Modernism+and+Harlem+Renaissance1

=media type="custom" key="6850431""And the great owners, who must lose their land in an upheaval, the great owners with access to history, with eyes to read history and to know the great fact: when property accumulates in too few hands it is taken away. And that companion fact: when a majority of the people are hungry and cold they will take by force what they need. And the little screaming fact that sounds through all history: repression works only to strengthen and knit the repressed."= =-- John Steinbeck=

Between the 1900-1950, the traditional ways and thinking were starting to fall, and a new wave of culture, literature, politics, religion, art, and sciences started to emerge. Religions started become more and more diverse, and technology began to improve. There were new and more convineint ways of travel, such as the automobile, and airplanes. Communication and entertainment also boomed when the inventions of the radio, the first 3-D movie, the modern television as well as technicolor, but most importantly, the literature of the time period was able to expand. Some former slaves became some of the most influential writers of the time.

John Steinbeck was one of the most influential writers of his time. One of his best known books, __The Grapes of Wrath__ not only won him the Nobel Prize for Literature and the Pulitzer Prize, but it also reflected his views and feelings towards the ordinary people who had to struggle through the Great Depression, a time period he, himself, had lived through and endured. We have recently found his journal which showed us his personal feelings during the the time period of Modernism and the Harlem Renaissance. We were only able to recover a few of his journal entries, for it was very old and tattered. We also have found an old interview that Steinbeck his done for a local newspaper after he became a famous writer.

= Steinbeck's Journal = media type="custom" key="6897533"

=An Interview with Mr. John Steinbeck:= media type="custom" key="6898449"Q: What are your thoughts on the poetry of the Harlem Renaissance?

A: It has started a new movement for African Americans. The poets who write with such wit and sophisticated irony assimilate family, politics, love, betrayal, and racial pride all in their literature. It is inspiring because they have been through so much and come out with such great pieces of the past; it is such an eye-opener for many people such as myself as to what these people have been through.

Click here to learn more about the Harlem Renaissance

media type="custom" key="6898325"Q: Has your view of negros changed?

A: It has; I now see that negros and even negro women are capable of being as literate and articulate as any white person.

Q: Who, in your opinion, is this literature written for specifically? Who is the audience?media type="custom" key="6898155"

A: The literature of the Harlem Renaissance, I'd say, is created for people recently freed from slavery. These poets and authors are careful in writing so that they do not reveal any embarrassing information that could be humiliating to other blacks or even to themselves.

media type="custom" key="6898095"Q: Who are the most influential writers and poets of the Harlem Renaissance, or the New Negro Movement in your opinion?

A: I think Countee Cullen, Claude McKay, Langston Hughes, and Jean Toomer really represent this period because so many blacks have been inspired by these writers. Jean Toomer has illustrated very well the black's experiences in his work "Cane" which is comprised of many poems and short stories.

=An Intolerance for Ignorance:= Reasons why we should educate the young about the past through literature.

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