were granted the right to vote but all the 

same they were under certain oppression and deprived of many rights. The slave-

owners continued to persecute Negroes in every possible way. In 1866, the 

organization of Ku-Klux-Klan was established to terrorize Negro population. But 

not only Negroes found themselves in a hard state. The rapid development of 

industry, the progress of technique led to a still more terrible exploitation of all the 

workers. At the end of the 19

th 

century the American capitalism entered upon a 

stage of imperialism. Big monopolies and trusts were formed, which played a great 

role in the economy of the country. In the international arena America behaved as a 

militarist country. New territories were annexed and some smaller peoples were 

subjugated. Such policy led to the discontent of the toiling people class struggle. In 

1866, on the 1

st 

of May in Chicago there was a general strike.  

The literature of that period reflects both the class struggle and the sharp 

ideological struggle within American society. That period and ideas of the 

American democracy found the reflection in the poetry of the greatest American 

poet Walt Whitman. His poetry is imbued with profound optimism and belief in 

better future. At the same time some new trends of literature appeared in the 

country. The purpose of one literary trend was to amuse readers. The writers did 

their best to paint in bright colors the social life. They tried to create an illusion in 

the minds of people that every man in America stood his fair chance. It was so-

called “apologetic” literature. Its motto was “Every shoeblack may become the 

President of the USA”.  

There was another trend in American literature called “red-blood” literature. 

It justified the militarist expansion. They named the whites the superior race. 

Another group of writers called themselves “tender realists”. They did not reflect 

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the sharp political issues and gave a softened picture of reality. Finally, there 

existed in literature the group of “Muckrackers”. They attacked various institutions 

representing publicist literature, not fiction. Most of them were journalists, and 

they exposed the ulcers of capitalism.  

All those trends were opposed by the American critical realists such as Mark 

Twain, Frank Norris, O. Henry, Jack London, and Theodore Dreiser.